BUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENTAN OPTION OR COMPULSION

Research Proposal

[Name]

Afkar Ahmed

[Date]

09th-April-2010

[Name of supervisor]

Alan Foran

BA (H) Business Management Year 3

Proposal Outline BUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENT- AN OPTION OR COMPULSION..............................3 Introduction......................................................................................................................................3 Short Literature Review...................................................................................................................4 Research Strategy and Methodology...............................................................................................5 Logistical and Ethical considerations..............................................................................................6 Ethical Considerations.....................................................................................................................6 Logistical Considerations.................................................................................................................6 Expected outcomes..........................................................................................................................7 Planned Timetable...........................................................................................................................7 Indicative Bibliography...................................................................................................................8

BUSINESS CHANGE MANAGEMENT- AN OPTION OR COMPULSION Introduction

Organizational change management is the structured approach in the transitioning of teams, organizations and individuals from the prevailing state to the desired future state (Duck, 2003). Change management is the process of implementing a pre-defined model/framework (sometimes with modifications) in an organization (Wardale, 2008). Changes in marketplace, in technology, workforce demographics, social values, and political environments have been encapsulated to have significant effects on the organizations products, processes and services rendered (Chandler, 2004). It has often been imagined that the conclusion of these forces have led to an external environment that is devastating and often unpredictable to those firms which are unable or unprepared to respond. This leads us to our research question Is change management an option or a compulsion in organizations? To arrive at the conclusion to this question, this dissertation seeks to critically evaluate whether organizations have a choice when it comes to change management. The dissertation aims to carry out a primary research entailing Management Change Questionnaires (MCQ) on some of the major corporations which have been known to implement change management models or specific aspects of it, and those which have not including Tesco, Spar, Londis and Starbucks. Thus following objectives will be pursued in the conduct of the dissertation:

i. Determine the extent to which change management is practiced in Tesco, Spar and Londis and Starbucks for the purposes of understanding the impact of change in organizations ii. Determine the value of change management to business organizations iii. Determine the costs associated with change management in organizations, and iv. Compare organizations which have adopted change management practices and evaluate the difference in performance of their business and the level to which these differences if any would be attributed to the difference in change management practices. Some of the organizations which have practiced change include Londis who recently have closed some of their stores in Ireland.

Short Literature Review

According to Burke & Church (2002) many corporate giants such as Xerox, Texaco and IBM are victims of change managements pressures. Those companies which failed to survive change have been downgraded to the role of catch up compared to their competitors which embraced change, while others have been absorbed by large entities through acquisitions and mergers or dissolved into collections of companies liabilities and assets (Kanter, 2003). According to Hammer and Champy (2003), Managing Change Questionnaire (MCQ) has been administered to over 1, 840 participants in areas such as leadership, executive and management from 12 organizations in five industries worldwide (Burke, 2008). The MCQ is a short 25 item questionnaire (True or False) and has been used widely in line with executive and management development programmes, large scale firms change efforts and consulting skill workshops (Burke, 2008).

Research Strategy and Methodology

This research will carry a primary data collection from organizations by way of Managing Change Questionnaire (MCQ) which will be administered to employees and across various companies in various industries and functions. Based on the information gathered from these questionnaires, the findings will be assembled to explore the differences and similarities with respect as to how the organizations which implemented change management processes and those which did not. A particular attention will be focused on the organizations which have been known to have utilized change management models and succeeded or failed and those which didnt apply the change management models and either succeeded or failed even in specific aspects of change. The answers drawn from the MCQ questionnaire will be utilized to score the organizational responses which will be converted into percentages. These responses will be measured against the organizational performance to establish how positive or negative, the process of change management had on these organizations and compare these findings with the organizations which did not embrace change or specific aspects of it to establish the necessity of change management. The primary research will be carried out on Tesco, Spar, Londis and Starbucks. Secondary research which will entail a review of academic literature not older than 10 years will be investigated.

Logistical and Ethical considerations

Ethical Considerations The primary research undertaken will comply with principles of research taking into considerations the privacy and dignity of individuals and companies who in the course of administering the MCQ questionnaire will provide commercially valuable information (Hammer & Champy, 2003). Therefore, the company and individuals will be notified of the methods, aims, potential dangers and predictable benefits of the research; their right not to participate in the research and their right to terminate their participation at any time; the confidential nature of the replies to the questionnaires; the individual/company will only become a subject of research after freely giving their consent to participate the identity of the individuals/company shall be kept strictly confidential (William, 2008). Logistical Considerations There would certainly be frequent logistical hurdles that would need to be overcome. Some of the logistical problems likely to be encountered include need to travel to meet respondents, some of whom may be in far away locations, sending of questionnaires to selected respondents, collection of completed questionnaires, among others. Needs for travel may be reduced by targeting respondents from within the locality and questionnaires may be sent to selected respondents via email and followed up by phone calls.

Expected outcomes
The main expected result from this dissertation would be that change is necessary for an organization if it is to survive and therefore it is not an option but a compulsion. Tesco and Londis and Starbucks overcame the onslaught of global competition through the adoption of change management processes.

Planned Timetable
The dissertation is scheduled to be completed by the end of April 2010. In order to meet this deadline, it would be important schedule every activity that forms part of writing the dissertation to make sure that they are completed within the scheduled time. The table below indicates the activities and their respective time slots.

Planned Schedule of Activities Activity Identifying topic, Writing the Proposal Approval of Research proposal Starting the dissertation, Collection and review of relevant literature Data collection Analysis and discussion Compilation of final dissertation Printing, binding and submission of final copy Dec09 Jan10 Feb10 Mar1 0 Apr10 May10

Indicative Bibliography
Brehm, J.W. (1966). A Theory of Change Management. Academic Press: New York, NY., Bridges, W. (2006), "Managing organizational transitions", Organizational Dynamics, 15 (1) pp.24-33. Burke, W.W. & Spencer, J.L. (2000). Managing Change: Interpretation and Industry Comparisons. W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., Pelham Burke, W.W. (2008), Managing Change Questionnaire, W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., Pelham, . Burke, W.W., & Church, A.H. (2002). Managing change, leadership style, and intolerance to ambiguity: a survey of organization development practitioners. Human Resource Management, 31 (4): 301-18. Chandler, A.D. (2004). The history of business change", in Berger, L.A., Sikora, M.J. with Berger, D.R. (Eds),The Change Management Handbook: A Road Map to Corporate Transformation, Irwin, Burr Ridge, IL, pp.24-32. Church, Allan et al (1996). Managing organizational change: what you dont know might hurt you. Career Development International, 1 (4): 25-30. Retrieved February 13, 2010 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp? contentType=Article&Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/137 0010204.pdf Duck, J.D. (2003). Managing change: the art of balancing. Harvard Business Review, 71 (6): 109-18.

Fornaciari, C.J., Lamont, B.T., Mason, B. & Hoffman, J.J. (2003), "Incremental and revolutionary strategic change: an empirical test of common premises", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 1 No.3, pp.273-90. Goodstein, L.D. & Burke, W.W. (2005). Creating successful organization change. Organization Dynamics, 19 (4): 5-17. Hammer, M. & Champy, J. (2003). Reengineering the Corporations. Harper Business, New York, NY Kanter, R.M. (2003). The Change Masters: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the American Corporation, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY. Wardale, D. (2008). Organization change management. Retrieved February 14, 2010 from http://mmhr.org.au/uploaddocs/Rural%20Health%20Change%20_OHT_.pdf William, H. (2008). Ethical considerations in Research. Journal of Management, 13 (4): p. 132141