Abstract

Humans have a life cycle, products have a life cycle, organizations have a life cycle and the basic
circle of being continues to each and every entity. Change is very important to the existence of
any kind of life cycle. Whenever change occurs, it takes some path. Any certain path can be
totally different from any other path taken by any certain change, making change a very
complex and vague thing.

Change, while having such an importance to the life cycles, needs to be managed. Managing
the change includes managing the path / route it takes to occur. Many scholars worked on the
paths that change takes to occur.

Simple changes from changing your study routines to large organizational changes take some
route to occur and these routes need to be managed. These managed routes, paths or
approaches defined by the scholars are the “change models”.

The report briefly describes the work of different scholars on the change models resulting into a
brief explanation of a few popular change models that are nowadays used to manage the
change, mostly in the organizational sector. The report also gives an overview of the citation
analysis of the research conducted on the change management models.

The State of art

There are numerous models and theories about change management, and it is a topic subject
to more than its fair share of management fads and fashions. At a personal and organizational
level the change management models are motivated by the way we approach change. There is
no right or wrong. The way you go about implementing change will differ depending on the
model you use, but there are basic steps that are essential to follow that are common to
personal or organizational change. [ CITATION Mar04 \l 1033 ]

Kurt Lewin introduced his “Model of Change” in 1940, the model is explained as follows;

1. Kurt Lewin’s Model of Change:

[ CITATION Ber96 \l 1033 ]

Lewin's Three Step Change Model Phases are: 

Unfreeze: Reducing the forces that are striving to maintain the status quo, and dismantling the
current mind set. Usually by presenting a provocative problem or event to get people to
recognize the need for change and to search for new solutions. 

Transition: Developing new behaviors, values, and attitudes, sometimes through organizational

structure and process changes and development techniques. There may be a period of some
confusion as we move from the old ways of doing things to the new. 

Freeze: The final stage of crystallizing and the adaptation of ownership of the new 'as is'. The
organization may revert to former ways of doing things at this point unless the changes are
reinforced through freezing. [ CITATION Ber96 \l 1033 ]

Kurt Lewin introduced another model for change in the name of the “Force field model”.

2. Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Model:

[ CITATION Rob91 \l 1033 ]

Kurt Lewin developed a 'force field analysis' model (1951) which describes any current level of
performance or being as a state of equilibrium between the driving forces that encourage
upward movement and the restraining forces that discourage it. Essentially this means that a
current equilibrium exists because the forces acting for change are balanced by the forces
acting against change.

Increasing the driving forces is not enough for change, as the restraining forces remain in place,
and as long as they remain in place it becomes harder to use the driving forces. An analogy is
when you push against a spring; the more you push, the harder it becomes and as soon as you
stop pushing the spring reverts to its previous position (after having sprung past that point).
Therefore unless both the driving and restraining forces are balanced a kind of yo-yo effect
results; a change and then a reversion back, and then a change, and then a reversion back, and
then a change, et cetera, et cetera. It’s important to note that the restraining forces may not
be conscious – i.e. they should not be regarded as being deliberate attempts to subvert change
(although they may be). [ CITATION Rob91 \l 1033 ]

John Kotter introduced a model of change management in 1995;

3. Kotter’s Model of Change Management

The steps are explained below;

Step 1: Create Urgency

For change to happen, it helps if the whole company really wants it. Develop a sense of urgency
around the need for change. This may help you spark the initial motivation to get things
moving.
Step 2: Form a Powerful Coalition
Convince people that change is necessary. This often takes strong leadership and visible support
from key people within your organization. Managing change isn't enough – you have to lead it.
Step 3: Create a Vision for Change
When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and
solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily
and remember.

Step 4: Communicate the Vision

What you do with your vision after you create it will determine your success. Your message will
probably have strong competition from other day-to-day communications within the company,
so you need to communicate it frequently and powerfully, and embed it within everything that
you do.

Step 5: Remove Obstacles

If you follow these steps and reach this point in the change process, you've been talking about
your vision and building buy-in from all levels of the organization. Hopefully, your staff wants to
get busy and achieve the benefits that you've been promoting.

Step 6: Create Short-term Wins

Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change
process. Within a short time frame (this could be a month or a year, depending on the type of
change), you'll want to have results that your staff can see. Without this, critics and negative
thinkers might hurt your progress.

Step 7: Build on the Change

Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change
runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term
change.

Step 8: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Finally, to make any change stick, it should become part of the core of your organization. Your
corporate culture often determines what gets done, so the values behind your vision must
show in day-to-day work.[ CITATION Sjo01 \l 1033 ]

Gersick proposed the concept of the punctuated equilibrium in 1988

4. Punctuated equilibrium Model:

The punctuated equilibrium model illustrates that the change do not come in a continuation.
The change comes in small little pieces thus changing the current equilibrium and takes it to a
new equilibrium point. These little radical changes are responsible for making a lot of
punctuated equilibrium points. After each small change a time of stability follows. And after a
certain time of stability another change comes and changes the equilibrium. [ CITATION JDa02 \l
1033 ] So from going to a point A to B, the punctuated equilibrium models states that from A to
B there are many small little rest stops.[ CITATION Gersick91 \l 1033 ]

Citation Analysis:

The citation report collectively has been acquired from the web of Knowledge. The citation
analysis is as follows;

Change Management Models, Top Research Papers (Based on the number of citations)

Journals Name Authors Total

Citation
s
Computer self-efficacy development of a COMPEAU, DR; HIGGINS, CA 716
measure and initial
Capturing the complexity in advance DESANCTIS, G; POOLE, MS 705
technology use- Adaptive Structuration
Theory
Self efficacy- A Theoratical Analysis of its GIST, ME; MITCHELL, TR 642
determinants and
Quantitative models for reverse logistics: A Fleischmann, M; 448
review BloemhofRuwaard, JM;
Dekker, R; vanderLaan, E;
vanNunen, JAEE;
 VanWassenhove, LN
Vendor selection criteria and methods WEBER, CA; CURRENT, JR; 431
BENTON, WC
Exploitation, exploration, and process Benner, MJ; Tushman, ML 429
management: The productivity dilemma
revisited
Knowledge, bargaining power, and the Inkpen, AC; Beamish, PW 395
instability of international joint ventures
Why do people use information Legris, P; Ingham, J; 393
technology? A critical review of the Collerette, P
technology acceptance model
Absorptive capacity, learning, and Lane, PJ; Salk, JE; Lyles, MA 336
performance in international joint
ventures
Theorizing change: The role of professional Greenwood, R; Suddaby, R; 330
associations in the transformation of Hinings, CR
institutionalized fields
[ CITATION Web12 \l 1033 ]

Oldest Paper:

Information Technology in the 1990s: A Long Range Planning Scenario

Author(s): Benjamin, RI (Benjamin, Robert I.)

Published: JUN 1982

Times Cited: 50 (from Web of Science)

Newest Paper:

Evolving the latent variable model as an environmental DEA technology

Author(s): Bretholt, A (Bretholt, Abraham)1; Pan, JN (Pan, Jeh-Nan)2

Published: APR 2013

Times Cited: 0 (from Web of Science)

Most cited Author:

Volberda,HW with total citations of 376

Impact Factor of journals:

Journal Current Impact factor (2011)

 Academy Of Management 6.169
Review

MIS Quarterly 4.447

Organizational Science 4.338

Strategic Management 3.783

Journal

Information & Management 2.214

European Journal of 1.815

Operational Research

[ CITATION Web12 \l 1033 ]

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Management Decision .

C.J.G., G. (1991). A milti-level exploration of the puntuated equilibrium paradigm. Academy of

Management Review , 10-36.

Knowledge, W. o. (n.d.). Web of Knowledge. Retrieved december 2012, from

www.webofknowledge.com

Marie H Kavanagh, N. M. (2004). MANAGEMENT APPROACHES TO MERGER EVOKED CULTURAL

CHANGE AND ACCULTURATION OUTCOMES. Advances in Mergers & Acquisitions.

Robert P. Gephart, J. (1991). Succession Sensemaking and Organizational Change: A Story of a

Deviant College President. Journal of Organizational Change Management .

Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, A. S. (2001). Shapes of organizational change: the case of Heineken Inc.
Journal of Organizational Change Management .

Wischnevsky, J. (2002). PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL

TRANSFORMATION: SOURCES AND CONSEQUENCES IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY. Research in
organizational change and development .