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CASE ANALYSIS

Institution Name

Student’s Name

Date
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The anticipated Environmental Pressures to the organization that required change.

In the business environment, managers should recognize, anticipate, and learn how to

deal with change because change is a certainty. It should be modeled for the business to take

advantage of change. In the strategic planning process, external environmental pressures

include the economy, media, technology, legal, and political factors (Palmer et al., 2017). The

internal environmental factors include organizational culture, human resources, profits, cash

flow, management, and physical assets. In our case analysis, the organization's environmental

pressures that required change are the management, human resource, legal factors, and the

organizational structure. Sunderland City council was unwilling to force staff to retire early

after their central government's funding fell by 10%. Therefore, they came up with mitigation

measures, but their management was of a different opinion.

How the 7-step OD Practitioner action Research can be used to address the managers'

concerns.

           This is an action research model that facilitates change by helping involve all the

stakeholders, the clients, managers, and staff to solve a problem and actively learn from it.

The seven steps in organizational development are entry, contacting, collecting data, giving

feedback, strategic planning, designing interventions, and evaluating interventions (Almanei

et al., 2018). The OD practitioner will determine the ongoing works that the council is

undertaking and measure the degree of completeness concerning the expected results. An

organizational development practitioner is an individual equipped with the skills and

capabilities to observe the effect of change and diagnose the progress. 

           The keys steps that the managers should have played a more significant role are; the

entry step, strategic planning step, and the last step of evaluating the intervention. At the

entry-level, the managers would be involved in coming up with the measures that will be

taken, and for each step, they come up with a way to measure the degree of success. If the
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managers play a more significant role in this step, they keep the project on track and result in

greater engagement in the change process. Moreover, in the strategic planning step where the

council created an internal job market, the managers should have played a significant role in

this since they spearhead the business's recruitment decisions. From the point that they

launched a transformation program at the beginning of 2010, if they can involve the

managers then, the transition to the internal job market and the establishment of SWITCH

"Staff Working in Transition and Change" would have been smooth, and communication

passed effectively. The staff and managers' collaboration in this step would have helped

increase trust and understanding, which is pivotal to help an organization achieve its goals

(Palmer et al., 2017). 

           The final essential step that the managers should have played a more significant role is

in evaluating interventions. In an organization that uses the authoritative style of leadership,

most employees will feel disconnected from change. Therefore, the seniors should work with

the employees to handle change and develop interventions to help them keep their job

security. Introducing this in action research, the organization will find renewed energies and

engagements regarding its issue. When the managers are involved in evaluating interventions

by the organization development practitioners, it will help improve performance on all levels,

develop leadership, and aid in re-phrasing the organizational structure. 

           For any form of change to be positively accepted by the organization and its

stakeholders, both the managers and staff should agree. In our case, the team was familiar

with the change, but the managers became resistant because their recruitment decisions were

constrained. Adopting an action research model, for example, the seven organizational

development plans by Warner Burke, is an excellent idea for the case of The Sunderland

Council.

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References.

AlManei, M., Salonitis, K., & Tsinopoulos, C. (2018). A conceptual lean implementation

framework based on change management theory. Procedia CIRP, 72, 1160-1165.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. A. (2017). Managing organizational change: A

multiple perspectives approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Education