Department of Construction Management and Engineering

CE3HRM - Human Resource Management

Managing organizational change

Dr Florence Phua
Email: f.phua@reading.ac.uk
 Aims of the session
 Understand what is organizational change

 Identify and explain the pressures for organizational

change

 Discuss the three-phase model of planned organizational

change.

 Discuss important tactical choices involving the speed and

style of a change effort.

 Discuss leadership theories in the context of change

management
 Consider
• How can managers deal with change
– Change is inevitable
– Potentially disruptive
– Could bring positive outcomes
– Could bring negative outcomes
Is change a always a good thing?
• Depends on whether you are
– The initiator (change is needed for firm to
grow, develop)
– The receiver (threat to status quo)

• Managing both aspects well is what all managers

should do
 Consider this…
• Why, when and how organizations change?
 Early assumptions
• Classical management theory
– Focused on how to routinize, standardise and
stabilise activities that lead to effective
organizational performance

– Stability-oriented framework

– Changes should lead to more routine, more

structure, more rationality
 Current assumptions
• Organization processes are dynamic, not static

• Predictions of continuous and sometimes rapid changes in products,

markets, society etc

• Organizational change should be embraced due to economic, social,

cultural, political, technological changes

• Organizations should be:

– flexible,
– adaptable,
– Fewer levels of formal hierarchy
– loose boundaries among functions/units,
– responsive to environment
– concern for stakeholders, ie employee, communities, customers,
suppliers

• Static organizational model (closed-system) no longer adequate

School of Construction Management & Engineering

Pressures for organizational change
• Performance/competition driven objectives
• Life-cycle forces as the organization grows
• Growing international interdependence
• Changes in demographics and societal/cultural
values (social dynamics)
• Changes in political dynamics
• Changes in governmental regulations
• Changes in technology
 For instance
• Forces driving change (can be internal or external):
– Business expansion
– Raise capital
– Motivate workers
– Increase profit

• Forces restraining change (can be actual or potential)

– Attitudes of employees
– Fear of uncertainty
– Lack of understanding of scope of change
– Mistrust/misunderstanding about the implications

• Key thing is to understand and assess the relative strength of each of

the forces. Put strongest effort in those.
Lewin’s model of organizational change
• A three-phase process involving deliberate efforts
to move an organization or a unit from its current
undesirable state to a new, more desirable state
– Unfreezing
– Changing
– Refreezing

• Whenever forces favoring change are greater than

forces resisting it, the organizational will ‘move’
from one state to another
Analysing change – Lewin’s model

Restraining forces

Equilibrium

Driving forces
 Planned organizational change (1)
Reminding individuals that they have
successfully changed in the past

Communicating to individuals that managers

and associates in other organizations in similar
circumstances have successfully changed Unfreezing

Letting individuals know that support and

training will be available for the specific
changes to be made Provide Create minor
rationale for levels of
Most likely to encounter strong resistance change guilt/anxiety
‘Thawing about not
Tactics employed: out’ of old changing
Communication/education ways
Participation/involvement
Facilitation/support Create sense of
Negotiation/discussion psychological safety
Manipulation concerning change
Explicit/implicit coercion
Planned organizational change (2)
Once people have been prepared
for change, they must give up old
methods and try out the new
Change
Involve actual implementation

Provide Bring about Change process can be fast or

information actual shifts slow
that suspects in behaviour
proposed Can be determined by 4 factors:
changes Amount of resistance
Power difference between
initiator and receiver
Getting commitment from
people
The level of risks involved
 Planned organizational change (3)
Having implemented the change,
the new way of doing things
‘hardens’ into the accepted
position – the new status quo

Refreezing
Ensure people do not get back to
the old ways

Remember, even in the best of Implement Create minor

times, change does not suit new levels of
everyone evaluation guilt/anxiety
systems about not
Need to monitor new situation, changing
ensure it is maintained
Implement new
Important to recognise when hiring and
change is not working promotion
systems
 Factors to consider
• Speed of change
– Criteria for deciding speed of change
• Urgency
• Degree of support
• Amount and complexity of change
• Competitive environment
• Knowledge and skills available
• Financial and other resources

• Style of change
– Participatory
– Non-participatory
 Monitoring and maintaining change
• What can be done?
– Regular checks – keeping ears up and eyes open
– Making sure that people know that the change will be monitored
– Take appropriate action if deviations occur
– Structure rewards/initiatives to allow for overcoming learning
curve
– Be prepared to provide training

• There’s always a chance that changes don’t work according to plan

• If it happens, managers need to be responsive to this. Sometimes,

reverting back to old method

• Reluctance of managers to admit things don’t work can put the

organization at risk
 Suggested reading
• By R.T. (2005), Organisational change management: A critical
review, Journal of Change Management, 5(4), 369-380

• Kavanagh, M.H. and Ashkanasy, N.M. (2006), The impact of

leadership and change management strategy on
organizational culture and individual acceptance of change
during a merger, British Journal of Management, 17, S81–
S103

• Hornstein, H.A. (2015), The integration of project

management and organizational change management is now
a necessity, International Journal of Project Management,
33(2), 291-298