Importance of successful change management in organizations

This report reviews the article, ‘Organizational Change Management: A Critical Review’ written and published in Rune Todnem in the Journal of Change Management in 2005. The article summarizes the article content first, then analyzes the nature, scope and results of the study, which is in turn followed by a critical analysis of the piece and finally, a concludes by pointing to the significance of the work done by the author.

Todnem By, R. (2005). Organisational change management: A critical review. Journal of change management, 5(4), 369-380.

 The main claim of the above article is that successful change management is highly crucial for organizations to engage in, if they are to properly survive as well as succeed in any continuously evolving highly competitive business environment.

This piece of research is extremely appropriate and necessary, as organizational change is becoming increasingly important with every passing day, and the management of such organizational change is slowly emerging as a much required managerial skill. Given the rapid pace of globalization, the significant rise in technological innovations, an ever expanding knowledge workforce as well as shifting demographic and social trends, any research on organizational change and its leadership is much required and  of course, welcomed.

 The author, Rune Todnem, is a professor of organizational behavior at Staffordshire University Business School and the editor of the Journal of Change Management published by Routledge. He is therefore qualified to write this piece, and was working as a lecturer at the Queen Margaret University College at the time of composing this article.

The thesis statement presented by the author is that change is necessary and important for any organization if it is to successfully locate exactly where it ought to be placed in the future as well as how it ought to adequately manage all the changes which must be brought about if the organization is to arrive at this position. I personally agree with this thesis statement, because, as argued by Brunes (2004), change constitutes a constant aspect of organizational life at both a strategic and operational level. Organizational change is not something that can be divorced easily from organizational strategy (Brunes, 2004). Also, as argued by Moran and Brighton (2001), the management of change is the only way by which an organization is able to renew its capabilities, structure and direction for serving the constantly changing requirements of all the internal customers as well as external customers (Moran and Brighton, 2001).

High failure rate of change initiatives

Purpose of the Research

While the generic literature that lays emphasis on the significance of change management as well as the way in which this ought to be approached continues to grow and develop, little empirical evidence exists in support of various approaches and theories suggested. This research was therefore undertaken by the author to provide readers with a critical analysis of all the approaches and theories that are currently available on the significance and need of change management and to also encourage future investigations into the exact nature and dynamics of any type of organizational change, in order to establish the urgency of conceiving a pragmatic and brand new framework for its adequate handling or management.

Background of the Study

Since the necessity for change is something that is often hard to predict, change tends to be rather ad hoc, reactive and also discontinuous in nature and is more often than not, triggered by situations of organizational crisis. Although it is accepted that successful change management is something that is much needed if organizations are to survive as well as succeed in an ever evolving and competitive business ambience, Balogun and Hailey (2004), have reported a huge rate of failure amounting to as much as seventy percent of all the change initiatives that have been undertaken (Balogun & Hailey, 2004). This poor rate of success is indicative of the absence of any suitable fundamental framework for the proper implementation as well proper management of organizational change. What is instead present for practitioners and academics to refer to is a gamut of confusing and contradictory theories approaches and theories (Burnes, 2004). It is argued by Guimaraes and Armstrong (1998), it is only very superficial and also personal analyses that have been widely published until now as far as change management is concerned (Guimaraes & Armstrong, 1998). Doyle (2002) points to the evidence that barring a few exceptions, change management theory and practice are supported mostly by unchallenged claims and assumptions regarding the true nature of present day organizational change management (Doyle, 2002). Identifying a consensus regarding organizational change management framework is difficult, but an agreement can be seen to exist when it comes to two main issues. To start with, it is agreed that rate or pace of organizational change management is something that has never been as huge or significant as what it is currently (Burns, 2004; Balogun & Hope Hailey, 2004; Senior, 2002; Paton & McCalman,2000; Okumus & Hemmington, 1998; Moran and Brightman, 2001; Luecke, 2003; Kotter, 1996; Carnall, 2003). It is also generally agreed that change whether triggered by external or internal factors is something that finds manifestation in different sizes, shapes and forms, and as a result it affects all types of organizations in all sorts of industries (Luecke, 2003; Kotter, 1996, Carnall, 2003; Burnes, 2004; Burnes, 1996;  Balogun & Hope Hailey, 2004).

Urgent need for a new framework for change management

Nature of the Research

The research done is qualitative and theoretical in nature. The article adopts the three categories of change developed by Senior (2002), as its structure, and links it to other main approaches and theories on change management. These three categories are those that identify change as something that is identified by its very rate of occurrence and also by the manner in which it occurs as well as the scale of the change. While quality management, activities like business process re-engineering as well as many other change initiatives showcase several of such characteristics (Pettinger, 2004; Balogun & Hailey, 2004) the research undertaken by Rune Tomden focuses on the main characteristics that are associated with change rather than any individual change initiative. The research also identifies avenues for future research that can take place on change management.

Results and Discussion

From the research that is carried out, it is seen that change constitutes an ever present feature of every organization. A clear consensus is seen to exist regarding the fact that the pace at which change is taking place today is a whole lot greater compared to what it has been before and that good change management is therefore a much-needed managerial skill (Edmonstone, 1995).  Yet organizational change management is ad hoc and reactive in nature and has a high rate of failure (Balogun & Hailey, 2004). By critically reviewing current approaches and theories on change management, and through the application of the three categories of change as outlined by Senior (2002), as focal structure, the research highlights the urgent need of a pragmatic and novel framework for successfully managing change. The author argues that in order to arrive at such a framework, further exploratory studies on the nature and management of change must be carried out. He concludes that these studies can easily identify all the important success factors necessary to bring about change management and further argues that the methods deployed to evaluate or measure the success rate of managing organizational change should be those that are designed for evaluating the value or worth of the new frameworks that are suggested.

Critique

Some of the explicit arguments made by the author through this article are that change is omnipresent in each and every organization of the globe, the rate at which change is taking place today is a whole lot higher than what it used to be before and that change needs to be managed successfully if organizations are to use such change to grow, develop and evolve into more prosperous entities than what they are at present. It is further argued by the author that the manner in which organizational change is managed today is quite ad-hoc and discontinuous in nature with most change initiatives failing quite readily when undertaken. This argument compels the author to arrive at the conclusion that a proper framework for implementing and managing change in a successful manner is missing and what is there instead for academics and practitioners to fall back on is a whole lot of theories and concepts, most of which are quite confusing in nature. These theories as well as approaches in his view have very little empirical value and instead are based more often than not, on completely unchallenged hypotheses, regarding the exact or true nature of organizational change management in the present day. In fact, the most explicit argument that the author therefore makes is that a brand new framework for change management needs to be conceived and that more research should be undertaken in the future on the proper nature and management of change in an organization so as to the understand the true value of this new framework.

Further research on the true nature and management of change in organizations

None of the arguments that have been put forward by the author are controversial or inconsistent in nature. Neither is there any alternative explanation that maybe offered for what the author has to suggest. The evidence made available by the author through his discussion and analysis of existing theories and perspectives on change and its management are convincing and novel enough and certainly insightful too as they move one to ponder deeply on the issue of change management in an organization. The author very rightfully points to the fact that change is a vital and constant feature of most organizations if not all organizations and that its proper management is the need of the hour if one has to take advantage and prosper on the business front through change. He is correct in his analysis of the fact that the theories and approaches on change management today comprise of big gaps in terms of empirical evidence and reliable hypothesis. His discussion of valid theories and perspectives on the prospect of managing change in an organization throw important light on the type of possible framework that maybe developed to address change management in organizations. Finally, it can be said that the author is fully correct in concluding that in addition to creating a new change management framework for an organization, new studies need to be undertaken that prove the value of using such a novel framework for understanding and carrying out change management.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the urgent requirement for a pragmatic new change management framework. This urgency for a new change management framework is established by using the three-category approach to change as developed by Senior (2002), as a basis and by critically reviewing many other relevant theories and approaches to change management.

By discussing in detail how changes can be characterized by their rate of occurrence, how change is characterized by the manner in which it takes place, and how change is characterized by scale, the author succeeds in establishing his point regarding the urgent necessity of a novel pragmatic framework for successfully managing change. The lacunae that is there presently in organizational change management is something that he identifies even more clearly by making some recommendations as to how future research can take place in the area of change management. He talks about the need for future studies in order to establish an understanding as to what organizational change and its proper management is all about. It is the belief of the author that the identification of various critical success factors to initiate change management will be enabled through such studies and that the valid framework for managing change in an organization, which is conceived, will help in measuring how successful the change initiatives are. He thus rightfully argues that such measure methods ought to be well designed.

The literature that has been reviewed by the author to make his various points are already a part of the existing body of literature on change management. While the author does not discuss any novel or previously unheard of theory in order to make his case, his critical analysis and assessment of the theories brought up in the course of his discussion help the reader to clearly understand why a new framework for understanding and managing change in organizations must be brought into existence and why future studies need to be carried out in order to understand the true worth of this framework. Indeed, in final analysis and assessment, this article maybe regarded as a good review article that relies on the proper and thorough analysis of existing and relevant theories on change in organizations in order to make recommendations on how and why a change framework should be created and why further research must be undertaken in order to determine the utility value of such a framework

References

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Todnem By, R. (2005). Organisational change management: A critical review. Journal of change management, 5(4), 369-380.