BA 4226
Managing Organizational Change
Implementing change: change
management, contingency, and
processual approaches
Instructor: Çağrı Topal
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Change management:
Fundamentals
Director image
 The focus is on strategic, planned, and largescale change
 Change models include a series of planned
steps
 Change models apply to any kind of change
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Change management:
Assumptions/limitations-1
Steps might be used sequentially or
simultaneously
 All steps should be implemented
 Steps embodying core elements of managing
organizational power, motivating
organizational members, and directing
organizational transition might be
implemented in changing orders
 Interrelated and sequential phases might
include rationalization, revitalization, and
regeneration

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Change management:
Assumptions/limitations-2
Implementation depends on implementers
 Multiple changes may be in progress
 Steps should be tailored to particular needs
 Communication should involve involvement
 Change is not completely manageable
 Change necessitates experimentation
 There might be more than one change leader

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Change management:
Kotter’s eight-step model
Establish the need for urgency
 Ensure there is a powerful change group to
guide the change
 Develop a vision
 Communicate the vision
 Empower staff
 Ensure there are short-term wins
 Consolidate gains
 Embed the change in the culture
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Change management:
Problems in step-models
Sequence of steps
 Number of steps
 Duration of steps
 Resources at steps
 People at steps
 One step at a time
 Steps without feedback
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Change management vs. OD
Change management has a broader scope
than OD and considers OD’s central concern,
human development, as one feature of
organizational change
 The OD practitioner is a third-party
facilitator whereas the change management
consultant acts as a technical expert
 OD is a bottom-up approach whereas change
management is a top-down approach
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Contingency approaches:
Fundamentals
Director image
 Successful organizational change outcomes
can be achieved
 The approach for achieving change outcomes
depends upon the change context
 The change context includes the scale of the
change and the receptivity of organizational
members
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Contingency approaches:
Dunphy and Stace’s model
Developmental transitions
 Task-focused transitions
 Charismatic transformation
 Turnarounds
 Fine-tuning
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Contingency approaches:
Huy’s model
Commanding intervention
 Engineering intervention
 Teaching intervention
 Socializing intervention
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Contingency approaches:
Reasons for uncommonness
Differing perceptions on contingencies
 Lack of clear-cut guidelines
 Lack of managerial skills
 Perception of inconsistency
 Possibility of universal aspects
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Processual approaches:
Fundamentals
Navigator image
 Change is a continuous, often political,
process
 Change unfolds contextually
 Change outcomes are the result of a complex
interplay of different perspectives and
interests, efficiency concerns, and
environmental conditions
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Processual approaches:
Stages
Problem sensing
 Development of concern
 Acknowledgement and understanding of the
importance of the problem
 Planning and acting
 Stabilizing change
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Processual approaches:
Lessons-1
Simple linear change recipes should be
challenged
 Change strategies will need to be adapted in
light of the reactions and politics they create
 Change takes time and is unlikely to entail
continual improvement
 Taken-for-granted assumptions need to be
questioned along the way
 Change managers need to learn from stories
of experiences of change, including those of
individual at all levels
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Processual approaches:
Lessons-2
Training programs need to be aligned with
desired changes
 Communication needs to occur in context
 The substance of change is itself likely to alter
 Political processes will be central to how
quickly change outcomes occur
 Change involves interwoven, contradictory
processes as well as rewriting of accounts of
the past and the future
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