2 - Setyabudi Indartono

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D

Manajemen Perubahan by: Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D @ 2014

Email: setyabudi_indartono@uny.c.id

Yogyakarta State University

Author: Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D

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2014

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014

DAFTAR ISI

PENGANTAR .............................................................................................................................. iv

Skema pembelajaran ................................................................................................................ v

The nature of dynamic behaviors* .......................................................................................... vii

Bab 1 Pedahuluan ..................................................................................................................... 1

Soal Latihan ........................................................................................................................... 6 bab 2 Manajemen dan perubahan ........................................................................................... 7

The nature of change ............................................................................................................ 7

Image of Managing change ................................................................................................... 8

Soal Latihan ......................................................................................................................... 10 bab 3 Perubahan dalam Organisasi ........................................................................................ 11

Why organizations change? ................................................................................................ 11

What changes in organizations ........................................................................................... 12

Soal Latihan ......................................................................................................................... 12 bab 4 Analisis perubahan ........................................................................................................ 14

Diagnosis for change ........................................................................................................... 14

Resistant to change ............................................................................................................. 17

Artikel pendukung analisa perubahan diantaranya adalah: ............................................... 19

Soal Latihan ......................................................................................................................... 20 bab 5 Implementasi Manajemen Perubahan ......................................................................... 21

Organizational Development .............................................................................................. 21

Appreciative Inquiry ............................................................................................................ 23

Positive organizational scholarship ..................................................................................... 24

Sensemaking approach ....................................................................................................... 24

Mengelola Perubahan ......................................................................................................... 25

Pendekatan Kontinjensi dan proses .................................................................................... 27

Menghubungkan Visi dan Perubahan ................................................................................. 28 ii


Artikel pendukung implementasi perubahan diantaranya adalah: .................................... 28

Soal Latihan ......................................................................................................................... 30 bab 6 Komunikasi dalam Perubahan ...................................................................................... 31

Strategi Komunikasi ............................................................................................................ 31

Kemampuan komunikasi perubahan .................................................................................. 33

Perubahan berkelanjutan ................................................................................................... 34

Artikel pendukung Komunikasi perubahan diantaranya adalah: ....................................... 35

Soal Latihan ......................................................................................................................... 36 referensi .................................................................................................................................. 38

Silabi ........................................................................................................................................ 41

Curriculum Vitae ..................................................................................................................... 42 iii


PENGANTAR

Mata kuliah ini membahas tentang pentingnya manajemen transformasi/perubahan baik struktural maupun perubahan budaya untuk menjadi lebih baik dan dinamis. Topik yang dipelajari meliputi: filosofi, sejarah dan konsep dasar perubahan, melihat dan mempercayai perubahan, memulai perubahan, mengubah budaya korporat dan mengelola harapan. Mata kuliah

Manajemen Perubahan dirancang untuk memberikan pengetahuan dan keahlian mahasiswa dalam memahami dampak perubahan dalam organisasi.

Dalam kehidupan nyata, proses perubahan sering tidak sesuai dengan yang diharapkan. Mata kuliah ini diharapkan mampu memberikan dasar pengetahuan kepada mahasiswa tentang pentingnya perubahan dalam organisasi, faktor apa dalam organisasi yang perlu dirubah, bagaimana perubahan perlu dilaksanakan, siapa orang-orang yang terlibat dalam proses perubahan, kapan proses perubahan perlu dilakukan, dan aspek lain yang berkaitan dengan pengelolaan perubahan dalam organisasi.

Setelah mengikuti perkuliahan ini, mahasiwa diharapkan memiliki berbagai kompetensi. Diantaranya adalah mahasiswa mampu memahami adanya proses perubahan dalam organisasi, memahami berbagai faktor pendorong perubahan dalam organisasi, dan mampu membedakan tipe-tipe perubahan dalam organisasi. iv


SKEMA PEMBELAJARAN

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Kompetensi Dasar Materi Pokok Sumber Bahan

Indartono (2014) #1 Mema hami proses pembelajaran manajemen konfik

Memahami fenomena konfik di dunia kerja

Memahami perilaku konflik dan cara mengelolanya

Memahami tuntutan perubahan dalam orgaisasi

Memahami berbagai peruahan dalam organisasi

Memahami latarbelakang, proses dan efek dari perubahan

Memahami berbagai hambatan dalam proses perubahan

Introduction

The nature of change

Image of Managing change

Why organizations change?

What changes in organizations

Diagnosis for change

Resistant to change

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #2

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #2

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014)#3

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #3

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #4

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #4

Senior (2010)

Cumming (2006)

Memahami berbagai praktek

UJIAN TENGAH SEMSTER

Implementing change perubahan dalam organisasi case#1

Memahami berbagai praktek perubahan dalam organisasi

Memahami berbagai praktek perubahan dalam organisasi

• Organizational development

• Appreciative Inquiry

Implementing change case#2

• Positive organizational scholarship

• Sensemaking approach

Implementing change case#3

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #5

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #5

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #5

Senior (2010) v


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Kompetensi Dasar

Memahami hubungan antara visi dan perubahan

Memahami pentingnya komunikasi dalam perubahan organisasi

Memahami dan mampu mengaplikasikan komunikasi dalam perubahan organisasional

Memahami pentingnya dan strategi perubahan yang berkelanjutan

Materi Pokok Sumber Bahan

Cumming (2006) • Change management

• contingency and processual approach

Linking vision and change

Communication

Strategies

Strategic Communication

Skills for Communicating

Change

Sustaining Change

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #5

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #6

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #6

Palmer (2009)

Indartono (2014) #6

UJIAN TENGAH SEMSTER vi


THE NATURE OF DYNAMIC BEHAVIORS*

Researchers (Desarbo and Grewal, 2008; Schalk and Freese, 1997; White, 2008) propose the dynamic viewpoint to analyze organizations and employees because they tend to adjust their strategies and haviors at anytime to maximize their best interests.

At the organization level, firms try to apply unique rategic postures so as to reach a better position in the market structure (Cool and Schendel, 1987). They change, expand, and blend their strategies from more than one pure strategic group to gain the competitive advantage (Desarbo and Grewal, 2008). For example, firms at the beginning stage may apply the defensive strategy and then opt for the offensive strategy as they move to the next stage (Land, 2004). Following Hunt’s (1972) theory of firm strategies, Porter (1980) develops the concept and applies it to his overall system of strategic analysis. Hodgkinson (1997) analyzes the intra-industry variations in the competition and performance of firms. A firm switching its strategy may cause business environment pressure or the demand of firm accelerations because such change of policies could be rather dynamic.

At the individual level, the way employees change their behavior is contingent on the short-term opportunities exposed in the environment (Perish et al., 2008). Employees would look for fair treatment by comparing the compensation offered by their organization and its competitors (Milcovich and Newman, 1999; Rhoades et al.,

2001). Being directed by their needs, they would respond to external offering defensively, reactively, or protectively to avoid actions, blaming, or changes

(Ashforth and Lee, 1990). Thus, employees’ behavior might change accordingly when they feel unfairly treated (Hochwarter et al., 2000; Valle and Perewe, 2000).

* Vivian Chen, Chun-Hsi and Indartono, Setyabudi, 2011, Study of commitment antecedents: The dynamic point of view, Journal of Business Ethics , Vol. 103, No.4

, Pg.529-541 vii


BAB 1 PEDAHULUAN

Manajemen perubahan adalah sebuah pendekatan untuk transisi individu, tim, dan organisasi ke keadaan masa depan yang diinginkan. Dalam manajemen proyek konteks, manajemen perubahan dapat merujuk kepada proses manajemen proyek dimana perubahan lingkup proyek secara resmi diperkenalkan dan disetujui atau definisi manajemen perubahan yang ditetapkan di halaman ini. Sejarah manajemen perubahan telah dimulai sejak tahun 1960 dimana Everett Rogers menulis buku Difusi Inovasi pada tahun

1962. Akan ada lima edisi buku sampai 2003, selama waktu analisis statistik tentang bagaimana orang mengadopsi ide-ide dan teknologi baru. Kemudian tahun 1980 Konsultan McKinsey Julien Phillips pertama kali menerbitkan model manajemen perubahan pada tahun 1982 dalam jurnal Manajemen

Sumber Daya Manusia, meskipun butuh satu dekade untuk rekan-rekan manajemen perubahan untuk mengejarnya. Dan Robert Marshak menciptakan industri manajemen perubahan ketika mereka dalam kelompok jasa rekayasa ulang sebagai jasa manajemen perubahan di akhir 1980-an.

Tahun 1974, Daryl Conner mendirikan Conner Partners dan pada tahun

1993, ia menulis buku itu, Manajemen Perubahan. Conner memberikan pengaruh yang besar selama tahun 80-an dan 90-an dalam memahami kinerja dan teknik manusia dalam menyesuaikan teknologi inovasi baru hingga mampu diserap dan diadopsi sebaik mungkin. Tahun 2000, Linda

Ackerman Anderson menyatakan tidak puas dengan kegagalan dan menciptakan serta menerapkan model perubahan dalam secara top-down, menciptakan peran pemimpin perubahan untuk mengambil tanggung jawab.

Sedang di tahun 2010-an berdasarkan buku Mengelola Perubahan Sukses,

Christina Manajemen Perubahan ditetapkan sebagai istilah resmi di Australia dengan menulis Standar Kompetensi Nasional Australia di Organisasi dan

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Komunitas Manajemen Perubahan, yang menyebabkan pengembangan

Manajemen Perubahan organisasi, dan istilah tersebut merupakan kualifikasi yang diakui secara internasional. Perubahan organisasi adalah pendekatan terstruktur dalam sebuah organisasi untuk memastikan bahwa perubahan lancar dan sukses diterapkan untuk mencapai manfaat abadi.

Dalam konsep transendeltal, menurut Faisal (2012), Tuhan menjelaskan manajemen perubahan dengan “Demikian itu adalah karena sesungguhnya Allah sekali - kali tidak akan merubah sesuatu nikmat yang telah dianugerahkan – Nya kepada sesuatu kaum, hingga kaum itu merubah apa yang ada pada diri mereka sendiri dan sesungguhnya Allah Maha

Mendengar lagi Maha Mengetahui.” Dan “Sesungguhnya Allah tidak mengubah keadaan sesuatu kaum sehingga mereka mengubah keadaan yang ada pada diri mereka sendiri. Dan apabila Allah menghendaki keburukan terhadap sesuatu kaum, maka tak ada yang dapat menolaknya; dan sekali - kali tak ada pelindung bagi mereka selain Dia.. Hal ini mengisyaratkan engisyaratkan bahwa perubahan yang berdampak membutuhkan gagasan atau pengetahuan (kompetensi dalam membuat tujuan, target, rencana, manajemen dan standard) dan kemauan (komitmen) untuk berubah. Gagasan atau pengetahuan yang benar, yang disertai dengan kemauan satu kelompok masyarakat, dapat mengubah keadaan masyarakat itu. Tetapi gagasan atau pengetahuan saja tanpa kemauan, atau kemauan saja tanpa gagasan atau pengetahuan tidak akan menghasilkan perubahan. (Dr. M. Quraish Shihab, M.A : mizan@ibm.net

, 1). Perubahan yang berdampak dan dituntut dalam konsep transcendental ini adalah perubahan kolektif yang mencakup mayoritas lingkungan sosial, bukan perubahan individual. Karena perubahan ini tidak cukup untuk mengubah masyarakat secara menyeluruh, fundamental dan mencakup semua aspek kehidupan sosial, politik, ekonomi, moral, hukum dan lain - lain.

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Perubahan yang dituntut adalah perubahan yang bersifat positif “

Tiadalah Allah meninggalkan engkau dan tidak pula merasa benci kepadamu.

Dan hari yang akan datang itu harus lebih baik dari hari yang sekarang. Dan apabila Allah memberikan karunia kepadamu maka engkau akan ridho atas jerih payahmu.” ”Hari ini harus lebih baik dari hari kemarin, hari esok harus lebih baik dari hari ini”. Dr. Yusuf al - Qaradhawi mengatakan, “ Salah satu tanda celaka adalah dengan menyia - nyiakan waktu. Siapa yang hari ini masih seperti kemarin, maka ia menjadi orang merugi, sedangkan siapa yang hari ini lebih buruk daripada kemarin, maka ia menjadi orang terlaknat. Siapa yang melewatkan satu hari dari usianya bukan untuk menyelesaikan kebenaran atau melaksanakan kewajiban atau kemuliaan yang ia wariskan atau kebaikan yang ia wariskan atau kebaikan yang ia dapatkan atau kemuliaan yang ia bangun atau ilmu yang ia raih, maka ia telah menyianyiakan waktu dan menzalimi dirinya.”(M. AbdulJawwad, 2004 : 183-184).

Pengelolaan perubahan tidak bertentangan Al Hikmah atau Kebijaksanaan.

Pengelolaan perubahan tidak trial and error, Pengelolaan perubahan harus adil atas Diri, Darah, Dekat, Duit, (M. Soebari, 1998).

Menurut Faisal (2002) beberapa Bukti-Bukti Empirik dari masa kini diantaranya adalah Menurut George M Hill, keberhasilan proyek reengineeringharus mengkaitkan seluruh orang-orang, proses, strategi-strategi, dan teknologi organisasi dengan keseluruhan tujuan bisnisnya. Jika satu kaitan dalam rantai tersebut hilang (diabaikan), proses transformasi bisnis akan gagal. Hill mengemukakan beberapa pointers yang menjadikan keberhasilan dan kegagalan re-engineering(Hill, 1993: 8-9). Keberhasilan reengineering karena suatu kinerja tinggi organisasi, didorong (termotivasi) oleh core processes (proses inti) yang unggul dalam quality service, customer satisfaction, dan cost effectiveness. Fokus hanya pada satu kunci di atas kemudian memperbaiki fungsi menjadi proses transformasi, mengintegrasikan revisi proses ke dalam visi strategik organisasi agar para

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 karyawan memahami dan termotivasi untuk bergerak menuju arah baru. Reengineeringharus fokus pada cross functional untuk membentuk teams yang terdiri dari representatif dari tiap bidang terlibat dalam proses. Pimpin teams tersebut dengan change agents yang antusias, open minded ,dan konsentrasi pada member motivasi proses. Re-engineering harus didorong oleh apa keinginan customers dan bukan oleh perspektif -perspektif internal.

Oleh karena itu, salah satu kunci bagi keberhasilan re-engineeringadalah untuk fokus pada proses - proses yang memiliki dampak tertinggi pada customer service. Membangun kredibilitas secara internal dan eksternal dengan mendemonstrasikan respon atau tanggapan awal yang substansial.

Mengembangkan teknologi untuk mempermudah. Teknologi baru seharusnya tidak digunakan hanya untuk mekanisasi dan mempercepat cara -cara lama melakukan bisnis. Keberhasilan re-engineering mempengaruhi teknologi inovatif sebenarnya untuk memformulasikan kembali proses bisnis.

Pertahankan re-engineering. Visi re-engineeringharus datang dari pimpinan–namun dukungan harus dibangun atau dikembangkan dari bawah.

Komitmen pimpinan adalah penting. Namun pekerjaan pimpinan bukan untuk mendikte. Pekerjaan atau tugasnya adalah untuk menciptakan lingkungan yang bebas dari ketakutan dan mendorong atau memotivasi partisipasi.

Banyak upaya-upaya re-engineering gagal karena kurangnya dukungan dari bawahan ketimbang dari faktor-faktor lainnya. Untuk mengatasi tantangan ini, perubahan harus dipromosikan pada seluruh level organisasi sejak dini.

Komunikasi harus jelas, kredibel, dan kontinu selama proses re-engineering.

Organisasi harus mengambil tindakan berarti, seperti memfokuskan teams sekitar proses, bukan sekitar tugas-tugas, dan memberi mereka tanggungjawab untuk memperbaiki kinerja. Ketimbang melihat akuntabilitas tersebut sebagai beban yang tidak fair, karyawan merasa hal tersebut memperkaya tugas atau pekerjaan mereka. Dan Re-engineeringyang berhasil mensyaratkan pembebasan diri dari aturan-aturan dan operasi -

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 operasi tradisional. Satu -satunya cara untuk membuat lompatan jauh

(quantum leaps) dalam kinerja adalah untuk menolak asumsi -asumsi lama dan menerima/menganut perubahan radikal. Tujuannya adalah untuk menciptakan bisnis yang tanggap secara cepat dan efektif terhadap perubahan-perubahan pasar.

Kegagalan Manajemen perubahan sebagaimana dicontohkan Faisal

(2002) diantaranya adalah Seperti dikatakan Victor Tan, bahwa banyak organisasi yang tidak berhasil oleh karena salah dalam advokasinya.

Kesalahan ini disebabkan oleh karena menggunakannya sebagai alat yang terisolasi untuk mencapai keunggulan bisnis (Victor Tan, 2002 : 81).

Kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut adalah Business Process Re-engineering tidak dapat memberikan kontribusi pada keunggulan bisnis jika orang dalam organisasi tidak kompeten atau jika karyawan tidak memiliki komitmen.

Business Process Re-engineeringtidak dapat memperbaiki masalah jika organisasi menghasilkan dan memasarkan produk yang salah. Business

Process Re-engineering dapat menjadi alat yang sangat efektif untuk menurunkan biaya dan meningkatkan daya saing organisasi apabila digunakan dengan benar sebagai pelengkap dari alat lainnya untuk mencapai keunggulan bisnis. Perubahan fundamental merupakan perubahan mendasar yang menyangkut dampak yang sangat besar dan luas terhadap organisasi. Untuk memimpin perubahan secara efektif, Hussey (2000 : 69-83) menyarankan pendekatan langkah demi langkah yangdinamakan EASIER, merupakan akronim yaitau Envisioning (Memimpikan), Activating

(Mengaktifkan), Supporting(Mendukung), Implementing(Melaksanakan), dan

Ensuring(Memastikan), serta Recognizing (Pengakuan positif dan negatif).

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Soal Latihan

2014

1. Sebutkan dan jelaskan contoh perubahan dalam kehidupan kita sehari-hari

2. Dalam mengelola sebuah perubahan, Jelaskan kemungkinan efek positif dan negative yang mungkin muncul

3. Sering seseorang mengalami kesulitandalam mengikuti tuntutan perubahan dalam diri dan lingkungannya. Sebutkan alasannya

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BAB 2 MANAJEMEN DAN PERUBAHAN

The nature of change

Peneliti (Desarbo dan Grewal, 2008; Schalk dan Freese, 1997; Putih,

2008) mengusulkan sudut pandang dinamis untuk menganalisis organisasi dan karyawan karena mereka cenderung untuk menyesuaikan strategi dan haviors mereka kapan saja untuk memaksimalkan kepentingan terbaik mereka. Pada tingkat organisasi, perusahaan-perusahaan mencoba menerapkan postur rategic unik sehingga dapat mencapai posisi yang lebih baik dalam struktur pasar (Cool dan Schendel, 1987). Mereka mengubah, memperluas, dan campuran strategi mereka dari lebih dari satu kelompok strategis murni untuk mendapatkan keunggulan kompetitif (Desarbo dan

Grewal, 2008). Sebagai contoh, perusahaan-perusahaan pada tahap awal dapat menerapkan strategi defensif dan kemudian memilih strategi ofensif ketika mereka bergerak ke tahap berikutnya (Tanah, 2004). Berikut (1972) teori Hunt strategi firma, Porter (1980) mengembangkan konsep dan berlaku untuk sistem secara keseluruhan analisis strategis. Hodgkinson (1997) menganalisis variasi intra-industri dalam kompetisi dan kinerja perusahaanperusahaan. Sebuah perusahaan beralih strategi dapat menyebabkan tekanan lingkungan bisnis atau permintaan percepatan fi rm karena perubahan tersebut kebijakan bisa lebih dinamis.

Pada tingkat individu, cara karyawan mengubah perilaku mereka bergantung pada peluang jangka pendek terpapar dalam lingkungan (Perish et al., 2008). Karyawan akan mencari perlakuan yang adil dengan membandingkan kompensasi yang ditawarkan oleh organisasi dan pesaingnya (Milcovich dan Newman, 1999; Rhoades et al, 2001.). Diarahkan oleh kebutuhan mereka, mereka akan menanggapi penawaran eksternal membela diri, reaktif, atau protektif untuk menghindari tindakan, menyalahkan, atau perubahan (Ashforth dan Lee, 1990). Dengan demikian,

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 perilaku karyawan mungkin berubah sesuai ketika mereka merasa diperlakukan tidak adil (Hochwarter et al, 2000;. Valle dan Perewe, 2000).

Image of Managing change

Manajemen perubahan sudah menjadi sebuah tuntutan di berbagai dunia kerja dan interaksi manusia. Sari dan Ibrahim memberikan contoh sebuah proses perubahan di perusahaan dan organisasi bisnis Koran Riau.

Menurut mereka ada dua pendekatan penanganan perubahan organisasi yaitu Proses perubahan reaktif dinama Manajemen bereaksi atas tandatanda bahwa perubahan dibutuhkan, pelaksanaan modifikasi sedikit demi sedikit untuk menangani masalah tertentu yang timbul. Sebagai contoh, bila peraturan baru dari pemerintah mensyaratkan perusahaan untuk mempunyai perlindungan terhadap kebakaran, maka manajer mungkin akan membeli alat pemadam kebakaran. Dan kedua adalah Program perubahan yang direncanakan (planned change), disebut sebagai proses proaktif. Manajemen melakukan berbagai investasi waktu dan sumberdaya lainnya yang berarti untuk mengubah cara-cara operasi organisasi. Perubahan yang direncanakan ini didefinisikan sebagai perancangan dan implementasi inovasi struktural, kebijaksanaan atau tujuan baru, atau suatu perubahan dalam filsafat, iklim dan gaya pengoperasian secara sengaja. Pendekatan ini tepat bila keseluruhan organisasi, atau sebagian besar satuan organisasi, harus menyiapkan diri untuk atau menyesuaikan dengan perubahan.

Dalam tulisannya Dibrata & Murahartawaty (2013) menyebutkan bahwa Jeffrey M. Hiatt (2006) berpendapat bahwa terdapat lima elemen yang mendorong suksesnya perubahan yaitu : awareness, desire, knowledgeability, ability dan reinforcement (ADKAR). ADKAR adalah suatu model untuk perubahan dalam bisnis, pemerintahan dan komunitas, yang mempunyai lima elemen atau objek yang dibangun dalam sebuah kerangka untuk mencapai perubahan. Kelima elemen ini dibangun dalam suatu

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 kerangka dan berurutan dalam mengelola individu untuk melakukan perubahan. Awareness adalah pemahaman seseorang terhadap sifat perubahan, yaitu apa penyebab adanya perubahan, apa akibat tidak mengikuti perubahan, faktor internal dan eksternal yang dibutuhkan untuk perubahan, dan apa manfaatnya (Hiatt 2006). Desire adalah keinginan yang mendorong dan terlibat dalam perubahan. Desire berhubungan dengan pilihan individu, pengaruh dari sifat perubahan itu sendiri, situasi individu, dan motivasi masing – masing individu (Hiatt 2006). Knowledge adalah informasi, latihan dan edukasi yang diperlukan untuk mengetahui bagaimana cara untuk perubahan. Knowledge meliputi kebiasaan, proses, perangkat, sistem, keahlian, dan teknis yang dibutuhkan untuk perubahan. Ability adalah kemampuan menerapkan pengetahuan menjadi terealisasi atau pelaksanaan perubahan. Ability dicapai jika seseorang mempunyai kemampuan mengimplementasikan perubahan pada level performa yang ditent ukan

(Hiatt 2006. Reinforcement adalah faktor internal dan eksternal yang mendukung perubahan. Reinforcement eksternal meliputi recognition, reward, dan celebration. Reinforcement internal bisa datang dari rasa puas dengan pencapaian (achievement) atau manfaat lain yang diperoleh dari perubahan (Hiatt 2006).

Menurut Dibrata & Murahartawati (2013), Manajemen perubahan dalam Telkom University diukur dari beberapa indicator diantaranya adalah indikator Tingkat kesiapan perubahan (change readiness) mencapai 60%, tingkat resistensi terhadap perubahan menjadi Telkom University mencapai

<= 40%, Strategi komunikasi yang diterapkan dapat memberikan informasi secara kesuluruhan civitas akademika Telkom University, dan Strategi pelatihan dapat mengakomodir dan menguatkan perubahan menuju Telkom

University. Sehingga disimpulkan bahwa Strategi perubahan yang tepat digunakan dalam menghadapi perubahan menuju Telkom University adalah

Empirical – rational

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Soal Latihan

2014

1. Mengapa perubahan itu menjadi sebuah kepastian. Jelaskan

2. Buatlah sebuah contoh perubahan dan sebutkan indicator keberhasilan perubahan tersebut.

3. Jelaskan perbedaan perubahan dalam perusahaan jasa dan manufaktur

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BAB 3 PERUBAHAN DALAM ORGANISASI

Why organizations change?

Globalisasi dan inovasi akan terjadi secara berkelanjutan. Hal ini adalah hasil teknologi dalam lingkungan bisnis yang terus berkembang. Fenomena seperti media sosial dan perkembangan tekonoogi ponsel telah merevolusi bisnis. Saat ini kebutuhan tersebut semakin meningkat dan mendorong perubahan yang pada akhirnya menuntut perubahan manajemen.

Pertumbuhan teknologi juga memiliki efek sekunder yaitu meningkatkan ketersediaan dan akuntabilitas pengetahuan. Kemudahan akses informasi telah mengakibatkan pengawasan pemegang saham dan media serta memunculkan tekanan pada manajemen.

Dengan banyak perubahan dalam lingkungan bisnis yang dialami, organisasi harus belajar untuk menjadi nyaman dengan adanya perubahan ini. Oleh karena itu, kemampuan untuk mengelola dan beradaptasi dengan perubahan organisasi adalah kemampuan penting yang diperlukan di tempat kerja saat ini. Namun, perubahan organisasi yang besar dan cepat menjadikan kesulitan tersendiri karena struktur, budaya, dan rutinitas organisasi sering mencerminkan status quo sulit dari periode lalu sulit dihapuskan. Oleh karena itu bagi yang mampu bertahan terhadap perubahan yang radikal membutuhkan perubahan yang cepat.

Karena perkembangan teknologi, perubahan organisasi modern yang sebagian besar didorong oleh inovasi eksternal daripada tuntutan internal.

Ketika perkembangan ini terjadi, organisasi yang cepat beradaptasi akan menciptakan keunggulan kompetitif bagi diri mereka sendiri, sementara perusahaan yang menolak untuk berubah akan tertinggal. Hal ini dapat mengakibatkan kerugian yang drastis pada pangsa pasar. Perubahan organisasi secara langsung mempengaruhi semua departemen dan semua

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 karyawan di semua tingkat manajemen. Seluruh perusahaan harus belajar bagaimana menangani perubahan organisasi ini dengan baik.

What changes in organizations

Sebagaimana di gambarkan sebelumnya organisasi berubah bias karena tekanan internal maupun ekseternal. Sehingga perlu ada penyesuaian kondisi internal terhadap berbagai tuntutan tersebut. Secara umum perubahan ditujukan pada perbaikan kinerja institusional. Oleh karena itu perubahan yang memungkinkan terjadai pada perubahan orientasi berupa visi dan target capaian kerja. Untuk menghasilkan target dan orientasi kerja tersebut dibutuhkan system kerja yang sesuai dengan tuntutan yang diantaranya adalah perubahan penggunaan sarana dan teknologi kerja.

Selain itu dibutuhkan penyesuaian kompetensi dan kapasitas pekerja agar dapat menjalankan system kerja yang baru. Oleh karena itu ilmu, ketrampilan dan sikap serta perilaku karyawan harus disesuaikan dengan tuntutan target kerja dan cara kerja yang baru. Sering tuntutan perubahan baru ini mendorong adanya perubahan anggaran dan pendanaan kerja, orientasi pasar baru, serta system operasi kerja baru. Kompleksitas kemungkinan tuntutan perubahan ini mendorong perusahaan untuk melakukan perubahan yang integratif di semua lini manajerial yaitu, operasional, SDM, pemasaran, komunikasi, dan keuangan.

Soal Latihan

1. Jika anda menjadi seorang manajer di sebuah perusahaan, Faktor apa saja yang menyebabkan anda berfikir untuk melakuikan perubahan di perusahaan anda

2. Jika ada sebuah teknologi baru yang berkaitan dengan perusahanan anda, apakah anda akan membuat program perubahan manajerial diperusahaan anda? Jelaskan alas an anda

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3. Di dalam departemen keuangan, operasi, pemasaran dan SDM, tuntutan perubahan apa saja yang sering muncul. Sebutkan dan jelaskan alasan anda.

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BAB 4 ANALISIS PERUBAHAN

Diagnosis for change

Manajemen perubahan diawali dengan penentuan kebutuhan untuk perubahan, skala perubahan, segmentasi perubahan, metodologi perubahan, pendekatan perubahan, komunikasi perubahan, teknik perubahan, dan analisis antisipasi efek perubahan. Penentuan kebutuhan perubahan dianalisa dengan adanya dinamika tuntutan internal dan eksternal organisasi dalam merespon tingkat persaingan dengan para kompetitor dan perubahan pasar. Perubahan bias dilakukan di skala strategis maupun skala teknis.

Siemen yang dikenal sebagai perusahan yang memproduksi alat komunikasi menangkap tuntutan pasar di segmentasi transportasi. Sehingga mereka melakuka diversifikasi produk dari alat komunikasi ke alat transportasi seperti membuat gerbong MRT. Demikain juga dengan perusahaan Samsung yang hanya dikenal sebagai innovator produk alat rumah tangga seperti TV, mesing pendingin, merambah produknya kea lat komunikasi seperti handphone dan alat transportasi seperti mobil.

Demikian juga dengan tuntutan perubahan yang muncul bisa mendorong organisasi melakukan perubahan di skala yang berbeda seperti perubahan depatemntal dan fungsi manajerial di berbagai bidang yang berbeda di dalam perusahaan tersebut. Dalam perkembangan implementasi konsep manajemen SDM misalnya. Pada awalnya fungsi SDM diberlakukan dengan sangat sedderhana sebagai bagian administrasi kepegawaian, kemudian berkembang menjadi bagian personalia, yang selanjutnya mengikuti tuntutan menjadi bagian pelaksana fungsi SDM, dan kini telah memasuki fungsi stratejik dan pendorong utama di sebuah perusahaan.

Perubahan ini mengikuti tuntutan perubahan dari skala teknis hingga skala strategis. Demikian juga dengan perusahaan yang kadang dituntut untuk melakukan perubahan di satu sisi produksi sja karena adanya tuntutan

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 hadirnya teknologi produksi baru. Atau perubahan di segmen system teknologi informasi, karena muncul konsep dan sarana baru dalam pengelolaan system teknologi informasi. Perubahan pasar sering menuntut perubahan kerja dan cara karja di bagian pemasaran. Oleh karena itu analisis yang lebih spesifik dibutuhkan untuk memastikan kebutuhan perubahan yang dituntut baik oleh internal maupun oleh eksternal perusahaan.

Tuntutan globalisasi dan keterbukaan informasi juga memberikan pengaruh terhadap metodologi dan pendekatan perubahan dalam sebuah institusi. Kadang perubahan cukup diinformasikan dan menjadi bahan koordinasi dikalangan top manajemen. Namun kondisi keterbukaan saat ini sering memicu tuntutan perubahan yang berasal dari karyawan tingkat bawah/ bottom up. Dengan adanya dinamika bisnis dan tenologi yang begitu cepat antisipasi terhadap sebuah orientasi perubahan perlu dilakukan. Hal ini sering terjadi karena prediksi perubahan tidak secepat tuntutan perubahan organisasi.

Kegagalan proses perubahan tidak hanya disebabkan oleh perencanaan dan control yang kurang matang. Namun antisipasi dari kondisi percepatan tuntutan perlu menjadi bahan analisa tersendiri. Sehingga bagi

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 organisasi yang menghadapi dinamika kompetisi yang tinggi, perubahan yang ditargetkan harus mengikuti tren tuntutan perubahan eksternal. Oleh karena itu capaian yang ditunjukkan dengan nilai nominal kadang tidak presisi dengan tingkat persaingan yang dihadapi.

Dalam melakukan pengelolaan perubahan organisasi perlu memperhatikan kesiapan internal dalam berubah. Oleh karenanya langkah pertama yang perlu dilakukan adalah proses unfreezing yaitu tahapan dimana menyiapkan system yang bisa menyesuaikan peluang perubahan.

Unfreezing ini ditujukan pada setiap pemangku kepentingan seperti owner, top manajemen hingga karyawan non staf sekalipun. Kemudian setelah system sudah cukup fleksibel, proses perubahan dapat dilakukan. Sehingga agar perubahan bisa terkendali, proses re-frezing sebagai tahapan pengetatan pada system baru harus segera diberlakukan. Sebagaimana terlihat dalam bagan berikut ini.

Selain itu dalam proses mengelola perubahan organisasi ada sebuah tuntutas etika yang bisa menjadi tantangan prosesn perubahan ini. Oleh karena itu perubahan harus sesuai dengan nilai-nilai, norma dan keyakinan

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 yang ada dalam organisasi dan dimiliki oleh para anggota organisasi.

Sehingga kejelasan orientasi perlu dipersiapkan untuk mengantisipasi berbagai persepsi yang berbeda dengan yang telah ditentukan. Demikian pula perilaku politik organisasi menjadi bahan pertimbangan bagi institusi yang rentan dengan berbagai perbedaan orientasi dan interes.

Resistant to change

Tidak semua rencana perubahan organisasi dapat berjalan dengan baik. Sering terjadi proses pengelolaan perubahan organisasi terkendala karena munculnya berbagai hambatan untuk berubah baik dari individu anggota organisasi hingga system organisasi yang sedang berjalan.

Diantara hambatan yang sering muncul adalah karena ketidaktahuan dan kekhawatiran tentang proses dari perubahan yang akan dan sedang dilakukan sebagaimana tergambar dalam bagan dibawah. Sehingga agen perubah perlu melakukan antisipasi dalam menghadapi resistensi yang muncul dalam perubahan tersebut seperti perlunya dilakukan komunikasi secara intensif ketika sedang dilakukan perencanaan perubahan, persiapan perubahan, saat perubahaan hingga saat akhir proses perubahan. Hal ini untuk mendukung proses unfreezing, proses perubahan, dan re-freezing.

Dengan adanya komunikasi yang intensif diharapkan berbagai kendala

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 psikologis, kognitif, dan kebutuhan peningkatan kapasitas dan kompetensi dapat diidentifikasi dengan baik. Sehingga gap dan penghalang di level psikologis, kognitif maupun ketrampilan bisa diantisipasi sejak dini, dengan memberikan pelatihan dan pembekalan

.

Keterlibatan seluruh level karyawan sesuai persinya juga dibutuhkan dalam mengelola sebuah perubahan organisasi, sehingga mampu mengurangi ketegangan dalam pengelolaan perubahan ini. Jikapun terjadi perbedaan yang lebih prinsipil proses negosiasi hingga paksaan bisa dilakukan jika diperlukan.

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Artikel pendukung analisa perubahan diantaranya adalah:

1. Parker, D., Verlinden, A., Nussey, R., Ford, M., & Pathak, R. D. (2013).

Critical evaluation of project-based performance management: Change intervention integration. International Journal of Productivity and

Performance Management, 62(4), 407-419.

2. Karakas 2009 New Paradigms in Organizational Development in the 21st

Century: Positivity, Spirituality, and Complexity, Organization

Development Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 11-27

3. Kramer, J., & Magee, J. (1990). The evolving philosophers problem:

Dynamic change management. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 16(11), 1293-1306.

4. Osibanjo, O. A., Adeniji, A. A., & Abiodun, J. A. (2013). Organizational

Change and Human Resource Management Interventions: An

Investigation of the Nigerian Banking Industry. Serbian Journal of

Management, 8(2).

5. Khattak, A. M., Latif, K., & Lee, S. (2013). Change management in evolving web ontologies. Knowledge-Based Systems, 37, 1-18.

6. Carpinetti, L. C., & Lima, R. H. (2013). Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model. International Journal of Production Management and Engineering,

1(1), 13-26.

7. Samuel, K. (2013). THE EFFECTS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN AN

ORGANISATION: A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF

RWANDA (NUR).

8. Gandomani, T. J., Zulzalil, H., Ghani, A. A. A., & Sultan, A. B. M. (2013).

Towards comprehensive and disciplined change management strategy in agile transformation process. Research Journal of Applied Sciences,

Engineering and Technology, 6, 2345-2351.

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Soal Latihan

2014

1. Sebutkan kendala investasi SDM yang sering dihadapai dalam sebuah proses perubahan organisasi

2. Sebutkan dan jelaskan batasa etis apa saja yang perlu diperhatikan dalam mengelola perubahan organisasi

3. Dalam menghadapi resistensi dalam perubahan, apa yang akan anda lakukan sebagai seorang manajer SDM? Jelaskan

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BAB 5 IMPLEMENTASI MANAJEMEN PERUBAHAN

Dengan memahami esensi kebutuhan dan keniscayaan perubahan dalam sebuah organisasi, selanjutnya perlu difahami berbagai metodologi yang menjadi sarana perubahan tersebut. Diantara model implementasi perubahan organsasi adalah pengembangan organisasi (Organizational development), Appreciative Inquiry, Positive organizational scholarship,

Sensemaking approach, Change management, dan Contingency and processual approach. Dalam mengelola sebuah proses perubahan dalam organisasi, hal yang terpenting dan perlu perhatian adalah hubungan visi organisasi dengan kebutuhan, proses, dan metode perubahan dalam organisai.

Organizational Development

Pengembangan organisasi (OD) adalah sebuah pendekatan untuk perubahan organisasi dimana para pegawai menentukan sendiri sebuah perubahan serta mengimplementasikannya yang biasanya dilakukan dengan pelatihan dan arahan konsultan. Pengembangan organisasi (OD) adalah, upaya organisasi yang direncanakan untuk meningkatkan efektivitas dan / atau efisiensi organisasi dan / atau untuk memungkinkan organisasi untuk mencapai tujuan strategisnya. Para ahli dan praktisi OD mendefinisikannya dalam berbagai cara. Berbagai definisi OD mencerminkan kompleksitas disiplin dan tanggung jawab pemahaman terhadap OD. Sebagai contoh,

Vasudevan menjadikan OD sebagai promosi kesiapan organisasi dalam memenuhi tuntutan perubahan, dan OD disebut sebagai pembelajaran dan pengembangan strategi yang sistemik untuk mengubah dasar-dasar keyakinan, sikap dan nilai-nilai yang relevansi, dan mengubah struktur organisasi agar lebih mampu menyerap teknologi,menangkap peluang pasar dan tantangannya. OD bukanlah sebuah aktivitas pelatihan, pengembangan

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 pribadi, pengembangan tim, pengembangan sumber daya manusia (SDM), pembelajaran dan pengembangan (Learning & Develoment) atau bagian dari

Manajemen SDM. Karena sesungguhnya OD adalah sebah perubahan yang melibatkan orang, pegembangan proses, sistem dan struktur. Tujuan utama

OD adalah untuk mengembangkan organisasi, bukan untuk melatih atau mengembangkan staf.

Tujuan OD adalah untuk meningkatkan tingkat kepercayaan antar pribadi di antara karyawan, kepuasan dan komitmen karyawan, menghadapi masalah bukan mengabaikan mereka, secara efektif mengelola konflik, meningkatkan kerja sama dan kolaborasi di antara karyawan, meningkatkan pemecahan masalah organisasi, dan untuk dimasukkan ke dalam proses yang akan membantu meningkatkan operasi yang sedang berlangsung organisasi secara terus menerus. Secara umum program OD betujuan untuk membuat individu dalam organisasi menyadari visi organisasi. Karena pengembangan organisasi membantu dalam membuat karyawan menyelaraskan dengan visi organisasi, mendorong karyawan untuk memecahkan masalah, bukan menghindarinya, penguatan kepercayaan kerjasama, dan komunikasi antar karyawn untuk keberhasilan pencapaian tujuan organisasi, mendorong setiap individu untuk berpartisipasi dalam proses perencanaan, sehingga membuat mereka merasa bertanggung jawab atas pelaksanaan rencana, menciptakan suasana kerja di mana karyawan didorong untuk bekerja dan berpartisipasi dengan antusias, mengganti jalur formal kewenangan dengan pengetahuan pribadi dan keterampilan, dan menciptakan lingkungan kepercayaan sehingga karyawan rela menerima perubahan.OD menjadikan manajer untuk memperkenalkan perubahan secara sistematis dengan menerapkan pilihan yang luas sesuai teknik-teknik manajemen. Hal ini, pada gilirannya, menyebabkan pribadi, kelompok yang lebih berkualitas, dan organisasi yang lebih efektif.

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Appreciative Inquiry

Albert Einstein pernah berkata:

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew.”

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Dalam proses Appreciative Inquiry dikenal beberapa alur tahapan seperti tergambar dalam bagan berikut:

Prinsip-prinsip Appreciative Inquiry

• Constructionist Principle

• Principle of Simultaneity

• Open Book “Poetic Principle”

• Anticipatory Principle

• Positive Principle

• Principle of Wholeness

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Positive organizational scholarship

Positive organizational scholarship (POS) berkaitan dengan berbagai hasil studi proses, dan atribut organisasi serta anggota organisasi, yang positif. POS tidak mewakili satu teori tertentu, namun berfokus pada dinamika yang biasanya digambarkan dengan kata-kata seperti keunggulan, berkembang, berkembang, ketahanan, atau kebajikan. POS merupakan perspektif yang lebih luas, yang mencakup masalah pengukuran dan menguatkan pada ide-ide "kebaikan" dan potensi kemanusiaan yang positif.

Ini meliputi perhatian pada potensi positif seseorang (misalnya, kemampuan proses, kemampuan, struktur, metode), motivasi (misalnya, tidak egois, perhatian, memberikan kontribusi tanpa kesombongan), dan hasil atau efek

(misalnya, vitalitas, kebermaknaan, kegembiraan, hubungan yang berkualitas tinggi) yang berhubungan dengan fenomena positif. POS dibedakan dari studi organisasi tradisional karena berusaha untuk memahami apa yang mewakili dan pendekatan pada kondisi manusia yang baik. Fenomena perilaku positif lainnya diantaranya adalah community psychology, humanistic organizational behavior, organizational development, pro-social motivation and citizenship behavior, and corporate social responsibility.

Sensemaking approach

Sensemaking organisasi adalah pertama dan terutama tentang pertanyaan: Bagaimana sesuatu menjadi bagian dari agenda anggota organisasi? Kedua, sensemaking adalah tentang pertanyaan: Apa sebauh agenda memberi arti? Sensemaking dan organisasi merupakan upaya untuk mengalirkan pesan intrinsik tindakan manusia, menghubungan kea rah tertentu, memberikan bentuk tertentu, melalui pendekatan generalisasi dan pelembagaan sebuah makna dan aturan tertentu. Dalam proses manajemen perubahan perlu diketahuai sejauhmana sensemaking anggota organisasi memberikan pengaruh terhadap capaian implementasi perubahan. Hal ini

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 dapat difahami karena perubahan menciptakan gangguan yang memicu sensemaking (Weick, 1995), Karyawan memiliki keleluasaan untuk memaknai suatu hal yang sama secara berbeda, dan karyawan dapat mengikuti perubahan hanya karena didorong oleh manajer puncak.

Sensemaking adalah sebuah proses dialog dan narasi (Brown 2000;

Gephart 1993, 1997) termasuk didalamnya adalah berbagai bentuk komunikasi (Watson and Bargiela-Chiappini 1998), secara lisan maupun tulisan, forman dan non formal. Namun secara khusus, sensemaking adalah praktek percakapan dan sosial (Gephart 1993: 1469) dalam arti verbal dan non verbal (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991; Gioia et al. 1994). Seseorang terlibat melakukan gosip dan negosiasi, saling bertukar cerita, rumor, dan pengalaman mereka, mendapatkan informasi, dan memberikan catatan pada sebuah hal, atau mengenali sebuah tanda seperti perilaku dan aksi, untuk memberikan kesimbulan dan memberikan sebuah makna (Isabella 1990;

Gioia dan Chittipeddi 1991; Gioia et al. 1994; Gioia dan Thomas 1996; Poole et al. 1989; Labianca et al. 2000). Sehingga sebuah perubahan dapat muncul dari pertukaran dalam sebuah percakapan dan bahasa (Barrett et al. 1995;

Brown dan Humphreys 2003; Ford dan Ford 1995; Heracleous dan Barrett

2001).

Mengelola Perubahan

Manajemen perubahan adalah sebuah perubahan organisasi lingkungan, struktur, budaya, teknologi, atau orang-orang dalam menghadapi sebuah tuntutan, realitas organisasi, dan kesempatan atau ancaman. Cara pandang terhadap perubahan adalah misalnya dengan pendekatan metafora air Tenang yaitu penjelasan praktek-praktek tradisional dan teori tentang organisasi yang menyamakan organisasi pada sebuah kapal besar yang berlayar di laut yang tenang yang kadang terkadang terkena badai, dan cara pandang metafora Arung jeram yaitu menganggap bahwa organisasi sebagai rakit kecil yang berjalan di sungai berarus deras. Perubahan organisasi di

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 aliran arus deras memiliki anggapan bahwa perubahan selalu terjadi di lingkungan yang dinamis, bahwa kepastian itu adalah ketidak pastian, sehingga seorang manajer harus cepat tanggap terhapad hal yang tidak diperkirakan sebelumnya.

Proses perubahan organisasi menurut Kurt Lewin terdiri dari tiga proses yaitu unfreezing, implementasi perubahan dan refreezing. Hal ini untuk mengantisipasi berbaga hambatan perubahan seseorang yang terdiri dari kekhawatiran seseorang akan kehilangan nilai, kekhawatiran ketidaktahuan dan adanya keyakinan bahwa berubah tidak baik untuk organisasi. Hal ini akan memunculkan halangan dalam proses pemberdayaan.

Sebuah contoh model rencana perubahan organisasi sebagaimana di adopsi dari Larry Short, “Planned Organizational Change,” MSU Business

Topics, Autumn 1973, pp. 53–61 ed. Theodore Herbert, Organizational

Behavior: Readings and Cases (New York: McMillan, 1976), p. 351.

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Pendekatan Kontinjensi dan proses

Pendekatan kontinjensi adalah sebuah proses dalam manajemen perubahan meyakini bahwa ada satu cara terbaik dalam melakukan perubahan organisasi. Tipe perubahan atau cara perubahan dianggap bervariasi tergantung pada tantangan yang dihadapi misalnya adalah skala perubahan yang menjadi tujuan, tingkat penerimaan perubahan bagi anggota organisasi, tipe manajemen perubahan, waktu yang dibutuhkan dan kinerja organisasi. Pendekatan kontinjensi menurut Huy dikatagorikan menjadi perintah intervensi seperti perubahan harus dilakukan dalam jangka pendek dan cepat, dilakukan oleh eksekutif senior, dilakukan dengan caraPerampingan, outsourcing, atau divestasi. Kategori kedua adalah rekayasa intervensi seperti bahwa perubahan dilakukan dalam jangka menengah dan relatif cepat, memerlukan analisa, dan bertujuan untuk mengubah desain kerja dan sistem operasional. Sedangkan kategori ketiga adalah pengajaran intervensi yaitu perubahan dilakukan dalam jangka panjang dan bertahap, membutuhkan konsultan, dan merubah praktek kerja dan perilaku. Kategori keempat adalah sosialisasi intervensi yaitu perubahan jangka panjang dan bertahap, dilakukan dengan pelibatan pengalaman belaja

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 dan pemantauan diri, serta dilakukan dengan praktek organisasi yang demokratis.

Sedangkan pendekatan proses adalah melihat perubahan sebagai sebuah proses yang berkelanjutan bukan sekedar rangkaian aktivitas yang linier dalam waktu tertentu. Pendekatan proses menganggap bahwa hasil dari perubahan sebagai terjadi melalui interaksi yang rumit dari berbagai kelompok kepentingan, tujuan, dan politik. Pendekatan ini mengingatkan manajer perubahan ke berbagai pengaruh yang mereka akan hadapi dan mengingatkan manajer perubahan bahwa cara di akan menyebabkan hasil perubahan tertentu saja yang dapat dicapai. Pendekatan ini sering digunakan untuk mendapatkan analisa dan pemahaman yang mendalam dari sebuah perencanaan.

Menghubungkan Visi dan Perubahan

Memiliki visi sering dikaitkan mengapa perubahan organisasi berhasil mencapai tujuannya. Sebaliknya, kehilangan visi sering dikaitkan dengan kegagalan organisasi. Peran visi dalam memproduksi perubahan organisasi ini terkait dengan citra seseorang mengelola perubahan. Visi umumnya dianggap sebagai panduan bagi organisasi dalam mengidentifikasi kelayakan perubahan tertentu yang ditargetkan.

Dalam proses perubahan ada beberapa perbedaan memandang hubungan visi dan perubahan yaitu apalah visi akan mendorong perubahan atau bermanfaat dalam perubahan? Apakah visi dapat membantu atau justru menghalangi perubahan? Apakah visi digunakan sebagai atribut untuk kegagahan bagi para pemimpin atau organisasi.

Artikel pendukung implementasi perubahan diantaranya adalah:

1. Parker, D., Charlton, J., Ribeiro, A., & Pathak, R. D. (2013). Integration of project-based management and change management: Intervention

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Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 methodology. International Journal of Productivity and Performance

Management, 62(5), 534-544.

2. Parker, D., Verlinden, A., Nussey, R., Ford, M., & Pathak, R. D. (2013).



3. Osibanjo, O. A., Adeniji, A. A., & Abiodun, J. A. (2013). Organizational



Management, 8(2).


1(1), 13-26.

5. Fusilier, M., & Munro, D. (2013). Enterprising Versus Traditional Change

Management in a For-Profit University.

6. Samuel, K. (2013). THE EFFECTS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN AN


RWANDA (NUR).

7. Gandomani, T. J., Zulzalil, H., Ghani, A. A. A., & Sultan, A. B. M. (2013).



8. S Basamh, S., Huq, M., Dahlan, A., & Rahman, A. (2013). Empirical research on project implementation success and change management practices in Malaysian Government-Linked Companies (GLCs).

International Journal of Information and Communication Technology

Research, 3(5), 714-180.

9. Slattery, J. (2013). Change Management. Journal of Strategic Leadership,

4(2), 1-5.

29


10. Naeem, A., Khan, M. F. A., Orakzai, H., Shah, D., & Hussain, S. T. (2013).

Change Management Process And Activities Impacts On Organizational

Performance: A Case In Perspective Of Organizational Culture. Far East

Journal of Psychology and Business, 10(2), 10-24.

11. Husain and Khan, 2010, Clarifying spiritual values among organizational development personnel, African Journal of Business Management Vol.4

(2), pp. 278-281

12. Knoff, 2009, Best Practices in Strategic Planning, Organizational

Development, and School Effectiveness, pp 1-33

13. Hermundsgard and Hansson, 2010, Assessment of HSE aspects by employees’ participation in organizational development processes:” What you ask is what you get

14. Korsvold, Hansson, and Lauvness, 2010, Job satisfaction and extensive participation processes in organizational development-A case study from the Norwegian petroleum industry

Soal Latihan

1. Sebutkan dan jelaskan hal-hal yang sering dianggap sulit dalam proses implementasi perubahan organisasi

2. Bagaimana anda menjelaskan hubungan visi organisasi dan proses perubahan yang anda lakukan terhadap karyawan tingkat bawah?

3. Jika dalam organisasi anda ada seorang atau sekelompok karyawan yang selalu berfikiran bertentangan dan negative terhadap anda, apa sikap anda terhadap mereka dalam proses perubahan organisasi yang anda lakukan.

30


BAB 6 KOMUNIKASI DALAM PERUBAHAN

Beragam tujuan dalam penitian bidang SDM menuntut peneliti untuk menjelaskan hasil dari penelitiannya baik secara teoritis, empiris, maupun praktis. Sehingga hasil dari analisis penelitian dapat difahami secara deskriptif oleh pengguna. Secara umum peneliti berusaha untuk menjelaskan mengapa hasil dari penelitiannya menunjukkan suatu nilai dan signifikansi tertentu. Oleh karena itu peneliti perlu memperkuat hasil temuannya dengan penjelasan penelitian sebelumnya sebagai dasar empiris, dan menjelaskan fenomena lapangan dari obyek penelitian yang dilakukan.

Strategi Komunikasi

Dalam mengelola perubahan strategi mengelola komunikasi sangat penting dalam rangka mencapai target perubahan. Manajemen komunikasi adalah perencanaan yang sistematis, pelaksanaan, pemantauan, dan revisi semua saluran komunikasi dalam sebuah organisasi, dan antara organisasi; juga termasuk organisasi dan penyebaran arahan komunikasi baru yang berhubungan dengan organisasi, jaringan, atau teknologi komunikasi. Aspek manajemen komunikasi meliputi pengembangan strategi komunikasi perusahaan, merancang arahan komunikasi internal dan eksternal, dan mengelola arus informasi, termasuk komunikasi online. Teknologi baru memaksa inovasi terus-menerus pada bagian dari manajer komunikasi.

Sebagai manajer, kita harus mengambil pendekatan kontingensi untuk berkomunikasi dengan karyawan mereka dan berkomunikasi secara pribadi.

Itu tanggung jawab manajer untuk menentukan apakah kepribadian karyawan mereka berada di bawah berikut: Reaktor, gila kerja, Persisters, Dreamers,

Pemberontak, atau Promotor

Strategi komunikasi merupakan salah satu cara untuk memastikan bahwa proses komunikasi yang dilakukan sesuai dengan tujuan komunikasi

31

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 dan target obyek komunikasi. Dalam komunikasi sosial proses dialog ada tuntutan bahwa masyarakat sendiri yang akan mendefinisikan siapa mereka, apa yang mereka butuhkan, dan bagaimana mereka akan bekerja sama untuk mendapatkan apa yang mereka inginkan dan butuhkan untuk memperbaiki kehidupan mereka dan komunitas mereka. Oleh karena itu keberhasilan dalam komunikasi dapat dicapai melalui keterlibatan yang berarti dari para pemangku kepentingan utama suara begitu lokal didengar dan ditindaklanjuti. Dalam strategi komunikasi, praktek taktik komunikasi perlu dibedakan untuk tiap fase perubahan organisasi yang berbeda sehingga akan memiliki dampak penting pada tingkat penerimaan dari perubahan anggota organisasi. Dengan berpedoman pada prinsip-prinsip komunikasi yang efektif , penerapan strategi komunikasi akan memberikan efek yang tepat pada beberapa tahapan perubahan organisasi. Sehingga pihak-pihak yang terlibat perlu memperhatikan strategi komunikasi dalam tahap sosialisasi perubahan, dalam menciptakan keterlibatan anggota organisasi, dan menghasilkan perbedaan dalam proses perubahan.

Dalam manajemen perubahan komunkasi dilakukan dan diawali dengan perencanaan proyek perubahan, dilakukan diawal bukan diakhir, dan berisi muatan anggaran. Proses komunikasi ini harus didasari oleh pemikiran analisis, fokus pada gambaran besar perubahan, pelibatan berbagai saluran komunikasi, dan menentukan pemangku kepentingan kunci. Beberapa elemen kunci dari komunikasi dalam strategi komunikasi manajemen perubahan adalah terkait dengan konteks perubahan dan komunikasinya, pertimbangan strategis perubahan dan komunikasinya, tujuan perubahan dan komunikasinya, sasaran perubahan dan obyek komunikasi, pesan perubahan dan bahasa komunikasiny, taktik dan alat-alat manajemen perubahan, dan evaluasi proses komunikasi perubahan yang dilakukan.

Cakupan komunikasi yang dilakukan dalam manajemen perubahan diantaranya adalah terkait dengan konteks perubahan, kondisi ekonomi, sosial, dan lingkungan politik, Media observasi, tren opini publik, konteks

32

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 historis, dan budaya dan tujuan perusahaan. Oleh karena itu dalam komunikasi ini strategi yang dipertimbangkan diantaranya adalah mengantisipasi perubahan yang akan dilakukan, analisa resiko dan melakukan analisa SWOT. Misalnya dengan cara penentuan tujuan dengan jelas, dan cerdas, realistis, dan berusaha tidak melakukan langkah mundur.

Perlu diperhatikan juga obyek komunikasi yang perlu menimbang target peserta, dengan siapa kita perlu bicara, memulai dengan yang terbatas/lokal kemudian dilanjutkan yang lebih luas/global, serta memahami siapa audience yang diajak bicara. Untuk itu pesan yang disampaikan harus dikemas dengan meninjau ulang tujuan, siapkan riga sampai lima pesan/kata kunci, ringkas dan sederhana, dan pesan yang melengket. Taktik dan alat komunikasi yang digunakan harus sesuai dengan tujuan, selaras dengan audience, dan bersifat jangka pendek dan jangka panjang.

Kemampuan komunikasi perubahan

Seorang komunikator harus memiliki empat keterampilan kunci untuk berkomunikasi antara lain memiliki kemampuan untuk:

• Mendengarkan: Ada empat jenis keterampilan mendengarkan yaitu menangguhkan penilaian, mengidentifikasi asumsi, mendengarkan untuk belajar, dan refleksi. (Gerard & Teurfs, 1997)

• Bercerita: Ini adalah cara yang efektif untuk membantu karyawan belajar dari perubahan masa lalu & memberikan gambaran masa depan.

• Lebih busa menjual perubahan: menjual isu adalah cara untuk mendapatkan perhatian dari manajemen senior bahwa perubahan harus dimulai dari bawah.

• Penanganan masalah: beberapa orang dalam organisasi mengambil peran menangani problem dari proses perubahan dan menyerap ini

33

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 sebagai cara untuk melindungi orang lain dari dampak negatif perubahan.

(Frost & Robinson, 1999)

Komunikasi perubahan harus dilakukan dengan cara yang berbeda untuk berbagai tahap proses perubahan. Ada empat jenis percakapan menurut Ford & Ford (1995)

• Percakapan Initiative: yaitu untuk menarik perhatian tentang perlunya perubahan.

• Percakapan untuk memahami: ini mengkomunikasikan jenis perubahan yang dibutuhkan dan memungkinkan untuk memberikan penghargaan yang lebih besar atas perubahan.

• Percakapan untuk kinerja: ini berfokus pada perubahan yang diinginkan dan bagaimana cara kemajuan perubahan dapat dipantau.

• Percakapan penutupan: ini sinyal akhir perubahan

Perubahan berkelanjutan

Setelah diimplementasikan, perubahan tidak selalu berjalan lancar dalam sebuah organisasi. Kemampuan untuk membuat perubahan menunjukkan keberhasilan jangka panjang dari perubahan. Sehingga ada beberapa tindakan yang dapat membantu mempertahankan perubahan.

Untuk mempertahankan proses perubahan perlu dilakukan beberapa hal seperti :

• Mendesain ulang peran: Ini adalah hasil yang umum dari sebuah perubahan dan merupakan tanda bahwa perubahan adalah cukup penting.

• Merancang ulang sistem penghargaan: sistem penghargaan merupakan bagian dari budaya, dan mengubah sistem penghargaan adalah cara yang secara langsung mempengaruhi nilai-nilai inti organisasi.

34


• Menghubungkan jaringan keputusan untuk mengubah tujuan: Kriteria seleksi adalah simbol dari apakah hal ini mendorong ide-ide baru dan perubahan

• Bertindak secara konsisten: Ini menunjukkan ketetapan perubahan melalui praktik adopsi dan prioritas.

• Mendorong inisiatif tindakan sukarela yang merupakan akativitas yang didorong oleh norma di semua tingkatan organisasi.

• Mengukur kemajuan: Tindakan yang digunakan sebagai alat untuk mengukur kemajuan perubahan dan menunjukkan ketercapaian tujuan perubaban.

• Rayakan keberhasilan yang dapat mendorong semua yang terlibat dalam perubahan untuk meningkatkan kredibilitas program.

• Menyempurnakan: Program Perubahan harus terbuka untuk dimodifikasi untuk meningkatkan hasil perubahan.

Artikel pendukung Komunikasi perubahan diantaranya adalah:


1(1), 13-26.

2. Khattak, A. M., Latif, K., & Lee, S. (2013). Change management in evolving web ontologies. Knowledge-Based Systems, 37, 1-18.

3. Dunne, M. J., & Mujtaba, B. G. (2013). Employee Engagement and

Change Management Programmes: a Comparative Study of

Organisational Commitment between Thai and Irish Cultures. International

Affairs and Global Strategy, 9, 1-22.

4. Naeem, A., Khan, M. F. A., Orakzai, H., Shah, D., & Hussain, S. T. (2013).


35




5. Husain and Khan, 2010, Clarifying spiritual values among organizational development personnel, African Journal of Business Management Vol.4

(2), pp. 278-281

6. Knoff, 2009, Best Practices in Strategic Planning, Organizational


7. Mereles, Montoya, Lane and Dandy, 2009, Customer service in

Organizational Development, Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing

Studies, Volume 14, Number 2

8. Hermundsgard and Hansson, 2010, Assessment of HSE aspects by employees’ participation in organizational development processes:” What you ask is what you get

9. Korsvold, Hansson, and Lauvness, 2010, Job satisfaction and extensive participation processes in organizational development-A case study from the Norwegian petroleum industry

10. Ramos and Chesler, 2010, Reflections on a Cross-Cultural Partnership in

Multicultural Organizational Development Efforts, OD PRACTITIONER

Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 4-9

Soal Latihan

1. Jika anda seorang manajer SDM, Sebutkan dan jelaskan perbedaan sarana yang paling efektif dalam mengkomunikasikan perubahan pada staff top manajemen, middle manajemen, dan technical staff di perusahaan anda.

2. Sebutkan faktor apa saja yang peling perbengaruh untuk menggaransi prosea perubahan yang berkelanjutan di perusahaan yang anda pimpin. Jelaskan dan sertakan contoh-contohnya

36


3. Kadang proses perubahan perlu manjadi rahasis perusahaan, namun juga sering dituntut untuk diketahui oleh public. Sebutkan dan jelaskan batasan-btasan informasi-informasi yang bisa diakses oleh public dalam proses perubahan di perusahaan anda.

37


REFERENSI

Carpinetti, L. C., & Lima, R. H. (2013). Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model. International Journal of Production Management and

Engineering, 1(1), 13-26.

Dibrata, W. D. J., & Murahartawaty, W. P. (2013). USULAN MANAJEMEN

PERUBAHAN PADA TELKOM UNIVERSITY DENGAN

MENGGUNAKAN MODEL PERUBAHAN ADKAR. USULAN

MANAJEMEN PERUBAHAN PADA TELKOM UNIVERSITY DENGAN

MENGGUNAKAN MODEL PERUBAHAN ADKAR.

Dunne, M. J., & Mujtaba, B. G. (2013). Employee Engagement and Change

Management Programmes: a Comparative Study of Organisational

Commitment between Thai and Irish Cultures. International Affairs and

Global Strategy, 9, 1-22.

Faisal, M. Evaluasi Kinerja Manajemen Perubahan (melalui breakthrough innovation) Jasa Pendidikan Serta Pengaruhnya terhadap Stakeholders.

Fusilier, M., & Munro, D. (2013). Enterprising Versus Traditional Change

Management in a For-Profit University.

Gandomani, T. J., Zulzalil, H., Ghani, A. A. A., & Sultan, A. B. M. (2013).



Griffin, M. A., Neal, A., & Parker, S. K. (2007). The new model of work role performance: Positive behavior in uncertain and interdependent contexts. Academy ofManagement Journal,50, 327–347

Hermundsgard and Hansson, 2010, Assessment of HSE aspects by employees’ participation in organizational development processes:”

What you ask is what you get

Husain and Khan, 2010, Clarifying spiritual values among organizational development personnel, African Journal of Business Management Vol.4

(2), pp. 278-281

Karakas 2009 New Paradigms in Organizational Development in the 21st

Century: Positivity, Spirituality, and Complexity, Organization

Development Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 11-27

Khattak, A. M., Latif, K., & Lee, S. (2013). Change management in evolving web ontologies. Knowledge-Based Systems, 37, 1-18.

Knoff, 2009, Best Practices in Strategic Planning, Organizational


Korsvold, Hansson, and Lauvness, 2010, Job satisfaction and extensive participation processes in organizational development-A case study from the Norwegian petroleum industry

38


Kramer, J., & Magee, J. (1990). The evolving philosophers problem: Dynamic change management. Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on,

16(11), 1293-1306.

Mereles, Montoya, Lane and Dandy, 2009, Customer service in

Organizational Development, Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing

Studies, Volume 14, Number 2

Naeem, A., Khan, M. F. A., Orakzai, H., Shah, D., & Hussain, S. T. (2013).




Osibanjo, O. A., Adeniji, A. A., & Abiodun, J. A. (2013). Organizational



Management, 8(2).

Parish, J. T., Cadwallader, S., & Busch, P. (2008). Want to, need to, ought to: employee commitment to organizational change. Journal of

Organizational Change Management, 21(1), 32-52.

Parker, D., Charlton, J., Ribeiro, A., & Pathak, R. D. (2013). Integration of project-based management and change management: Intervention methodology. International Journal of Productivity and Performance

Management, 62(5), 534-544.

Parker, D., Verlinden, A., Nussey, R., Ford, M., & Pathak, R. D. (2013).



Pearce, C. L., & Sims Jr, H. P. (2002). Vertical versus shared leadership as predictors of the effectiveness of change management teams: An examination of aversive, directive, transactional, transformational, and empowering leader behaviors. Group dynamics: Theory, research, and practice, 6(2), 172.

Ramos and Chesler, 2010, Reflections on a Cross-Cultural Partnership in

Multicultural Organizational Development Efforts, OD PRACTITIONER

Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 4-9

S Basamh, S., Huq, M., Dahlan, A., & Rahman, A. (2013). Empirical research on project implementation success and change management practices in Malaysian Government-Linked Companies (GLCs). International

Journal of Information and Communication Technology Research, 3(5),

714-180.

Samuel, K. (2013). THE EFFECTS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN AN


RWANDA (NUR).

Sari, F. M., & Ibrahim, M. (2013). PENERAPAN MANAJEMEN PERUBAHAN

DAN INOVASI. Jurnal Administrasi Pembangunan, 2(2), 161-164.

39


Shaw, G. B., Drucker, P. F., & Senge, P. M. (2013). Challenges in Change

Management in Central Banks. Journal of Central Banking Theory and

Practice, 1, 35-49.

Slattery, J. (2013). Change Management. Journal of Strategic Leadership,

4(2), 1-5.

Van der Voet, J. (2013). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal.

Wanberg, C. R., & Banas, J. T. (2000). Predictors and Outcomes of

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Psychology, 85(1), 132-142.

40


SILABI

A.

Wajib: a.

Palmer, I., Dunford, R dan Akin, G (2009), Managing organizational change 2nd edition, McGrawHill

B.

Pendukung: a.

Indartono (2014) Modul Mata Kuliah: Change Management b.

Senior and Swailes (2010), Organizational change 4th edition,

Prentice Hall c.

Cumming, T, 2006, Organizational Development and change, 8th edition, Prentice Hall

EVALUASI

No

1.

Komponen Evaluasi

Partisipasi Kuliah

2. Tugas-tugas

3.

4.

Ujian Tengah Semester

Ujian Akhir Semester

Jumlah

Bobot (%)

20

30

20

30

100

41


CURRICULUM VITAE

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D

Lahir di Purwokwero, 20 juli 1972. Menyelesaikan studi SD hingga SMA di Banjarnegara Jawa Tengah.

Kemudian melanjutkan studi S1 di Teknis Sipil

Universitas Gadjahmada dan S2 di Magister

Manajemen di Universitas yang sama, Sedang S3 di dapatkan dari National Central University Taiwan.

Pernah bekerja di PT Freeport Indonesia sebagai senior fasilitator/trainer, kemudian Direktur Umum dan

Keuangan Rumah Sakit PKU Muhammadiyyah

Bantul. Menjadi Direktur Cabang LMT Trustco sejak

1998. Kemudian menjadi Staf Pengajar/Dosen

Manajeman di Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta.

Beberapa buku dan modul yang pernah ditulis adalah:

1. Steel Structure Design of PT FI apartments with Staad III Software

(1995),

2. Construction Management of PT FI (1997),

3. Justice Party direct Selling (2000),

4. Management Behavior : Mentoring as Solution (2000), Business

Research Method: Memory Research (2000),

5. Yogyakarta Islamic Hospital: Managing Performance (2000),

6. Yayasan Bina Sehat: Organization Change and Developmet as a priority need (2000),

7. Human Resource Management: Sociaty central health Bantul

Yogyakarta (2000),

8. Organization Design of Region Directorate of Justice Party of

Yogyakarta (2000),

9. PT KPI Tembagapura Compensation applications (2000),

10. SWOT (2003),

11. Advance SWOT (2003),

12. Modul TFT Trustco (2004),

13. Leadership (2005),

14. Training For Beginer (2005),

15. Smart Trainer (2005),

16. Strategic trainer (2005),

17. Marketing Advance (UNY, 2005),

18. Lembaga Keuangan (UNY, 2005),

19. praktikum Perkuliahan Operation Research (UNY, 2009),

42


20. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Metode Penelitian Bisnis (2009)

21. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Perilaku Organisasi (2010)

22. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Teknik Proyeksi Bisnis (2010)

23. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Metodologi Riset SDM (2011)

24. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Manajemen Perubahan (2011)

25. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Pengantar Manajemen (2012)

26. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Strategic Human Resourches Management

(2012)

27. Bahan Ajar Perkuliahan Manajemen Konflik (2013)

28. Panduan praktikum Perkuliahan Operation Research (UNY, 2013),

29. Buku Teks Conflict management (2014)

30. Buku Teks Management: Character Inside

Journal Publication

1. Indartono & chen, 2008, Glocalization of Personal Ethical Threshold,

Journal of Education, Vol. 1. No. 1, pg. 39

2. Indartono & chen, 2008, Perception of direct and indirect compensations fulfillment on hazardous work environment The relationship with age, tenure, employee’s rank and work status, Jurnal Siasat Bisnis, Vol. 12

No.1, pg. 13

3. Indartono, Chou & chen, 2008, The Knowledge Characteriscs Work

Design Analysis of Job Fit Influence on Role Performance, Journal of

Human Capital, Vol 1 No 1 pg. 81

4. Indartono, 2008, Pengaruh personal job fit terhadap hubungan desain kerja dan kinerja pengajar, Jurnal Humaniora, Vol. 13 no. 2, pg. 33

5. Indartono et al, 2009, The knowledge characteristics work design:

Analysis of job fit influence on role performance, Usahawan, No. 01 vol.

38, pg. 33

6. Indartono & chen, 2009, Articulating strategic human resources management: Concept perspective to practice of managing human resources, Journal of Human Capital, Vol 1 No 3., pg.227

7. Indartono , 2009, Contribution of different organizational politics perceptions: Study on interaction among perception organizational politics, performance and trust on the role of compensation, Integritas

Jurnal Manajemen Bisnis, Vol 2 no 1., pg 13

8. Indartono, 2009, Mediation effect of trust on the relationship between perception of organization politics and commitment, Jurnal Administrasi

Bisnis, Vol. 5 no. 2., pg.160

9. Indartono, 2009, Different effect of Task Characteristics requirement on

Job satisfaction: Gender analysis of teacher occupation on WDQ, Jurnal

Ekonomika Madani,Vol 1, no. 2., pg.20

10. Indartono, Setyabudi and Vivian Chen, Chun-Hsi , 2010, Moderation of

Gender on the relationship between task characteristics and performance,

43


International Journal of Organizational Innovation (IJOI), Vol. 2, no 4, Pg.

195-223

11. Indartono, Setyabudi; Chiou, Hawjeng; Vivian Chen, Chun-Hsi, 2010 The

Joint Moderating Impact of Personal Job Fit and Servant Leadership on the Relationship between the Task Characteristics of Job Design and

Performance, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in

Business,Vol 2, No 8, pg 42-61

12. Indartono, Setyabudi and Vivian Chen, Chun-Hsi , 2011, Moderating

Effects of Tenure and Gender on the Relationship between Perception of

Organizational Politics and Commitment and Trust, South Asian Journal of

Management, Vol18, no1. Pg.7-36

13. Vivian Chen, Chun-Hsi and Indartono, Setyabudi, 2011, Study of commitment antecedents: The dynamic point of view, Journal of Business

Ethics, Vol. 103, No.4 , Pg.529-541 (IF2010: 1.125)

14. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2011, The Effect of E-Learning on Character

Building: Proposition for Organizational Behavior Course, Jurnal

Pendidikan Karakter, Vol 1, No. 1, pp.59-73

15. Indartono, Setyabudi; Nafiuddin, Yajid; Sakti K., Lingga; and Praja R. Ega,

2012, Different Perception of Gender on Workplace Spirituality: Case on

School Environment, Online Journal of Education Research, Volume 1,

Issue 4, Pages: 73-79

16. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2013, Strategic Thinking Concept among Middle

Manager, Jurnal Universitas Paramadina Vol. 10 No. 2, Pg 720-728

17. Indartono, Setyabudi and Zulaikhah, Siti, 2013, Moderation Effect of

Gender on Workplace Spirituality and Commitment Relationship, Asean

Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 2 No. 3, Pg 1-17

18. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2013, reconsidering organizational commitment construct: empirical test of acceptance band, Journal of Business,

Economics and Political Science, Vol.2, No.4, Pg. 57-74

Conference Proceeding

1. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2009, Measuring the behavior of individual and group performance: Hierarchical linier modeling approach”, proceeding

“Doctoral Program National Qolloquium” Gadjahmada University

Indonesia

2. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2010, from statisc to dynamic perspective of behavior: case of organizational commitment”, proceeding “the First

Annual Indonesia Scholars Conference in Taiwan: improving nation competitiveness by strengthening and accelerating independent reseearch”, Vol. 1 no. 1, Tainan Taiwan

3. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2011, “Effect of Servant Leadership on Knowledge characteristics”, proceeding “the Second Annual Indonesia Scholars

Conference in Taiwan: Becoming “Asian Tiger” through modern agriculture-based Industry : revitalization and modernization of education,

44

Setyabudi Indartono, Ph.D 2014 technology, economy, and investment climate in agricultural sector, Vol. 2. no. 1, Taichung Taiwan

4. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2011, Acceptance and Tolerance Limit Phenomena: an Empirical Approach, proceeding “International Sustainability Forum on

Islamic Economic and Business, Universitas Lambung Mangkurat

Indonesia

5. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2012, Reformatting Knowledge and Science Theory

Building: Transcendental Point of View, proceeding “the Third Annual

Indonesia Scholars Conference in Taiwan: Acceleration and Development of Information and Communication Technology Research basd on

Demand: Improving Sustainable Synergy of Academycs, Industry, and

Government, Vol. 1.No. 1, Hsinchu Taiwan

6. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2012, Desain Kerja untuk Staf pengajar untuk mencapai Kesesuaian dan Kepuasan Kerja, proceeding “ Konvensi

Nasional Pendidikan Indonesia VII 2012, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta,

Indonesia

7. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2013, Empirical test of acceptance band and tolerance limit of commitment, Proceeding “International Turgut Ozal

Congress on Business, Economics and Political Science”, Turgut Ozal

University, Ankara Turkey

8. Indartono, Setyabudi, 2014, Study of Commitment Antecedent, “ Seminar

Internasional: th”,a Indonesia Labor Ecoomic Development toward the implementaion of AFTA and AEC 2015″ Yogyakarta State University

Membership and Activities

1. Member of Forum Dosen Ekonomi dan Bisnis Islam (FORDEBI) 2011-now

2. Secreatry of board, Indonesia Committee for Science and Technology

Transfer in Taiwan (IC3T), 2010-now

3. Member of Editorial Board of International Journal of Commerce &

Accounting Research (IJCAR), 2011-now

4. Member of Editorial Board of Journal of Arts Science & Commerce

Research (RW-JASCR) , 2011-now

5. Member of Editorial Board of Asian Journal of Business Ethics (AJBE) ,

2012-now

6. Member of Editorial Board of International Journal of Organizational

Analysis (IJOA) , 2012-now

7. Coordinator of Development Division of Economic Faculty, Yogyakarta

State University, 2011-now

8. Member of Research Devision of Economic Faculty, Yogyakarta State

University, 2011-now

Tinggal dengan seorang Istri, dr. Yayuk Soraya, AAK, dan tiga anak lakilakinya, Aiman Hilmi Asaduddin (1999), Rofiq Wafi’ Muhammad (2001), dan

45


Muhammad Kaisan Haedar (2004) di Jl Arwana No 7 Minomartani.

Setyabudi_Indartono@uny.ac.id

46

Integration of project-based management and change management: Intervention methodology

1 #

Parker, D.W.,

1

Charlton, J.,

1

Ribeiro, A.,

2

Pathak, R.D.

1

The University of Queensland Business School, Queensland 4072 Australia.

2

The Graduate School of Business, The University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji.

David Parker is a senior lecturer with a research focus in project-based management. He is a senior lecturer in the Strategy Group at UQ Business School. He has taught and carried out research in India, PNG, Fiji, Cook

Islands, China and Europe. d.parker@business.uq.edu.au

Joshua Charlton is a postgraduate researcher in project management. Josh seeks to apply the skills and knowledge gained through research as a professional project manager and consultant. joshcharlton@gmail.com

Ana Ribeiro is a postdoctoral student. She worked on change management in Brazil at Dataprev, a social security company of Brazil Government; and did 6 months internship in planning and control at Vale Australia, a mining company located in Brisbane, Australia. Ana.ribeiromvilar@uconnect.edu.au

Raghuvar D. Pathak is Head of the Graduate School of Business and Director of MBA programme at the

University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji. He has more than 25 years of postgraduate (MBA) teaching experience and has published numerous research-based papers. Raghuvar.pathak@usp.ac.fj

1

Corresponding author: d.parker@business.uq.edu.au

Integration of project-based management and change management:

Intervention methodology

Abstract

The successful management of change using a project-based intervention is crucial for any organization to succeed in the highly competitive and continuously evolving global business environment. Whilst a number of theories of change management are widely accepted, literature suggests they are falling short of their endeavors as a result of the theories lacking a useful framework to successfully plan, implement and manage change. This article critically argues the value of project-based management in the change management process with particular focus on PRINCE2 and PMBoK. As such, change management can be considered a project and utilize project-based processes to successfully implement change.

Keywords: Change management, project management, project processes, change models,

PMBoK, PRINCE2

1.0. Introduction

Demand from the business field for change management (CM) literature and techniques is increasing as managers seek new processes and tools for implementing a perfect change

(Paton & McCalman, 2008). Many managers are in awe over the reported failure rates for change initiatives as high as 70 per cent (Balogun and Hope Hailey, 2004).

CM is considered a broad theme encapsulating such terms as total quality management, reengineering, rightsizing, restructuring, cultural change, and business turnaround; amongst others. No matter what term is used to describe the management of the change, the

underlying objective is to make fundamental improvement in how business is undertaken in order to meet the demands of a changing market environment (Kotter, 2007). Kotter (1990) stresses the importance of change management as a process and not a single event, and that change management emphasizes change advances through stages.

This concept of CM as a process is reinforced in a definition, describing it as “a process of continually renewing organisations direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever changing needs of external and internal customers” (Moran and Brightman, 2001, p. 111).

This view is shared across the majority of accepted CM models in use today, which identify

CM as either a process or set of steps. It should be noted however , the sequence of actions an organisation should apply to accomplish change initiatives can be quite abstract and hard to apply (Bridges, 1991). Below is a brief summary of key authors that explore CM and are able to offer a “more practical guidance to managers” (Todnem, 2005, p. 375) in regards to implementing change initiatives. These models will be utilized as a platform for demonstrating the usefulness of integrating project-based processes into an organisational change project.

Kanter (1992) proposes the Ten Commandments for Executing Change – see table 1. Kanter argues that analyzing the organisation and its need for change is the first step in the change process, followed by the creation of a common vision and direction. From this point, separating the organisation from the past should be undertaken and to create a sense of urgency . In this model, to establish strong leadership and political sponsorship are also crucial steps prior to crafting the implementation plan. It is then important to develop enabling structures, followed by communicating, involving people and being transparent. The final step is to institutionalize change (Kanter, 1992).

The second notable CM model is Kotter`s Eight-Stage Process for Successful Organisational

Transformation (1996). This process commences with the need for stating a sense of urgency

and creating a guiding coalition. Communicating a vision and strategy is the next process followed by developing a broad-based action plan to empower those involved. The next process involves generating short-term wins which can be celebrated to enhance motivation.

In Kotter’s (1996) model, consolidating gains prior to progressing to produce more change is required so the final process of anchoring new approaches in the culture can be achieved.

The third CM model is Luecke`s Seven Steps (2003) which commences by recommending mobilizing energy and commitment through joint identification of business problems and their solutions. Next is developing a shared vision of how to organize and manage for competiveness. Leadership should be identified to guide teams towards results. This model espouses starting change at the periphery and not letting it spread throughout the organisation without it being directed from the top. Once results are achieved, changes should be formalized into policies, systems and structures. Whilst the process of change is being implemented, Luecke (2003) highlights the importance of monitoring and adapting strategies to address any issues encountered in the change process.

It can therefore be argued that CM is the utilization of processes to control an organisational change effort. Whilst the CM literature articulates processes for managing change, these are largely focused on the people-issues (‘soft’) of change to achieve the required business outcomes.

2.0. Managing Change in a Changing Environment

From a historic perspective, emphasis on CM has developed progressively over the last 50 years, after initially being mistrusted (Turner, 2009). The reasoning for this undervaluing has been attributed to the necessity of stability and certainty for highly structured businesses to operate. However, mass production in the 1960s followed by rapid changes in technology, and the integration of global business, has demanded these highly-structured organisations

change or be left behind (Turner, 2009). It is argued that winners are the ones able to respond better to “the conditions actually encountered” (Turner, 2009, p. 24). As external change is not under control of the organisation, an understanding of the processes of change combined with tools and techniques can be regarded as an approach to tackle changing business reality.

Hughes (2007) stresses that academics developing mainstream CM theory, have not prioritized on adequate tools and techniques to apply in the dynamic business environment.

Such tools and techniques may vary, but there is a tendency to utilize models from (Kotter,

Kanter, Luecke, ibid) . However, even these models fail to a degree in clearly interpreting the techniques or tools to accomplish each step.

One could argue this shortfall in appropriate tools and techniques would be a significant challenge to implementing change initiatives, and quite possibly is related to the significant failure rate of interventions to bring about change.

Hughes (2007) points out some possible reasons for the academic negligence towards CM tools and techniques, starting from the lack of a common definition of what would be a CM tool. Conversely, there appears to be a need for building a framework of what is meant by

CM practice. This could be achieved by developing a body of knowledge for the CM field similar to that of the Project Management Body of Knowledge for professional project managers. Furthermore, expanding the applicability of change management to improve its effectiveness in implementation could strengthen the CM identity. Baca (2005, p.4), for example, considers CM by its applicability: “change management is just that – a tool that you use to manage change”. In addition, Baca (ibid, p. 4) associates CM to “an integral part of the generally accepted principles covered in the PMBOK Guide (PMI, 2004)” and in this sense she reduces CM to a practical tool.

3.0. Project-based Management

The desire and necessity to keep pace with the changing business environment has caused many companies to shift from being operations-focused to being project-driven (Jarocki,

2011). Turner (2009) argues that continuous change in organisations nowadays requires project-oriented management as the control and monitor model is no longer sufficient for businesses to maintain a competitive framework. Instead of attempting to guarantee a stable environment to operate, companies seek tools that enable them to maintain the required flexibility and adaptability they need to answer in a timely manner to the market’s volatility and changing environment.

Approximately thirty per cent of the global economy now utilizes project-based management

(Anbari et al, 2008), which underscores the continual creation of temporary project-based endeavours that are becoming more common and valued by organisations. Whilst there are an abundance of definitions of the term ‘project’,

The Definition Guide to Project Management by Sebastian Nokes (2007, p.17) defines a project as “a temporary endeavour, having a defined beginning and end (usually constrained by date, but can be by funding or deliverables) undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, usually to bring about beneficial change or added value”. Of particular interest within this definition is the concluding statement: to bring about beneficial change or added value .

Clearly, projects are invariably initiated to bring about change.

The Project Management Institute describes a project within the Guide to Project

Management Body of Knowledge (PMI, 2008, p.26) as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result”.

The UK Government developed PRINCE2 (OGC, 2005, p.21) has two definitions of a project which are largely aligned with the PMBoK definition, namely: “a management environment that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a

specified business case”; and “a temporary organisation that is needed to produce a unique and pre-defined outcome or result at a pre-specified time using pre-determined resources”.

All these definitions identify a project as being temporary in nature, with the project structure being established for the sole purpose of accomplishing some clearly defined changed outcome. Resources are assembled and coordinated to achieve this new desired state. Once the change outcome is accomplished, projects are disbanded. Therefore projects are a vehicle of change to take the organisation from an existing state to a planned future state.

Whilst one cannot devalue the importance in appropriately defining what a project is, it is essentially a vision to reach some desired future state. It is management of the project which is critical above all (Kotter, 2011 ; Lewin, 1947). The management of the project converts the project vision for change into a reality (Rankins, 2007). PM is the disciplined application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements

(PMI 2008; Turner & Muller, 2005). PM is accomplished through the application of competencies, knowledge areas, and integration of PM processes - where a process is a series of actions bringing about a defined result (PMI, 2008). Both the leading project management structured methods, PMBoK and PRINCE2 consider processes vital to the project’s success.

PMBoK incorporates the five process groups of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing of projects. These process groups encompass thirty seven other processes (PMI, 2008). Each process involves detailing the inputs, outputs, tools and techniques to meet the objective of the process. PRINCE2 is a process based methodology to be applied to projects, and essentially gives guidance in the execution and monitoring of a project. The processes of Prince2 define the management activities to be undertaken during the project. PRINCE2 describes eight high-level management processes which are used for managing the project from end to end, covering the activities from initiating a project, through controlling and managing progress, through to project completion and closure. These

eight processes are: Starting Up a Project, Initiating a Project, Planning, Directing a Project,

Managing a Stage Boundary, Controlling a Stage, Managing Project Delivery and Closing a

Project.

4.0. Project Management Processes for Change Management

The literature highlights a scarcity of guidelines or frameworks for CM (Todnem, 2005).

However, Todnem (ibid) details three models which offer practical guidance to organisations in terms of processes, tools and techniques for change implementation. It is suggested there are some possibilities to improve CM practices as well as links with PM processes to build a process for CM that is more comprehensive to the reality of continuing business change. In order to demonstrate this, the CM process models proposed by Kotter (1996), Kanter et al.

(1992) and Luecke (2003) have been be reproduced in Table 1, with a fourth column detailing possible contributions from PM which could add value to the CM process.

Insert about here

Table I – PM Methodologies and CM Models

4.1. Meeting Objectives

Todnem (2005), in his critical review of organisational CM, argues that there is a fundamental lack of a valid framework for organisational CM. Whilst leading CM theorists

Kanter (ibid), Kotter (ibid), and Loecke (ibid) highlight the importance of creating a vision and strategic intent for implementing change, Todnem (2005) argues that the literature lacks sufficient methodology for measuring the success of organisational CM. PM processes could be utilized in this instance should the CM be treated as a project. Both the PRINCE2 and

PMBoK resources have a process to capture the results of the project and confirm the desired outcome. The PRINCE2 process “Closing a Project” ensures that all planned outcomes have been delivered to the customer’s required parameters, as specified in the project brief and business case contained within the ‘Starting up a Project’ process. In addition to the “Closing a Project Stage,” an “End Project Report” is prepared to detail the outcome of the project.

PMBoK also has a specific process for measuring the success of a project which could be implemented in the CM field. The PMBok “Closing Process” provides a formal process for measuring success by evaluating the project against clearly defined goals. The process also ensures acceptance by customers and stakeholders of the project (PMI, 2008). With the high failure rate of change projects appearing to fail (Hughes, 2011), this closing process could be incorporated into the CM project to review what has been delivered against what the objective of the project was.

4.2. Capture Lessons Learned

Another important process that both PRINCE2 and PMBoK utilize is the capturing and documenting of lessons learned over the duration of the project, including both positive and negative experiences. PRINCE2 has a mechanism in the form of a ‘Lessons Log’ to capture knowledge gained throughout the project (Pincemaille, 2008). Lessons are logged and then a lessons report is compiled at the end of each stage to document and build a knowledge bank of lessons. PMBoK also values the importance of lessons learned; with processes adopted for identification, documentation, validation, and dissemination of lessons learned (PMI, 2008).

Also forming part of the lesson learned process is identification of actions taken as a result of the lesson learned and subsequent follow-up to ensure the required action had been taken.

Whilst performance of any current project cannot be changed at the conclusion, the performance of future projects can be improved by documenting lessons learned for future

review. Significantly, leading CM process models fail to appropriately consider lessons learned from previous CM processes. In the rapidly changing business environment this would appear to be a shortfall of CM. Capturing lessons learned, both positive and negative, would assist in planning future change-projects and be a useful process to incorporate into the

CM framework.

4.3. Delegate Responsibility

Projects are often used to implement a strategy. The implementation of a strategy involves a change process and this change process invokes uncertainty. Whilst the leading theorists on change articulate communicating the change vision to all affected, Verwey and Comninos

(2002) recommend implementing a process called “Business Focused Project Management”

(BFPM) to deal with uncertainty and constant change through ‘progressive elaboration’ of a project. In BFPM, each functional group in an organisation interprets a strategy and develops a business plan independently, from which a portfolio of projects are reviewed and subsequently resourced. This process is proposed to effectively manage the change associated with business projects containing intangible characteristics; and empowers individual functional units to be involved and be integral to the change. Such projects include business process improvements, customer service improvements, or organisational restructure

(Verwey and Comninos, 2002), where there is a need to address changes in the organisational culture and stakeholder perceptions. This process of empowering individual functional units to embark on change by clearly delegating responsibilities for project activities is a PM resource utilized in PRINCE2 which could be applied in CM. PRINCE2 utilizes work packages which are performed by individuals or teams in the accomplishment of stage objectives; and then accepted by the project manager once accomplished (OGC, 2005). This process of delegation and subsequent acceptance of work packages could be utilized in the

CM arena to delegate tasks and responsibilities to individuals or business units. This would improve the leading CM models which do not adequately address this concept of delegation of project activities and responsibilities.

4.4. Staged Approach

There is a well-known phrase, “if you fail to plan, then plan to fail”. This phrase captures the importance of having a clear framework to coordinate the resources required for implementing the project, including the activities of the people involved or affected by the change, stakeholders, the finances, and competencies applied in the project. PRINCE2 utilizes a process to effectively manage execution of the initial plan of the project which the majority of the CM literature fails to discuss.

Whilst a project plan is prepared in the initial planning, which sets out how and when the project will be delivered, the project is divided into a number of clearly defined and controllable stages which PRINCE2 refers to as a the process of “Manage by Stages” (OCG,

2005). Utilizing this PM process, detailed planning of succeeding stages is only undertaken upon nearing completion of the current stage. Once a stage is approaching completion, the work for the succeeding stage is planned in detail by the Project Manager and then subsequently approved by the authority for the project (Project Board in PRINCE2 terminology).

PRINCE2 also utilises the “Managing a Stage Boundary” which is a decision point in the continuity of the project. This process provides a decision point on whether the project will be continued as planned, adjusted or stopped. The process involves reviewing the current stage and determining whether the business case is still valid, and if the project can proceed to the next stage. The process is managed by the Project Manager, who informs the Project

Board of the likelihood of success in attaining the project business objectives, project plan,

together with associated risks and issues. If the Project Board is satisfied with the current stage-end and the next stage plan, the project is permitted to continue. Therefore the

‘Managing a Stage Boundaries’ is a vital process in the management of the project.

This process is well suited to CM implementation. This process of separating the project into stages and managing stage boundaries, is ideally suited to change-projects where there is a likelihood of alteration to the initial plan upon implementation. Furthermore, it facilitates ongoing review and justification for the change initiative.

The literature largely fails to consider the likelihood of changes to the plan. Resistance to change is one scenario where the initial plan of the change-project needs to be altered although there is an array of possibilities for deviation from the initial plan. Kanter (1992), emphasises the need for “crafting an implementation plan”, although within his “Ten

Commandments for Executing Change” he fails to identify the need to monitor and adjust the strategy in response to problems in the change process. Kotter (2003) discusses developing a vision and strategy which identifies the desired outcome, however this does not lay out the steps to achieving the objective. Utilising a stage approach and planning the detail of each stage once progress of the current stage is accomplished would strengthen the CM process by appropriately dealing with amendments. Kotter & Rathgeber (2006) argue that one clear lesson learned from successful change initiatives is that change goes through a series of phases. Therefore, phases are ideally suited to a staged approach. This is reinforced by “7

Steps to Change Management” (Luecke, 2003), which identifies the need to “monitor and adjust strategies” in response to problems in the CM process. It appears that PM could provide tools for what is already identified by CM theorists as a need to successfully implement change initiatives.

4.5. Risk Management

Risk management, an important consideration of PM, could enhance CM initiatives. Within

PRINCE2, risk can be defined as uncertainty of outcome (Pincemaille, 2008). The goal of risk management is to manage the exposure and militate against risks. The project leadership or ‘Project Board’ in PRINCE2 has to promote risk management, build up adapted policies, and assess projects status related to their risks. In the PRINCE2 processes, risk management is addressed from the conceptual development of a project. Commencing with the ‘Initiating a project’ process, there is a prevailing insistence on the importance to assess risks. Then, in the project process ‘Planning’, risk management is utilized again. For each stage of the project, risk analysis has to be undertaken, to determine whether or not the new plan is compliant with project constraints, and identified risks; without changing the criticality, the priority, importance, or the action plan taken to avoid the risk (Pincemaille, 2008). PMBoK considers risk management integral to the project life cycle, with the six clearly defined processes of: risk management planning, risk identification, qualitative risk analysis, quantitative risk analysis, risk response planning, risk monitoring and control (PMI, 2008).

This consideration in PMBoK and PRINCE2 to identify and plan for risks is ideally suited to the CM process where any number of risks could be encountered over the change process.

5.0. The Importance of Change Management to Project Management

Whilst it has been argued that many of the PM processes and techniques are well suited to

CM, the PM field has traditionally placed a strong emphasis on the management of tasks. The

PM methodologies largely avoid many of the softer issues related to projects: such as the human, political and organisational change implications. Some of these issues which the PM professional has traditionally unheeded could be translated into, but not limited to, company politics and power struggles, stakeholder management, hidden agendas, cultural barriers, motivation issues, lack of communication, conflict resolution, resistance to change,

ambiguous roles and responsibilities, poor project leadership, insufficient sponsorship

(Turner and Muller, 2005; Toor and Ogunlana, 2009; Levasseeur, 2001). This arguable deficiency of the traditional PM professionals could be because of their technical backgrounds, where focus has been enshrined in tactics and results; or even a gender issue

(Paton & Demster, 2002).

In contrast, CM professionals are traditionally from social sciences and humanities backgrounds and have a tendency to avoid the task and process orientated approach by placing a much stricter emphasis on the human, political and organisational change considerations Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). The CM professional has traditionally lacked the technical know-how, and has a restricted focus on project objectives - whilst pursuing softer objectives around those people affected by the change. It is a common theme throughout the

CM literature to adequately build an individual’s awareness and desire for change. However, implementing and coordinating the logistics of a complex change project requires PM skills to plan and execute the change initiative (Kotter & Cohne, 2002). Therefore, whilst PM processes and techniques are ideally suited to CM, its techniques are also valuable to effective PM. Therefore, it is considered that the two fields should not be viewed as mutually exclusive. The goals and objectives of CM which are largely focused on organisational support and adoption are also aligned with those of PM, since the objective of any project requires the willingness of the organisation to implement; and both are aligned with the organisational strategy.

A common practice of large organisations undergoing CM is to utilise the human resources

(HR) department for implementation; often with the assistance of third-party advisors. This is because of the ongoing presumption that CM is about people and the associated soft skills; and as such CM should be in the HR area of an organisation. Whilst it has been argued above for the application of PM processes to improve CM outcomes, further research is

recommended into determining whether greater involvement from HR to a project/program management area of the organisation could deliver better outcomes.

6.0. Conclusion

The rapidly changing business environment has required organisations to seek out effective processes, tools and techniques to implement successful change. Whilst there is a significant body of literature surrounding CM, the high failure rate of change interventions suggests improvements could be made to its management, monitoring and control. The analytical focus of this research was in how the common and most utilised CM models could be improved with PM processes in order to appropriately deliver successful change. Using

PMBoK and PRINCE2 as a reference, a number of PM processes and techniques have been detailed which demonstrate the applicability of project-based processes for implementation of

CM initiatives.

The lack of a suitable guiding framework for CM suggests the creation of a CM body of knowledge and alignment of CM processes could enhance the field. Although CM encompasses a broad range of possible change models, the attempts by CM theorists to apply a formal structure to the change process have been scant. Treating change initiatives as a temporary project and subsequently integrating CM with PM processes will capture synergies between the two areas. The social science background of CM professionals and the tendency for HR to deliver change initiatives has contributed to the lack of appreciation for formal processes and technical contributions as offered by PM in delivering change. Likewise, theorists developing CM from non-technical backgrounds tend to focus on the human dimensions over all other issues. Further research into specific integrated techniques and tools for delivering change would be valuable with particular focus on technical contributions to CM. Moreover, the PM field could gain from utilizing CM processes in implementation of

projects. It was purported the technical background of traditional project managers has resulted in a focus on tasks and results rather than the human aspects and softer skills of CM, which are equally valuable to project success. Bridging these two gaps could increase the success of CM initiatives and similarly enhance the success of projects-based interventions.

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Table I – PM Methodologies and CM Models

10 Commandments for

Executing Change

Kanter et al.

(1992)

8 Stage Process for

Successful

Organisational

Transformation -

Kotter (1996)

1. Analyse the organisation and its need for change

7 Steps - Luecke

(2003)

PMBOK Translation of

Steps into Project

Methodology and

Techniques

2. Create a vision and a common direction

3. Developing a vision and strategy

1. Mobilise energy and commitment through joint identification of business problems and their solutions

2. Develop a shared vision of how to organise and manage for competitiveness

Develop a vision and corresponding high level plan; define stages for project implementation

3. Separate from the past

4. Create a sense of urgency

5. Support a strong leader role

6. Line up political sponsorship

7. Craft an implementation plan

8. Develop enabling structures

1. Establishing a sense of urgency

2. Creating a guiding coalition

9. Communicate, involve people and be honest

10. Reinforce and institutionalise change

5. Empowering broadbased action

4. Communicating the change vision

8. Anchoring new approaches in the culture

3. Identify the leadership

Identify and develop plan for risks

Implement plan utilising a stage by stage approach

Define work packages and delegate responsibilities

6. Institutionalise success through formal policies, systems and structures

Manage by stages -

Review and adjust plan where required at end of each stage

6. Generating short-term wins

7. Consolidating gains and producing more change

4. Focus on results, not on activities

5. Start change at the periphery, then let it spread to other units without pushing it from the top

7. Monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems in the change process

Taken from Todnem (2005: 376) and adapted to link to PM methodologies

Measure success of project

Capture and document lessons learned for future projects

www.sjm06.com

Serbian Journal of Management 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154

S e r b i a n

J o u r n a l o f

M a n a g e m e n t

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS: AN INVESTIGATION OF THE

NIGERIAN BANKING INDUSTRY

Adenike Anthonia Adeniji*, Omotayo Adewale Osibanjo and

Abolaji Joachim Abiodun

Department of Business Management, School of Business, College of Development

Studies, Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

(Received 15 Janauary 2013; accepted 10 June 2013)

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to study the relationship between human resource management interventionist strategies and organizational change; and flexibility that can make employees more adaptive and receptive to changes. Out of one hundred and sixty copies of questionnaire administered, one hundred and twenty three (123) were collected and analyzed. Structural Equation

Modelling (SEM), a hypothesized relationship was tested using Amos 18 that allows test of complex relationships between variables. Our model shows that relationship exists among human resource management interventionist strategies and was consistent with organizational change in the studied industry. However, the study can be extended to other industries, for example manufacturing industry as well as industry within the merger and acquisition of companies.

Keywords : Organizational change, HR Interventionist strategies, Nigeria, Banking industry

1. INTRODUCTION

Demands for greater efficiency, accountability and value for money have led to a re-evaluation of how banking industry services are resourced and delivered.

Traditional bureaucratic approaches are no longer adequate to deal with the complexity

* Corresponding author: anthonia.adeniji@covenantuniversity.edu.ng

DOI: 10.5937/sjm8-3712 of the modern age and the need for efficient and effective services in this industry. The emergence of new banking management practices has been marked by the proliferation of targets, meeting customers and stakeholders’ expectations, measurement and compliance with regulatory standards. Attempt at ensuring

140 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 that banking industry are more responsive to environmental factors and instilling customer service cum commercially focused ethos are characteristics of new approaches to the banking sector of the Nigeria economy. With rapid changes in emphasis, the banking sector is now examining its internal structure and reviewing the roles and responsibilities of employees and managers so as to deliver the top quality services demanded by the stakeholders.

More than decades ago, mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry have become the dominant mode of growth

(Arquilera & Dencker, 2004). Human resource management has the potential to play important role in mergers and acquisition integration by reinforcing the new human resource management system and corporate culture and providing leadership and communication to reduce turnover.

When an organization is undergoing change, what role does human resource plays? Organizational changes are driven top down and initiated largely due to strategic business goals which the company needs to achieve. The human resource function is to anchor the change management process and facilitate the transformation across all teams and work dimensions. Each change throws up unique challenges and the details which need to be addressed are diverse in each instance. The aim of this paper is to explore how human resource management could play effective role in increasing individual and organizational effectiveness during organizational change by implementing progressive human resource processes. The term “Organizational Change” connotes significant change in the organization, which could either be reorganization; adding; or removing new product/service. However, this study views transformational organizational change regarding the recent past acquisition of Intercontinental Bank by

Access Bank Plc (Nigeria). This fundamental change tends to affect the organizational culture and its operations that call for reengineering of processes, structures, roles and even underlying assumptions.

2. ACCESS BANK PLC

The transformation of Access Bank Plc as a small Nigerian Bank into an African financial institution has made it to be listed as one of the top 10 largest banks in Nigeria in terms of asset base. Access Bank was issued a banking license in December, 1988 and was incorporated as a privately owned commercial bank in February, 1989. After the commencement of operation, in March

1998 to be precised, Access Bank became a

Public Limited Liability Company; and listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange same year. In the year 2001, Access Bank obtained a Universal Banking License from the

Central Bank of Nigeria, which made it possible for the bank to operate in over 310 branches and service outlets located in major cities and towns across Nigeria, Sub Saharan

Africa and the United Kingdom.In the year

2012, Access Bank is said to be one of the

Africa’s most successful banks, and was ranked amongst Africa’s top

20 banks by total assets

(http://www.accessbankplc.com/pages/Page.

aspx?Value=3&ln=Gy7UlI4cSJE94Wa2qud bFQ%3d%3d).

However, in 2009 the storm of global financial crisis affected the Nigerian banking industry, which resulted into some banks merged and some acquired. In the year 2012,

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 the Group Managing Director/Chief

Executive Officer, Access Bank Plc announced the completion of its acquisition of Intercontinental Bank, and stated that the transaction is significant in the Nigerian banking industry, because it preserves hundreds of Nigerian jobs and protects the savings of millions of Nigerian citizens.

3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

3.1. Overview of Change Management

Organizational change is seen as a necessary concept for organizations to compete in the ever changing and competitive business environment. The rapid development of information and communication technology have prompted many organizations to actively seek for new ways, ideas and creative solutions in improving their current product, process, system and technology which is referred to as organizational change, and it had been accepted widely that effective and efficient human management resource practices are important in extracting positive work behaviours among employees which invariably will lead to organization change

(Tan & Nasurdin, 2010). No one would dispute that every organization has experienced change. Yet despite organization’s familiarity with change, success in implementation is relatively rare.

It was estimated that 70% of organizational change initiatives fail completely (Bear &

Nohria, 2000). Among those deemed successful, 75% of them fail to achieve their intended result (Nikolaou et al., 2007).

Despite these low success rates, organizations still continue with the

141 organizational changes in an attempt to adapt and respond to the changing economic conditions, technological innovations, customer and client expectations and a shifting workforce. It was estimated that

56% of organizations are undergoing three or more complex changes at one time or another (Barell et al., 2007).

Organizations also, are changing the way they implement and manage change. Change management in organizations are now shifted from being the responsibility of an internal or external change agent dedicated to its implementation and management to increasingly being identified as a core competency for most organizational leaders

(Doyle, 2002). The human resource function in increasingly seen as one of the key functions in thedevelopment and implementation of strategic responses to increasing competitive pressure as both public and private organizations are forced to adapt to domestic and international competition, technological advancements, slower growth and declining markets

(Buyens & DeVos, 2001). Such strategic responses involve effective communication of the importance of human resource across the organization and a reconsideration of the role of line managers in human resource delivery. As such, the skills required to lead, manage and implement change are being incorporated into the existing expectations, roles and responsibilities of human resource manager and other employees, (Doyle,

2002).

Therefore, it is not surprising that in an environment where the magnitude of change, its complexity and its frequency are increasing, the human resource persons and leaders have begun to focus their attention on the adoption of change management best practices.

142 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154

Change management is an approach to shifting or transitioning individuals, teams and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at helping change stakeholders to accept and embrace changes in their business environment.

Organizational change involves both managing the change processes and handling human issues at the local level, (Kanter &

Dretler, 1998). For example, research has often time focused on the competitive landscape, strategic leadership and organizational learning; a neglected area is that of conceptualizing change from the employee’s viewpoints (Hitt et al.,1998;

Ireland & Hitt, 1999).

Organizational change has become an increasingly pervasive phenomenon in both business and human service organizations due to forces such as globalization and political shifts to neoliberalism (Piderit,

2000; Baines, 2007). Despite the increase in the perceived necessity of change and attempts at implementing organizational change initiatives, it has been estimated that at least two-third (2/3) of organizational change efforts do not result in their intended aims nor do they foster sustained change

(Choi & Ruana, 2011). Employee resistance is the most often cited problem encountered by management when trying to implement change, yet for an organization to change, it is essential that the employees of that organization also change (Bovey & Hede,

2001). Therefore, employee cooperation with organizational change efforts is indisputably connected and related to either the ultimate success or failure of a change initiative.

Moreover, the concept of resistance has a long history in business management.

Resistance is considered one of the biggest barriers to successful implementation of organizational changes, often perceived as an expected, automatic response in employees that managers need to overcome.

Lewin (1951) was one of the first researchers to consider the notion of employee resistance to organizational change in the management field. His conception of the term was drawn from the physical sciences and considers resistance to be a restraining force attempting to maintain the status quo,

(Piderit, 2000). Resistance is viewed as an inevitable situation that managers must face when planning to introduce or implement an organizational change (Piderit, 2000). It is often said that some people have a natural predisposition to resist change which is most times termed “an individual’s tendency to resist or avoid making changes” (Oreg,

2003). Authors of change management see resistance as a conditioned reflex and something that will occur regardless of how positive organizational members feel about the organization (Lamm & Gordon, 2010).

Organizational change is a deliberately planned change in an organization’s formal structure, systems, processes or productmarket domain intended to improve the attainment of one or more organizational objectives, (Lines, 2005).

Dopson and Newmann (1998) have perceived change as a necessary evil for survival in the context of uncertainty.

Organizational change has been as an individual-level phenomenon because it occurs only when the majority of individuals change their behavior or attitudes (Whelan-

Berry). Multiple- interacting changes in a global environment have led to a highly complex, confusing and unpredictable state.

This led to a shift in focus of the change process from product innovation and technological change to behavioural aspects

of change and to attitudes about change,

(Bergquist, 1993).

Usually, scholars analyze such features of organizational change as content, type, structure and process. Armanakis and

Bedeian (1999) divided research on organizational change into: a) Content research, b) Contextual research, c) Process research and d) Criterion research. Nutt

(2003) combines structure and process. The structural research by Nutt (2003) is similar to content research (Armenakis & Bedeian,

1999) and process research was presented in both typologies. Examples of organizational change include: (1) Mission changes; (2)

Strategic changes; (3) Operational changes

(including structural change); (4)

Technological changes; (5) Changing the attitudes and behaviours of personnel; (6)

Counter resistance from the employees of companies and align them to overall strategic direction of the organization.

Although the type of change and the process of change are both important building blocks in any model for dealing with change, there is a crucial factor which is the readiness to change in the particular organization. The readiness factors act like a bridge between identifying what needs to happen and the activity of implementing the change. Struckman and Yammarino (2003) combine types of change with the readiness to change, but not the process of change.

However, Alas (2007) composed the model connecting types of changes, process of change, readiness to change and the institutional environment as the context of change. A very important factor is leadership- that the top management team has impact on post-acquisition performance of the company and that they effectively influence the organizational culture

(Kiessling & Harvey, 2006).

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 143

Basically, the term organizational change is about significant change in the organization which could either be reorganization or adding or removing new product or service. Organizational change can seem like a vague phenomenon that it is helpful if one can think of change in terms of various dimensions including; unplanned versus planned change, transformational versus incremental change, remedial versus developmental change and organizationwide versus subsystem change.

Unplanned change is the change that occurs when there is a major, sudden surprise to the organization which causes its members to respond in a highly reactive and disorganized fashion, like when a Chief

Executive suddenly resigns from the organization, whereas, planned change is when leaders in the organization recognize the need for a major change and proactively organize a plan to accomplish the change. It is a change that occurs with successful implementation or a strategic plan for reorganization or other implementation of a change of magnitude.

Transformational change is much broader and as a result the organization will more fundamentallychange its culture or the way it operates, e.g. complete reengineering of processes, structures or underlying assumptions while, incremental change is the type of change which involves doing something better without necessarily changing the underlying beliefs and values of the organization.

However, remedial change is the one intended to remedy current situation, e.g. to improve the poor performance of a product or service or the entire organization; or to reduce burnout in the workplace.

Developmental change on the other hand occurs in order to make a successful situation

144 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 more successful, for instance, expanding the number of customers served or duplicating a successful product or service.

Worthy of mention again is the fact that organizational change ranges from problem identification to consultation with behavioral science to data gathering and preliminary diagnosis to communicating the vision down to removing obstacles, creating short term wins and building on the change to anchor the changes in corporate culture.

Not only that the acceptance of change and joining the actual process of change starts from within the people themselves. It is possible to learn how to cope with change and the likelihood of success is relatively greater if people realize the need for flexibility and have the ability to act fast.

Nothing changes for the better until people have a positive attitude. Thus, in any process of change, it is essential to know what is going on in people’s minds and what emotions they are going through. Successful management of change is based on taking action according to uniform principles i.e.

everyone involved moves in the same direction. Internal communication can assist members of the organization at all levels with setting up a uniform plan of communication and the ability to monitor the process from distance. The different phases of change (i.e. from problem identification to anchoring the changes in corporate culture) require different approaches and emphasis. If the people involved in the process of change are able to contribute to the process, they will accept the new situation more easily.

3.2. What about human resource management?

The term refers to design and applications of formal system in an organization to ensure effective and efficient use of human talent for achieving goals of organization (Mathis

& Jackson, 2002). The concept of human resource management goes beyond employment relations or industrial relations.

It includes employees identifying the interests and goals of the organization, and be aligned and committed in achieving these goals. It involves employees adapting willingly to change within the organizational structure without any strife or prejudice.

The concept emphasizes that high level performance attainment of organization depends on the quality of members of staff and management of such organization cum matching of human resource strategies to the needs of the business strategy.Furthermore, human resource management includes:

Encourage the commitment of employees to increase their performance and also be loyal to the organization as a whole;

Emphasis on the quality of employees engaged in organizations goes a long way in producing quality goods and services, which is of great benefit both to the customers and the organization;

Ensuring flexibility plays an important part in the way employees are organized, this makes them to be adaptive and receptive to all forms of changes in all aspects of their jobs such as work hours; working methods and;

Integrating organizational goals into strategic planning in order to make these policies cut across ranks and files of organization and ensuring that they are gladly accepted and implemented on daily routine by line managers.

Thus, managing the human resource has become one of the critical success factors in organizations. Both the existence of proper personnel and the ways people are managed are the basis for achieving the competitive

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 advantage. In this study, authors analyze the role and practices of human resource personnel in successful change management.

For instance, when firms develop and introduce new processes and new administrative practices, they will require dynamic and creative employees who are flexible, risk takers, tolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity and been able to contribute to producing quality goods and services which will benefit both the customers and the organization. Essentially, human capital is one of the four types of assets managed in organizations (Adeniji & Osibanjo, 2012); other assets include physical assets; financial asset; and intangible assets. These assets are essential and vital at varying degrees in the operations of any organization; however, human assets operate at the pivot of the operations.

3.3. HRM Interventionist Strategies in

Change Management

As the world is becoming more and more competitive, volatile than we could ever imagined, organizations either manufacturing or service based are seeking to gain competitive advantage and turning to more innovative change sources through human resource management interventionist strategies. These strategies have been defined as systems that attract, develop, motivate and retain employees to ensure the effective implementation of necessary changes and the survival of the organization and the members. These interventionist strategies are also referred to as set of internally consistent policies and practices designed and implemented to ensure that a firm’s human capital contribute to the achievement of its business objectives

(Delery & Doty, 1996). In the same vein,

145

Minbaeva, (2005) viewed the human resource management practices as a set of practices used by organization to manage human resources through facilitating the development of competencies that are firm, specific, produce complex social relations and generate organization knowledge to sustain competitive advantage. Human resource management practices can generate increased knowledge, motivation, synergy and commitment of a firm’s employees, resulting in a source of sustained competitive advantage for the firm (Hilsop, 2003). As a multidisciplinary practice that has evolved as a result of scholarly research, organizational change management should begin with a systematic diagnosis of the current situation in order to determine both the need for change and the capability to change. The objectives, content and process of change should all be specified as part of a change management plan.

Change management processes may include creative marketing to enable communication between change audiences, but also deep social understanding about leadership’s styles and group dynamics. As a viable track on transformation projects, organizational change management aligns groups’ expectations, communicates, integrates teams and manages people training. It makes use of performance metrics such as, financial results, operational efficiency, leadership commitment, communication effectiveness, and the perceived need for change to design appropriate strategies, in order to avoid change failures or solve troubled change projects.

All change involves the adoption of new behaviours that need to be accepted and enforced. It should be noted that where quick radical change is required for organizational

146 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 survival, a dictatorial, coercive management style may be appropriate. Extensive collaboration and consultation is associated with a more leisurely form of change that may be termed as fine tuning. Dunphy and

Stace (1990) clearly regard HRM at the forefront of planning and implementing organizational change. Thus, successful implementation of change is a major challenge for HRM which will encourage managers or human resource practitioners to actively address issues of resistance, behavior change and participation.

Maxwell and Watson (2006), argue that business partnership between human resource specialists and the employees have emerged as the dominant model for human resource operations within organizations.

They outline the role of human resource experts as working alongside other members of the organization to help them reach their goals by crafting strategies to maximize productivity through alignment of corporate resources to these goals. Moreover, the human resource experts’ involvements in successful change management offer a number of benefits to organizations –it enables them forge closer relationships with other managers in the organization which promotes a partnership model towards managing employees. It encourages gifted managers to use their initiative and become more involved in day-to-day workplace management decisions and problems or issues that can be resolved speedily before they escalate. Enablers of human resource experts’ involvement in change management include:

Greater degrees of responsibility and task variation.

Human resource information systems.

Close relationships with employees.

Formation of strategic partnerships.

The followings are the interventionist strategies and roles of human resource management in successful change management.

1) Staffing: Organizational change can create the need for the human resource department to focus on staffing issues.

Organizations undergoing rapid growth may need to add more employees, so human resource may have to focus on expanding its recruiting base or restructure compensation programme to attract more talented workers.

A company in decline may require human resource to develop severance packages and carry out employee terminations. Also, human resource workers may have to alter job descriptions for the remaining workers if the layoffs result in a change in job functions.

2) Alleviating Fears: Organizational change often creates fear and uncertainty for workers, thus, human resource may need to take steps to alleviate these fears. For example, when a smaller business is purchased by a large company, the process can create apprehension for workers regarding their ability to adapt to new processes and procedures, even whether their jobs may be in jeopardy. This may require the human resource department to assume a public relations role by pointing out the potential benefits of the new arrangement, such as enhanced fringe benefits programme, and providing reassurance that jobs are safe, as long as this is the case.

3) Effective Communication:

Organizational change is often a time of widespread confusion, resulting in the need for the human resource department to open the channels of communication with employees. Not only that, keeping employees informed about what to expect

during each step of the change process through methods such as written communications and possibly groupmeetings is necessary. The feedback can let human resource know how well changes are being received and whether adjustments may be necessary. Also, effective communications that informs various stakeholders of the reason for the change, the benefits of successful implementation as well as the details of the change will aid successful change management.

4) Developing Plan: When upper management makes human resource aware of a pending change, such as a business expansion requiring the need to hire more workers, the human resource department needs to work with management to develop a plan to implement the change effectively.

For example, it can be difficult to effectively recruit and train a large number of workers at one time. Instead, management and human resource can work toward a solution where workers are hired at intervals to ensure a comprehensive vetting process and thorough training.

5) Integrating the existing human resource systems: There is the need to create a corporate human resource function that will allow a common human resource framework and ensure uniform implementation of the same across the organization. The period of integration will include activities such as, planning, designing and communicating the human resource programmes and practices to be implemented across the organization and ensuring their implementation at all levels in the organization. Again, integrating the existing systems include developing a common human resource policy manual that will work for the new entity. The manual

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 147 include policies on work systems, business conduct guidelines, office timings, leave, travel, benefits, exit, e.t.c.

6) Creation of job descriptions: Detailed job descriptions need be developed for unique roles in the organization across departments for employees in the new dispensation to understand the nature of their roles and the responsibilities that they will be accountable for in order to ensure the smooth operations of the business. The job descriptions could be prepared by conducting job interviews with specific job incumbents with respect to their primary and secondary responsibilities including actions that they are directly responsible for. Thus, data generated are then used to develop the role and responsibilities document.

3.4. Research Questions

The following research questions are formulated for this study in order to identify the contributions of Human Resource specialists in organizational change:

1) Is there any relationship between the level of human resource management interventionist strategies in change management and commitment of employees?

2) Does the level of human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies contribute to producing quality goods?

3) Does the level of human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies in change management ensure flexibility that makes employees more adaptive and receptive to changes in organization? and;

4) Will human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies influence the

148 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 integration of organizational goals into strategic planning?

3.5. Research Hypotheses

From the argument above, the following hypotheses were formulated, which is also illustrated in figure 1:

H

1

: The human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies in change management (staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, developing plan and integrating the existing human resource systems) will be related to commitment of employees.

H

2

: The human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies (staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, developing plan and integrating the existing human resource systems) is related to quality in operations.

H

3

: The human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies management

(staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, developing plan and integrating the existing human resource systems) is related to achieve flexibility andmakes employees more adaptive and receptive to changes.

H

4

: The human resourcemanagement interventionist strategies management

(staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, developing plan and integrating the existing human resource systems) is related to integrating organizational goals into strategic planning.

4. METHODOLOGY

4.1. Materials and Methods

The adopted research design for this survey was a methodological approach that allows the use of primary data gathered from the studied respondents on the effect of organizational change on the human resource management interventions in the Nigerian banking industry. The choice of the Nigerian banking industry for our study rest on the changes experienced through mergers and acquisitions in the recent past. Therefore,

Source: Survey 2012

Figure 1. Theoretical Model & Research Hypotheses

the survey’ data were obtained from both primary source through a questionnaire survey and personal interviews involving respondents from Access Bank Plc, which was chosen based on its “remarkable story of the transformation of a small obscure

Nigerian Bank into an African financial institution of note; with emerging footprints on the International banking landscape”

(http://www.accessbankplc.com/pages/Page.

aspx?Value=3&ln=Gy7UlI4cSJE94Wa2qud bFQ%3d%3d); and its recent acquisition of

Intercontinental Bank. Convenience and purposeful sampling methods were utilized in order to derive the needed data for the study. Access Bank Plc operates many branches located in major towns and cities in

Nigeria with its headquarters situated in

Lagos Southwest Nigeria in which the survey was conducted. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data and this was found appropriate because the views of the respondents were obtained. A hundred and sixty (160) questionnaires were administered within the scope of the selected location, however, due to elimination of incomplete responses that were classified as invalid; the final sample size for the survey analysis was one hundred and twenty three

(123) which translate to a response rate of

76.8%. The study attempts to add to literature on organizational change and HR interventions in a developing economy such as Nigeria.

The respondents for this survey possess adequate knowledge and experience about the Banks regarding their merger and acquisition. Further, they witnessed the merger and acquisition processes and the role played by the HR department in ensuring that personnel involved did not experience emotional and psychological trauma. The research instrument utilized in

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 149 collecting data was a structured questionnaire, which the items focused on the research variables used in the survey such as quality, commitment, flexibility, integration, staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, and plan development. The questionnaire items for all the variables tested in the study were derived from literatures, especially from the works of

Arguilera and Dencker (2004) and Husain and Farooq (2013). The questionnaire is segmented into two; the first part deals with the respondents’ demographic data; while in the second part they were to supply answers to the relationship between the level of human resource management interventionist strategies in change management and commitment of employees, the level of human resource management interventionist strategies in change management ensures flexibility that makes employees more adaptive and receptive to changes in organization. Respondents are expected to choose one number on a five-point Likert scale of 1- 5 (5 – Strongly agree; 4 – Agree;

3 – Undecided; 2 – Disagree; and 1 –

Strongly disagree) that best describes the extent to which they support each statement stated in the questionnaire. The hypothesized model in figure 1 wastested using Amos 18, because of the complex attributes of the observed variables and their underlying strong constructs (Suhr, 2006). Structural

Equation Modelling (SEM) represents a number of statistical models used to evaluate the validity of substantive theories with empirical data. This statistical tool was adopted for this study because of its generality and flexibility.

150 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In terms of model fit, the works of Bentler and Wu (2002), Kaplan (2000) and Hair,

Anderson, Tathan and Black (1998) argue that various goodness-of-fit indicators are used to evaluate research models. In similar direction, Schreiber, Stage, King, Nora and

Barlow (2006), argue that if the greater number of the indices shows a good fit, then the probability of a good fit is assured. A model is regarded as acceptable if the

Normed Fit Index (NFI) exceeds .90 (Byrne,

1994) or .95 (Schumacker & Lomax, 2004), and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) exceeds

.93 (Byrne, 1994). However, as obtained from Model Fit summary; under the Baseline

Comparisons, the Normed Fit Index (NFI) value for this model is .956, which indicates the model of interest improves the fit by 90% relative to the independence model; and CFI is .970, which is an indication that the model is accepted. As obtained in the literature, using The Root Mean Square Error of

Approximation (RMSEA) in determining the model fit, the range of 0.08 to 0.10 provides

Table 1. Overall Model Fit

Source: Survey, 2012


Figure 2. Results of Model Fit for Organizational Change & HR Interventions

The results of the path analysis, presented in table 2, indicate that integrating the existing human resources appear to affect flexibility more than any other factors tested with a significant relationship (Hypothesis

1). In addition, it is evident that staffing influences flexibility that makes employees more adaptive and receptive to changes in organization with direct positive relationship

(Hypothesis 2).With respect to effective communication and commitment, result points to a positive significant correlation between the constructs when changes occur in organization. In same direction, there exists significant positive relationship between integration of human resources and employees’ commitment. These results suggest that a strong commitment can be expected when employees are effectively integrated thereby aiding successful change management.

A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 an acceptable fit (Hair et al., 2006;

MacCallum, 1996; Steiger, 2007). The

RMSEA value for this model is .098, which makes the study an acceptable model fit, the overall Model Fit is illustrated in table 1.

5.1. Hypotheses Testing Results

6. CONCLUSION

151

A model fit was developed to examine the role Human Resource Management

Interventionist strategies play in organizational change. However, this was done by relating study variables such as staffing, fear alleviation, effective communication, developing plan and integrating the existing human resource systems to commitment of employees when change is experienced in organizations.

Adequate and rich empirical studies were utilized to support our proposition; essentially we observed that variations exist when change occurs in organizations across country or in different economy/industry.

Specifically, as often practiced, interventionist strategies such as staffing, alleviation of fear, etc are universally accepted and common among companies operating within the same economy or industry. However, Access Bank Plc

(Nigeria), though operate in the same industry with Intercontinental Bank, having been acquired had to alter its HRM processes in order to create new job structure to accommodate employees from both companies. In addition, Access Bank Plc

(Nigeria) had to adjust HRM policies so as to achieve the strategic goals of the organization. Our model demonstrates that

Table 2. Hypotheses Testing Results

Note: All path coefficients are significant at the p<0.001

Rejected – Path coefficients were positive but insignificant


152 A.A. Adeniji / SJM 8 (2) (2013) 139 - 154 convergence exist among Human Resource

Management Interventionist strategies and

References was consistent with organizational change.

The statistical analysis confirmed the studied hypotheses with the highest correlation for staffing, which tends to be affected by the change in organization. Similarly, variables such as fear, Plan_Dev, Integra-Human

Resources, and communication have strong correlation with organizational change, it is therefore evident these factors might contribute to the inability of the employees adapting to organizational change, which might also reduce employee morale and affect their productivity and this tends to reduce organizational performance in the long run. Essentially, there is need for further research in order to consider the effect these

HRM Interventionist strategies have on manufacturing industry within the same growing economy such as Nigeria.

Abdullah & Muhammad, I. R., (2011).

Antecedents of Organizational Commitment of Banking Sector Employees in Pakistan.

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102.

Adeniji, A.A., & Osibanjo, A.O., (2012).

Human Resource Management: Theory and

Practice. Pumark Nigeria Limited.

Arguilera, R.V., & Dencker, J.C. (2004).

The Role of Human Resource Management in Cross- Border Mergers and Acquisitions.

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Management. 5 (8), 1355-1367.

Baines, D. (2007). Doing Anti-oppressive

Practice: Building Transformative

Politicized Social Work. Canada: Fernwood publishing.

Barell, C., Savaie, A., & Mennier, S.

(2007). Patterns of Discomfort with

ОРГАНИЗАЦИОНЕ ПРОМЕНЕ И ИНТЕРВЕНЦИЈЕ У

УПРАВЉАЊУ ЉУДСКИМ РЕСУРСИМА : ИСТРАЖИВАЊЕ У

БАНКАРСКОМ СЕКТОРУ НИГЕРИЈЕ

Anthonia Adeniji Adenike, Omotayo Osibanjo Adewale and

Joachim Abiodun Abolaji

Извод

Циљ овог рада је да се изуче односи између интервенционистичких стратегија менаџмента људских ресурса и организационих промена , као и њиховог утицаја на флексибилност која може учинити запошљене прилагодљивијим и склонијим прихватању промена . Сакупљен је и анализиран одговор 123 испитаника од полазних 160 послатих упитника . Хипотезе међусобних оноса су испитиване путем моделовања структурним једначинама ( СЕМ ), софтвером Амос 18, који омогућује тестирање комплексних односа између промењивих .

Добијени модел показује да постоје релације између стратегија интервенције код људских ресурса и да је у конзистенцији са организационим променама у испитиваном сектору . Ипак , студије може бити примењена и на друге пословне секторе , нпр . производњу као и на сектор укрупњавања и преузимања компанија ..

Кључне речи : Организациона промена , Стратегије интервенција у људским ресурсима ,

Нигерија , Банкарски сектор

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PME

International Journal of

Production Management and Engineering http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/ijpme.2013.1502

Received: 2013-04-29 Accepted: 2013-05-20

Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model

Carpinetti, Luiz C. R., & Lima, Rafael H. P.

Department of Production Engineering – University of Sao Paulo (USP).

Av. Trabalhador São-carlense, 400, São Carlos-SP – Brazil.

carpinet@sc.usp.br

rhlima@sc.usp.br

Abstract: This paper proposes a performance and change management model for institutions for collaboration (IFCs) in industrial clusters to assist them while planning, conducting and evaluating joint actions. A three-stage implementation scheme and a self-assessment tool that helps an IFC determine its compliance with the proposed model are also introduced.

The self-assessment tool was applied in three Brazilian IFCs from different clusters. It was found that the IFCs researched face major difficulties in designing and implementing performance measures to evaluate the results and impacts of joint actions.

However, IFCs have been successful in identifying local infrastructure and devising informal strategic plans.

Key words: industrial clusters, performance management, collaborative networks, institutions for collaboration.

1. Introduction

Geographic agglomerations of firms have been widely studied in the literature and are often referred to as industrial clusters. The topic has become top priority in the agenda of many regional development agencies and national governments, especially due to the competitive advantages and economic development they enable to firms and to the regions they are located (Porter, 1998; Mytelka and Farinelli, 2000; Sölvell et al.

, 2003). Companies located in these regions can benefit greatly from external economies, collaboration, and exchange of knowledge between organizations (Unido, 2001;

Karaev et al.

, 2007; Capo-Vicedo et al.

, 2008). Such benefits may be extended if firms act together through joint actions that stimulate them to collaborate for the common good (Bititci et al.

, 2004). However, some authors argue that the execution of joint actions requires some sort of local coordination, whose role is to intermediate the interests of companies and coordinate the execution of activities related to the joint action (Schmitz and Nadvi, 1999; Sölvell et al,

2003; Gerolamo et al.

, 2008).

The definitions found in the literature for industrial clusters often emphasize the importance of related institutions that do not participate directly in the supply chain, but are fundamental for the cluster activities (Porter, 1998). Examples of such institutions are universities, research centres, training centres and specialized service providers. Karaev et al.

(2007) highlights the existence of local supporting institutions that are oriented to the particular needs of the cluster participants. In Brazil it is common to observe local associations that promote initiatives that seek to satisfy some needs common to a subset of the local firms. Some authors have reported on cases of such institutions, such as Schmitz (1998),

Sölvell et al.

(2003) and Gerolamo et al.

(2008). The term institution for collaboration (IFC) is used in this paper to refer to such supporting associations.

This paper studies how IFCs manage joint actions in industrial clusters. For this purpose, a performance and change management model is proposed to guide such institutions in the conduction of joint actions.

The model is strongly influenced by the PDCA cycle and continuous improvement principles. The model outlines a series of performance and change management practices to assist IFCs in the planning, implementation and assessment of joint actions.

Therefore, the model stresses the importance of performance measurement systems as a way of demonstrating the benefits gained through joint

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Int. J. Prod. Manag. Eng. (2013) 1(1), 13-26 13

Carpinetti, Luiz C.R., & Lima, Rafael H.P.

actions. Later on the model is organized in three implementation stages and a self-assessment tool is devised to evaluate the institution’s management practices. The self-assessment tool was used to evaluate the management practices of three

Brazilian IFCs from different industrial clusters –

Sertaozinho (metal-mechanic cluster), Arapongas

(furniture cluster) and Londrina (information and communication technology cluster).

The article is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the research method and Section 3 presents the theoretical background used to support the management model. Section 4 introduces the performance and change management model, the implementation stages and the self-assessment tool. Section 5 describes the application of the selfassessment tool in the three IFCs, whilst Section

6 discusses the data collected. Finally, Section 7 concludes the paper by summarizing the findings and suggesting topics for future research.

2. Research method

Figure 1 shows the procedure adopted in this research. Given the objective of this paper, it was deemed necessary to review the literature on industrial clusters, performance management in industrial clusters, and institutions for collaboration.

The knowledge gained during this activity served as background for the proposition of the performance and change management model. After that, three implementation stages and a self-assessment tool were derived from the management model. This tool aims to quantify the extent to which an IFC complies with the model, that is, it points what management practices outlined in the model the institution has or has not implemented. The self-assessment tool, which is described in detail in Section 4, consists of 18 requirements derived from the management model. A supporting question was associated to each of the requirements, so that the person conducting the assessment understands what should be assessed in a given requirement. During the self-assessment, a score ranging from 0 to 10 is associated to each requirement indicating the level of compliance of the

IFC with the management model. The scores obtained are then grouped according to the implementation stages to which they are associated to determine the areas that need improvement with respect to the institution’s management practices.

The items listed in the theoretical contribution served as guidance during the self-assessment carried out in the three cases, which were based on interviews

Figure 1.

Research method.

with the coordinators of each institution. One of the authors acted as a facilitator during the application of the self-assessment tool and in the determination of the scores to each requirement. The answers given by the coordinator were transcribed and qualitatively evaluated to determine such scores. The scores were then arranged in a table, in such a way to enable a cross-case analysis. The findings were based upon the comparison of similarities and differences between the cases.

3. Literature review

3.1. Industrial clusters

The term industrial cluster was made popular in the late nineties by Porter (1998), who defined it as geographic concentrations of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field.

His definition also encompasses other entities that are important to competition, such as suppliers of specialized inputs, service providers, specialized infrastructure, and governmental and private institutions as universities, training providers or trade associations. In Brazil the government, funding institutions and some research centres refer to industrial clusters by the acronym APL, which stands for local productive arrangements, as defined

14 Int. J. Prod. Manag. Eng. (2013) 1(1), 13-26 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Spain

Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model by the Brazilian Ministry for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC, 2010).

The fundamentals that seek to explain the competitive advantages of industrial clusters were set out in the 19th century by Alfred Marshal, who noted that geographical agglomerations of firms might ultimately result in three types of externalities – pool of specialized workers, specialized providers of inputs and services, and the technological spillovers that flow easily among co-located firms (Krugman,

1991; Plummer and Taylor, 2001; Cortright, 2006).

These externalities are called by Marshal as external economies. Schmitz and Nadvi (1999) added that, aside of the unplanned benefits of external economies, companies in industrial clusters may gain competitive advantage through planned joint actions, which are enabled by cooperation and collaboration among firms. Two topics are often associated with collaboration in industrial clusters:

- Social capital: refers to the set of intangible factors that exist in a community, such as values, norms, attitudes, trust and networks that facilitate coordination and collaboration for the common good (Cohen and Prusak, 2001);

- Collective efficiency: competitive advantage gained through external economies and joint actions (Schmitz, 1995).

Some authors contend that concentrations of firms foster network formation, since companies can take advantage of the proximity to strengthen the bonds with local firms and establish new partnerships

(Camarinha-Matos and Affsarmanesh, 2005). There is some empirical evidence in the literature linking social networks and the knowledge exchange among co-located firms, which in turn may facilitate innovation among companies (Morosini, 2004;

Steiner and Hartmann, 2006). For example, Baptista and Swann (1998) found that the concentration of specialized workers of a given sector facilitate knowledge spillovers, which in turn may lead to increased levels of innovation. Steinle and Schiele

(2002) argue that companies must interact with each other in order to benefit from locating within a cluster, which in turn requires a climate that stimulates cooperation and intensive knowledge exchange.

3.2. Performance management in industrial clusters

Performance management has been a central topic in organizational and operations management

(Neely, 2005). This has led many authors to develop frameworks that assist companies in designing their performance measurement systems (PMS)

(Neely, 1995; 2005; Kaplan, 1996; Kennerley, 2002;

Radnor and Barnes, 2007). As pointed out by Neely

(1998), a PMS can be used to four purposes: check current position, communicate performance, confirm priorities and compel progress. This reinforce the role of performance management in strategic issues, such as setting priorities, targets and deploying strategies by cascading down actions that will ultimately make the company achieve its planned objectives. Due to the apparent importance of performance management to individual organizations, many authors have tried to apply this theory to measure multi-firm relationships as supply chains (Chow et al.

, 1994), organizational networks (Camarinha-Matos and Affsarmanesh,

2007) and industrial clusters (Carpinetti et al.

, 2008).

Indeed, performance management in industrial clusters has drawn considerable attention from several authors and has been viewed as a basis for the management of a cluster (Sölvell et al.

2003;

DTI, 2005; Gerolamo et al.

, 2008; Carpinetti et al.

,

2008). Furthermore, the use of numerical means to demonstrate the benefits of collaboration in organizational networks would motivate companies to collaborate more and establish new partnerships

(Camarinha-Matos and Affsarmanesh, 2007).

According to a report written to the English

Department of Trade and Industry, measuring a cluster’s performance may be useful to evaluate the appropriateness, effectiveness and efficiency of interventions (DTI, 2005). Collaboration, on its turn, can be viewed as a metric composed of three measurable dimensions: information sharing, decision synchronization and incentive alignment

(Simatupang and Sridharan, 2005). It is thus clear that, for companies to collaborate with each other in joint initiatives, it becomes necessary a coordination mechanism that balances the interests and serves as a communication channel among the parties involved.

This means communicating the status of ongoing activities and the impacts of joint initiatives, which should be done by means of performance measures.

There does not seem to be a sound approach or framework in the literature that fulfils the need of a performance management model to facilitate the conduction and assessment of collaborative initiatives in industrial clusters. There are though some contributions that try to fill this gap. Sölvell et al.

(2003) developed the Cluster Initiative

Performance Model (CIPM), in which the performance of a cluster initiative is measured in terms of innovation, international competitiveness, cluster growth, and achievement of goals. According

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to the authors, cluster’s performance is ultimately affected by three elements: the social, political and economic setting within the nation; the objectives of the cluster initiative; and the processes by which the cluster initiative develops. Carpinetti et al.

(2008) proposed a framework to design performance measurement systems for industrial clusters. The authors divided performance measures into four perspectives: economic and social results; company’s performance; collective efficiency; and social capital. A similar contribution was made by

Bortolotti and Amato Neto (2006), who developed a

6-dimension framework to characterize and evaluate industrial clusters. The six dimensions included in the framework were related to geographic, economic, institutional, social, technological and environmental aspects of the industrial cluster as a whole. The European Commission carried out seven case studies in networks from the automotive sector and proposed a five-step method to the management of networks (EC, 2001):

- Step 1 – Goal, potential and strategy: consists of drawing together the key stakeholders of the network;

- Step 2 – Starting the network: setting of rules between partners and preparation of the operational background;

- Step 3 – Implementation of the network: establishment of an appropriate information and communication platform to connect all network participants;

- Step 4 – Management of the network: management of the network activities by focusing on information and communication, training, innovative projects, internationalization, and marketing and advertising;

- Step 5 – Evaluation of the network: consists of auditing the network actions and gathering feedback from network members to continuously improve the management of the network;

An analogous contribution was made by Gerolamo et al.

(2008), who developed a performance management model for industrial clusters and cooperation networks. Their model is divided into five steps:

- Step 1 – Identification of the stakeholders: the first step is to identify the stakeholders directly or indirectly related to the cluster activities

(large enterprises, SMEs, local partners, local associations, the local chamber of commerce and industry, universities, public authorities, financial institutions and so forth;

- Step 2 – Strategic orientation and definition of objectives: formulation of a strategic plan that balances the interests of local companies as well as other interested parties, such as local authorities and the community.

- Step 3 – Implementation of improvement and innovation projects: based on the elements formulated in Steps 1 and 2, a series of joint initiatives should be developed to take advantage each partner’s capabilities as well as to increase trust among companies;

- Step 4 – Performance evaluation and measurement: definition of a process to measure and evaluate the performance and impact of joint actions;

- Step 5 – Supporting infrastructure for the management process: establishment of the infrastructure necessary to support cooperation projects, such as a regional office or a regional development agency.

3.3. Institutions for collaboration

Besides the external economies that naturally emerge in agglomerations, companies my benefit greatly from local supporting institutions oriented towards satisfying specific needs of the cluster participants

(Karaev et al.

, 2007). As pointed by Seliger et al.

(2008), such institutions are vital for the coordination of joint actions and diffusion of specific knowledge inside the cluster. Schmitz and Nadvi (1999) contend that local agencies should mediate conflicts of interest that may arise between companies within the cluster. The existence of local coordination may differentiate a mere agglomeration of companies from a comprehensive local innovation system that aims to improve local competitiveness through joint actions and network formation (Gerolamo et al.

,

2008).

Several terms can be found in the literature to refer to these supporting institutions, such as cluster initiatives (Sölvell et al.

, 2003; Ketels and Sölvell,

2006), institutions for collaboration (Sölvell et al.

,

2003; 2008), industry associations (ITD, 2009), regional development agencies (Seliger et al.

, 2008) or institutional thickening (Andriani et al.

, 2005). In this paper we refer to local supporting institutions in clusters as institutions for collaboration (IFC).

These institutions may assume a variety of forms, such as private organizations, public agencies or industry associations. The literature reports a number of cases concerning institutions for collaboration

(see some examples in Schmitz, 1998; Sölvell et al.

,

2003; Gerolamo et al.

, 2008). It seems that cultural


Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model issues, the type of business, the economic setting, and the existing social capital may influence the form of local IFCs. In spite of that, it seems to be consensus in the literature that regardless of the way the IFC comes about in a cluster, it plays a vital role in managing interactions, sharing of knowledge and in providing a cognitive framework for transforming information into useful knowledge (Audretsch and

Lehmann, 2006; Steiner and Ploder, 2008).

As to the emergence of these institutions, Sölvell et al.

(2003) argue that after a cluster’s formation, the region tends to accumulate resources and commitment of its participants, which may culminate in the establishment of local IFCs. The authors describe IFCs as formal institutions maintained with fees paid by local firms that seek to balance the interests of the different actors involved with the industrial cluster. IFCs may act upon several issues by coordinating joint actions concerning quality of life, education, infrastructure (transportation, energy, and communication), tax regulation, export strategy, quality standards, research and training, and so forth

(Sölvell, 2008; ITD, 2009).

4. The performance and change management model

The model described in this section aims to help IFCs in industrial clusters in the planning, implementation and evaluation of joint actions. One such institution may encompass representatives from the various cluster actors, such as the companies, the government, research centres, universities and so forth. Figure 2 shows the proposed model, which is divided into three dimensions – infrastructure, strategic planning and implementation and assessment. The model emphasizes the implementation of joint actions that seek to improve some aspect of the industrial cluster’s performance. It does not necessarily mean that all companies in the cluster should be involved in every joint action supported by the institution, but rather that each joint action should benefit at least a subset of the local companies. The execution of these actions requires strong coordination, especially due to their collective nature. At this point, the support provided by institutions becomes crucial, since they can serve as mediators between the several parties involved in the joint action.

4.1. Infrastructure

The model in Figure 2 suggests that the IFC should identify the existing infrastructure prior to the definition and execution of joint actions. By identifying the local infrastructure, the institution will be able to put forth joint actions that optimize infrastructure utilization and improve existing facilities.

Local infrastructure can be analyzed at two major levels – institutional and regional. At the institutional level, the model points to the establishment of a statute to formalize its management hierarchy and the roles assigned to each member. A local office should also be set up with the management tools and information systems necessary for the institution to conduct its activities and manage joint actions. Additionally, a coordinator or a coordination team should be chosen to act directly upon the joint actions and innovation programs supported by the institutions. The role of

Figure 2.

The three dimensions of the proposed model.



this coordination body is to mediate the interests and assignments between the parties involved with a given joint action.

The infrastructure elements at the regional level refer to cluster actors and facilities that can contribute to the execution of joint actions. For example, cluster actors such as technical schools, specialized service providers and universities can provide specific knowledge to the coordination team and to the companies involved in a joint action. Besides these actors, the institution should identify the local facilities that could be exploited by local companies.

Examples of such infrastructure elements are roads, railroads, warehouses, intermodal ports, communication lines, power supplies, sources of raw material and so forth. These need to be mapped by the institution so that actions can be taken, both to use and to improve the existing infrastructure.

4.2. Strategic planning

From the standpoint of individual firms, strategic planning is the process by which leaders formulate their vision of future and develop the procedures and operations to achieve such vision (Goodstein et al, 1993). In this sense, strategic planning can be viewed as a tool to help organizations set priorities and allocate resources to achieve them (Allison and

Kaye, 2006). From the perspective of an institution promoting joint actions in industrial clusters, the main strategic objectives differ from the traditional profit and productivity objectives of regular organizations.

The strategic objectives of an IFC should be related to the improvement of the various performance dimensions of the industrial cluster.

Hence, the objective of the second dimension of the model is to motivate the institution to formulate its strategic planning. However, the plurality of actors involved with the cluster raises several challenges to the formulation of short and long term goals that balance the desires of local businesses that often compete with each other. For that reason, joint actions need not necessarily involve all firms, but rather those whose goals match the purpose of the initiative being planned. The following sources can be used to inspire the formulation of joint actions:

- Needs of businesses: the institution may conduct a diagnosis of local businesses needs and devise joint actions based upon the needs common to certain groups of firms;

- Public policies: On the one hand, the institution may search for public policies that favour local economic activities and increase awareness of local firms about them. On the other hand, the institution may act as a representative of companies before the governmental agencies to suggest policies that would incentive the local economic activities;

- Existing infrastructure: the diagnosis conducted in the first dimension of the model can reveal opportunities with respect to the use and improvement of the local infrastructure.

Moreover, joint actions may combine the skills of a subset of the actors in the cluster to promote innovation among businesses.

In order to formulate the strategic planning, the model also suggests that the institution should characterize the local productive system and identify ongoing joint actions, so that their goals can be reassessed for the next management cycle. With all this information in hand, the institution will be able to determine more appropriate short and long term goals and set out the joint actions to help achieve these goals. Later on, these actions will have to be deployed to all the parties involved to determine their roles and activities. The institution can refer to the hoshin kanri technique to this end (Akao, 2004).

Finally, three additional aspects should be taken into account when formulating the institution’s strategic planning:

- The sources of funding for implementing joint actions;

- The means by which the results of actions will be communicated to businesses and other stakeholders;

- The performance measures that need to be implemented to evaluate the results of actions in numerical terms.

4.3. Implementation and assessment

The third dimension of the model consists of implementing the items designed in the strategic plan.

Figure 3.

The proposed model and the PDCA cycle.


Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters: proposal of a performance and change management model

In other words, the institution should execute the joint actions foreseen in the strategic plan and gather data to calculate performance measures as a means of assessing the impacts of such actions. It becomes now clear that the model is strongly influenced by continuous improvement principles and the PDCA

(Plan, Do, Check and Act) cycle. Figure 3 illustrates this by associating the dimensions of the model with the phases of the PDCA cycle.

As depicted in Figure 3, the first two dimensions of the model correspond to the Plan phase of the PDCA cycle, during which the institution should characterize the local infrastructure, set short and long term objectives, devise the joint actions to be implemented and define the performance measurement system to be used in the remainder of the cycle. The third dimension of the model stretches across the Do,

Check and Act phases of the PDCA cycle. During the Do phase, joint actions should be implemented as planned and data for performance measures should be collected. During the Check phase, performance measures and the results of joint actions need to be assessed in order to determine the degree to which the objectives have been achieved. The last phase of the PDCA cycle corresponds to the communication of performance and action results, benchmarking with other clusters and the identification of further opportunities for improvement.

4.4. Model implementation

The implementation of the proposed model will hardly occur at once. Instead, it is expected that institutions will develop some of the practices concurrently, regardless of the dimension to which they belong.

It is thus pointless to devise a series of steps to implement the model, because each institution will choose different paths to implement it. It is however necessary to understand the dynamics of the model, that is the structure required so that continuous improvement may flow throughout the model. Figure

4 illustrates the dynamics of the model by dividing

Figure 4.

Dynamics between the dimensions of the model it into four stages, by which the institution should gradually implement and improve its management practices. The dynamics proposed in Figure 4 enables the institution to learn from experience and encourages continuous improvement of its planning, execution and assessment capabilities.

The stages in Figure 4 are associated with the operation of each dimension of the management model. Stage zero (S-0) is the initial stage of implementation and corresponds to an IFC that has no formal planning and control capabilities in place to manage joint actions. The first stage

(S-1) encompasses the characterization of the regional infrastructure and the establishment of the management tools, information systems and supporting facilities to coordinate joint actions. The second stage (S-2) covers the strategic planning and the implementation and assessment dimensions.

It does not regard both dimensions separately, but rather the closed planning, execution and assessment loop, which was depicted in Figure 3. Thus, when the institution reaches this stage, it will have successfully developed practices to formulate strategic plans, design performance measures, execute joint actions and assess its results and outcomes. Stage three (S-3) is achieved when the IFC has put in place a mature management system that fully covers the practices from the three dimensions of the model. At this stage the institution will have learned from experience and improved its managerial capabilities in a way that future joint actions will be better coordinated between the companies, the institution and other cluster actors. Additionally, the experience gained after several management cycles may teach the institution how to better choose and formulate joint actions that will ultimately meet the real needs of local companies and actors. These aspects together may increase the success rate of actions and hence increase trust between companies and the institution.

4.5. Self-assessment tool

As mentioned earlier, it is very unlikely that an IFC will implement the management model at once.

Moreover, even though institutions may not be aware of the model proposed in this paper, many of them have already implemented managerial practices that satisfy some of the model requirements. It becomes thus necessary a tool to help such institutions evaluate their management practices in relation to those required by the model as a way to determine what areas need improvement. To this end, a set of requirements were devised to characterize each stage of the management model and organized as a



diagnostic tool. Tables 1, 2 and 3 list the requirements and questions to evaluate each of the requirements from the stages S-1, S-2 and S-3, respectively.

Consistent with the stages in Figure 4, the questions in Table 1 are related to the characterization of the infrastructure at the regional and institutional levels.

Table 2 puts forth questions to evaluate how the institution plans, executes and assesses joint actions, which is done by verifying the existence of strategic plans, performance measures, communication with stakeholders and benchmarking mechanisms. Finally, the questions in Table 3 address the effectiveness of the institution’s management practices and the joint actions it has carried out.

The requirements and questions from Tables 1, 2 and 3 can be used as a self-assessment tool so that institutions can evaluate their management practices and determine to which extent they comply with the management model. This can be helpful in pointing areas for improvement in the management of IFCs.

To this end, the institution should assign scores using integral numbers ranging from 0 to 10 to indicate the extent to which the requirement is met. The following reference scale can be used to help determine scores:

- 0 to 3 points: indicate that the institution has no adherence to the requirement or at best it has plans of meeting the requirement, but no effective results have been achieved yet;

- 4 to 6 points: the institution has conducted activities that indicate partial compliance with the requirement, that is the activities have been reasonably effective but still can be performed better;

- 7 to 10 points: the practices being carried out by the institution demonstrate high or total adherence to the requirement.

5. Application of the self-assessment tool

The tool described in the previous section was used to evaluate the management practices of three

Brazilian industrial clusters against the proposed model. Table 4 lists the three clusters researched and the institutions in which the self-assessment tool was applied. The prevalent economic activity in the city of Sertaozinho (C1) is the production of equipment to the ethanol industry. There is in the city an above average concentration of metal-mechanic firms plus a number of companies that provide supporting services, such as automation and maintenance

(SEBRAE, 2007). The self-assessment tool was applied in the APL Metaltec, which is an institution supported by the local association of entrepreneurs

(CEISE) that aims to foster cooperation and improvement among local firms. The acronym APL is commonly used in Brazil to refer to industrial clusters. APL Metaltec was founded in 2008 and since then it has been promoting joint actions, especially among small and medium-sized firms, to promote continuous improvement and innovation.

Examples of such initiatives are the free consulting services provided to SMEs to teach entrepreneurs about best management practices and the creation of a local seal of quality. Coordination of joint actions is done by a SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small

Business Support Service) consultant fully devoted to the promotion and management of joint actions.

The city of Arapongas (C2) is renowned by its high concentration of furniture producers. The cluster covers also the surrounding cities of Apucarana,

Cambe, Rolandia and Sabaudia, totalling 545 firms and about 12,000 employees (IPARDES, 2006a). The

Furniture Industry Association of Arapongas (SIMA) started off in 2005 the Furniture APL of Arapongas as a side project to support and coordinate some joint actions that were being conducted at that time. The

Table 1.

Requirements for Stage 1.

Requirement Question

R1 – Establishment of the local office Does the institution have a local office that allows its operation?

R2 – Management tools and information systems

Are there appropriate management tools and information systems in place to assist the institution in its operation and in the coordination of joint actions?

R3 – Coordination

R4 – Identification of the local infrastructure

Does the institution have a coordinator or a coordination team to manage joint actions and innovation programs?

Has the local infrastructure (facilities, communication, transportation and so forth) been formally identified?

R5 – Identification of the cluster actors Have the actors involved with the cluster been formally identified?



Table 2.


Requirement Question

R6 – Characterization of the local productive system

R7 – Awareness of local companies and other local actors

Has the institution carried out a diagnosis of the local productive system?

How effective has the work of the institution been towards the awareness of companies and other local actors with respect to collaboration as a means of improvement and innovation?

R8 – Formulation of the strategic plan Does the institution periodically formulate its strategic plan with short and long term objectives that aim to improve the cluster’s performance as a whole?

R9 – Formulation of joint actions Are joint actions derived from the strategic plan and appropriately formulated?

(that is with an execution team, determination of responsibilities, associated performance measures, sources of funding and the like)

R10 – Existence of a PMS Is there a PMS in place that covers all the performance dimensions of the cluster and that enables the institution to assess the impacts of joint actions?

R11 – Assessment of joint actions

R12 – Performance communication

R13 – Benchmarking

Does the institution periodically assess the results of joint actions as a way to:

(i) determine the level of compliance with predetermined goals, (ii) readjust the plan if necessary or (iii) identify new opportunities for improvement?

Are the results of joint actions and performance measures communicated to all cluster stakeholders?

Has the institution implemented mechanisms to benchmark its performance measures and practices against those from other industrial clusters?

coordinator and vice coordinator of the initiatives are local entrepreneurs who dedicate part of their time to the management of the cluster’s joint actions. They operate from within SIMA by using its infrastructure to promote meetings among companies and seminars about subjects of interest to local firms. Among the ongoing joint actions are the annual furniture trade fair, business missions to international fairs as a way of bringing new ideas to local designers, the construction of a quality lab to measure the quality of local products as well as courses to improve local managers’ capabilities.

The information and communication technology

(ICT) cluster found in the city of Londrina (C3) was identified by IPARDES (2006b) and comprises software developers, automation firms and a range of other ICT service providers. According to the coordinator of the ICT APL of Londrina, the city has approximately 140 ICT companies, among which 60 have signed the participation agreement so far. The ICT APL of Londrina was started off in

2006 as a joint initiative of local entrepreneurs and the state government. Joint actions are managed by a coordinator, a vice coordinator and a secretary, who are also company owners in the city. They dedicate part of their time to hold meetings with local companies in order to identify their needs and suggest actions that should be taken to improve competitiveness and performance of local firms.

Noteworthy joint actions are the identification of

Table 3.


Requirement

R14 – Existence of a mature PMS

R15 – Learning from experience

R16 – Long term initiatives

R17 – Involvement of small, medium and large firms

R18 – Impact on performance

Question

Is there a stable and mature PMS with historical data stored for at least two years?

Has the institution learned from experience with past joint actions so that the formulation and implementation of new actions that involve local companies and actors is facilitated?

Has the institution formulated and conducted long term initiatives that aim to improve local infrastructure, both at the regional and institutional levels?

Have the initiatives started off by the institution drawn interest from small, medium and large firms?

Have the joint actions conducted by the institution been successful in improving the overall cluster’s performance?



Table 4.

Description of the industrial clusters researched.

Industrial cluster

Sertaozinho

(C1)

Arapongas

(C2)

Londrina

(C3)

Economic sector

Metal-mechanic industry

Furniture producers

Information and communication technology

Institution re-searched Type of coordination

CEISE and APL

Metaltec

SIMA and Furniture APL of Arapongas

The coordinator is a full-time SEBRAE consultant

The coordinator and the vice-coordinator are company owners in the city

ICT APL of Londrina The coordinator and the vice-coordinator are company owners in the city common training needs to specialize local workforce and the establishment of a local business centre that can be used both for joint purchasing and for selling local products and services to private and public organizations.

The self-assessment was conducted with assistance of the researchers, who used the questions from

Table 1, 2 and 3 to interview the coordinators of each institution. The responses given to each question were transcribed to determine the level of compliance to each of the requirements. Table 5 presents the scores obtained after the interviews.

The scores in each requirement, as shown in Table

5, were grouped to determine the average score in relation to the three implementation stages. These results are shown in Table 6.

6. Discussion

The use of three cases of industrial clusters enabled not only an evaluation of the management practices at the cluster level, but also a cross-case investigation of the practices to establish similarities and differences between them. The line graph in Figure 5 shows the scores for each of the 18 requirements in the three clusters researched and the mean score for each requirement.

It is visually noticeable in the line graph that the lines for each cluster tend to follow the mean line, which indicates little variation in many of the requirements.

There is though great variety between the scores of some other requirements. A better measure to quantify this variation is the column Range in Table 5. A great range between the scores of a certain requirement indicates that there is significant difference between the management practices adopted in the three cases.

The average range observed is 2,67. We will thus consider that a requirement has little variation in the cross-case analysis if its range is lower or equal to

2. Great variation in a requirement is characterized by a range equal or greater than 4. Because scores were defined in integer numbers, we defined an intermediate classification of variability when the range is equal to 3. By using these criteria, the requirements R5, R6, R9, R10, R11, R12, R13 and

R18 showed low variation, whereas the requirements

R4, R8, R15, R16 and R17 showed high variation between the cases. Requirements R1, R2, R3 and R7 fell in the intermediate group.

The observation of the means obtained for each requirement allows the determination of the overall level of compliance with the practices specified in the management model. The scale described in Section

4.5 was used to classify and discuss the means observed. However, relying solely on the means or on the ranges may lead to wrong conclusions. For example, if a given requirement showed a low mean, it does not necessarily mean that all the three clusters did not perform the practices specified for that requirement, because there may be high variability between the cases, which is indicated by the range.

In order to reach more precise conclusions with respect to each requirement, it is necessary to analyze

R8

R9

R10

R11

R12

R13

R14

R15

R4

R5

R6

R7

Req.

R1

R2

R3

R16

R17

R18

Table 5.

Scores obtained in eah cluster.

0

3

5

1

1

4

3

6

3

3

3

6

6

5

9

C1

7

5

10

Scores (0 to 10)

0

6

6

1

3

4

6

7

6

5

5

5

9

9

9

C2

10

5

7

0

7

5

3

10

6

2

5

7

8

5

6

10

7

6

C3

7

2

7

2,0

4,3

5,3

1,7

6,0

7,0

6,3

6,3

0,0

5,3

5,3

5,3

4,3

Avg. Range

8,0

4,0

8,0

6,7

9,3

3

3

1

2

3

7

1

2

3

4

5

2

4

4

2

0

1

1



Figure 5.

Line graph with scores in each case both their means and ranges. Table 7 classifies the requirements according to their means and ranges, in which the rows represent the categories for the mean adapted to real numbers (see Section 4.5) and the columns represent the three classifications for the range, as previously described in this section.

One important conclusion that can be drawn from

Table 7 is that the scores did not differ significantly in 9 out of the 18 requirements (see first column in

Table 7). Nevertheless, only R5 had a mean score above 7, which indicates that the identification of the actors involved with the cluster is a common practice in the three clusters researched. The diagnosis of the local productive system (R6), the formulation (R9) and evaluation (R11) of joint actions, performance communication (R12) and the impact of joint actions

(R18) achieved a partial level of compliance. In such cases, either the management practices were still being implemented or they still needed improvement.

For example, all the clusters had some qualitative mechanism to evaluate the results of joint actions

(R11), which was done mainly in meetings with the institution staff and companies’ representatives, but none had performance measures to quantify the efficiency and effectiveness of the joint action.

It is seemingly a consequence of the inexistence of a formal PMS in the three clusters, which is demonstrated by the low scores recorded in R10 and R14. Besides, the requirement R13 achieved

low scores in all clusters because there were no benchmarking mechanisms in place to assist the institution in comparing the cluster’s performance with that of other clusters. The ICT cluster of

Londrina was the only one that was planning to take part in a SEBRAE benchmarking initiative that seeks to compare the performance of companies according to the criteria from the Brazilian national quality award. Such initiative, however, is still at an early stage of implementation and concrete results have not been observed as of the time of this research.

The establishment of a local office (R1), the existence of a coordination team (R3) and the awareness of companies (R7) also seem to be common practices, though the observed range for these requirements was equal to 3. In fact, the scores to R1 and R3 were equal or greater than 7 in the three clusters, and the range equalled 3 because one of the clusters scored

10 in these requirements. As for R7, Londrina and

Sertaozinho scored below 7 because they were facing difficulties in formulating joint actions that draw the attention from small and large companies at the same time. In the case of Londrina, the cluster coordinator reported that many companies have not realized the benefits of taking part in the cluster initiatives regardless of their size, which partly explains why so many companies do not participate in the meetings periodically held in the institution.

Among the requirements with range greater than

3, the formulation of strategic plans (R8) and the involvement of small and large companies (R17) were the ones that most differed in the cross-case analysis.

The cluster of Londrina has steadily formulated strategic plans since 2006, whilst in Sertaozinho a formal strategic plan has never been written.

Arapongas obtained an intermediate score because the practice was discontinued in 2009 to be resumed only in 2011. As for the requirement R17, Londrina achieved the highest score because the institution has successfully carried out initiatives that benefit companies regardless of their sizes, even though many of the local companies have not participated in these initiatives. The cluster of Arapongas, on its

Table 6.

Scores grouped according to the implementation stages.

Stage

S-1

C2 C3

Score Avg. Score Avg. Score Avg.

36

S-2

S-3

32

12

Overall 80

C1

7,20 40 8,00 32

4,00 41 5,13 41

2,40 22 4,40 27

6,40

5,13

5,40

4,44 103 5,72 103 5,72

Table 7.

Requirements classified according to the means and ranges observed.

Mean ≤ 3

R ≤ 2

R10, R13, R14

3 < Mean < 7 R6, R9, R11,

R12, R18

Mean ≥ 7 R5

R = 3

-

R2

R1, R3, R7

R ≥ 4

-

R4, R8, R15,

R16, R17

-



turn, reported that large companies are participating in the initiatives and meetings, though they act as observers rather than proactive agents.

Another important analysis that can be made concerns the average scores obtained by grouping the requirements according to the implementation stages. The line graph in Figure 6 was based on the data from Table 6. It is apparent in this line graph that the best scores were obtained in the first implementation stage. This is an indication that the clusters researched have established their local offices, coordination teams, and have identified the local infrastructure. A considerable drop can be noted in the second stage, which is caused mainly by the requirements R10, R11 and R13. This shows that designing performance measures, assessing the results of joint actions and establishing benchmarking mechanisms are still challenges in all the clusters.

With exception of Londrina, the lowest scores were observed in the third implementation stage. It is apparently a consequence of the nature of this stage, whose requirements demand that the management practices implemented in S-1 and S-2 become more mature and effective. Moreover, in order to achieve the third stage the cluster needs to learn from experience with past initiatives. This means that new joint actions should not only be well managed, but also that they should encompass the real interests of the parties involved so that their performance is impacted positively. A hypothesis derived from this reasoning is that an industrial cluster can achieve high scores in S-3 only after several iterations of

S-2, which is the continuous improvement cycle from Figure 3.

7. Conclusions

Institutions for collaboration in industrial clusters have played a vital role in improving the capabilities of local companies and in carrying out joint actions that extend the benefits of agglomeration beyond external economies. This was the motivation of this research, which aimed to contribute to the body of knowledge on industrial clusters by putting forth a performance and change management model to guide IFCs in the planning, implementation and assessment of joint actions. The model was divided into three dimensions – infrastructure; strategic planning; and implementation and assessment. To each of these dimensions, a number of management practices were associated. Based on this model, three

Figure 6.

Compliance to the requirements according to the implementation stages.

implementation stages were identified, which served as ground to the formulation of a self-assessment tool that help the cluster determine its level of compliance with the proposed management model.

The tool was used in three industrial clusters to evaluate their management practices according to the model, which led to important insights and findings.

First, the highest scores were observed in the first implementation stage (S-1), which is strongly related to the infrastructure dimension of the model.

This is an indication that the clusters have not faced great barriers in establishing the infrastructure at the institutional level and identifying the local infrastructure and actors at the regional level. As for the strategic planning, some positive practices could be found in all the three clusters, though they have not been able to design performance measures to assess the results of joint actions in numerical terms.

This may prevent future joint actions from drawing more interest of local companies, mainly because companies will not be able to measure precisely the benefits of taking part in such actions. Additionally, the inexistence of a performance measurement system hinders the benchmarking with other industrial clusters. Based on the scores obtained by each cluster, it becomes apparent that issues related to performance measurement prevented them from scoring better in S-3, since this stage requires that the institution establishes more mature management practices to plan, implement and assess joint actions.

Although the findings of this paper cannot be extended to all industrial clusters, they serve as empirical evidence that, in general, measuring the benefits of joint actions numerically is not a common practice yet. Future research on IFCs should seek ways to overcome the barriers to performance measurement, strategic planning, and the assessment of joint actions, since no widely accepted solutions for these issues have been proposed so far.



Acknowledgements: This should always be a run-in heading and not a section or subsection heading. It should not be assigned a number. The acknowledgements may include reference to grants or supports received in relation to the work presented in the paper.

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Wyno Journal of Management & Business Studies

Vol. 1(1), PP. 1-18 April, 2013

Available Online at http://www.wynoacademicjournals.org/management_biz.html

©2013 Wynoacademic Journals

THE EFFECTS OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN AN ORGANISATION:

A CASE STUDY OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA (NUR)

Kamugisha Samuel

MBA Coordinating Secretary

National University of Rwanda, Faculty of Economics and Management

P.O Box 117 Butare, Rwanda. Email: samkamugisha@gmail.com

Tel: +250788845648 Rwanda

Accepted Date: 30 th

January 2013

ABSTRACT

Change has become a constant phenomenon which must be managed properly for an organization to survive. Knowledge and awareness about many of the critical issues involved in the management of such change is often lacking.

This study sought to find out the effects of change management in National University of Rwanda. It was guided by the following specific objectives: to analyze the effect of change management on organization culture at National University of Rwanda; to determine the effect of change management on Organization structure at National University of Rwanda; and to investigate the effect of change management on leadership at National University of Rwanda. This study used a descriptive case study approach.

A purposive sample of 57 senior staff members directly involved in managing organizational change participated. Data collection was based on secondary and primary sources. The data collected from questionnaires and secondary sources was summarized according to the study themes; being change management and its effects on organizational structure, culture and leadership. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics like mean, mode, median and frequencies.

Results were presented inform of charts and tables for quantitative data and in prose for qualitative data. This study found that there are changes in the management of faculties. There are also changes in the requirements and performance of the staff, where administrative staffs are now to have at least a bachelor’s degree in relation to the positions they occupy.

Previously, there were no such restrictions and conditions to occupy such slots. The University Administration has introduced the idea of performance contracting; where employees are required to set targets from which they are evaluated. Module system was introduced to replace classical way of teaching. These changes were found to affect the organization human resources in terms of downsizing, outsourcing and recruiting more staff to fill some new posts.

Technological changes in terms of enhanced internet bandwidth in the university have considerably had a significant impact on the operations of the university both in Academic and administration.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Many organizations are occasionally faced with challenges that force them to adjust or change (Burnes, 2004).

Development organizations, in particular, regularly have to go through change processes when having to respond to new development scenarios or simply as part of their expansion or restructuring processes. The implications of change processes are regularly under-estimated by senior management and not managed adequately. Ansoff (1987) asserts that it’s known that leadership can make a great difference, and that its importance for organizational success is intensifying.

Yet we still know too little about the qualities and practice of effective organizational leadership and change management.

Universities are a major sector which has significant contribution to socio-economic development. The external changes that have been facing the organizations provide an avenue for thinking. Managers have adopted change practices with varying levels of success. While studies on change have been done on manufacturing, (Shem, 2005) public sector

(Nyamache, 2003) International Development organizations (Muturi, 2006) and in other corporations, none has been done on the education sector and Public Universities as well in Rwanda. This study will therefore provide insights on change practices in these organizations.

1

2. Mgt. & Bus. Stu.

Most organizational managers today would agree that change has become a constant phenomenon which must be attended to and managed properly if an organization is to survive. Changes in technology, the marketplace, information systems, the global economy, social values, workforce demographics, and the political environment all have a significant effect on the processes, products and services produced. The culmination of these forces has resulted in an external environment that is dynamic, unpredictable, demanding and often devastating to those organizations which are unprepared or unable to respond (Burnes, 2004).

According to Schaffer (1992), those organizations which do survive are often relegated to the role of playing “catch up” to their competitors, while others are either absorbed into larger entities via mergers or acquisitions or simply dissolved into a collection of corporate assets and liabilities. In fact, many of the popular trends in management and organizational consulting such as business process re-engineering, total quality management and the learning organization, represent systematic methods for responding to and channeling effectively the forces of change. Unfortunately, the vast majority of improvement initiatives undertaken by organizations, even with the best of intentions, are destined to have little impact.

While organizational change is a constant experience, knowledge and awareness about many of the critical issues involved in the management of such change is often lacking in those responsible for its progress. Clearly, if organizations are ever to experience a greater level of success in their development efforts, managers and executives need to have a better framework for thinking about change and an understanding of the key issues which accompany change management. Change management has been linked to the organization's competitiveness and response to changes in the environment. Ansoff and McDonnell (1990), state that changes arise out of the need for organizations to exploit existing or emerging opportunities and deal with threats in the market. It is crucial that organizations seek to create a competitive advantage and wherever possible innovate to improve their competitive positions. This implies the readiness to change within the organization and the ability to implement the proposed change.

A host of external factors influence an organization's choice of direction and action and ultimately, its organizational structure and internal processes. These factors, which constitute the external environment, can be divided into three interrelated Strategy categories; that is factors in the remote environment, factors in the industry environment and factors in the operating environment (Pearce and Robinson, 1991). Organizations manage change directly. Balogun and Hailey

(1999) identify important contextual features that should be taken into account when designing change programs. These include the scope, institutional memory, diversity of experience within an organization, the capability of managing change and the readiness for change throughout the different levels in the organization.

There are different approaches to managing change; some are sudden, planned and incremental. Kazmi (2002) says that change is not linear and therefore cannot be worked on a mathematical formula basis with a set of variables that will yield a fixed answer for their combination. Aosa (1996) points out the necessity of carrying out change within the context of unique environmental challenges within Africa. Therefore change is context and environmental dependent, and there is no one best way.

1.1.1 Public Universities in Rwanda

According to the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE), there are 17 Public Higher Learning Institutions in

Rwanda. The Public Higher Learning Institutions are National University of Rwanda, Kigali Institute of Science and

Technology, Kigali Institute of Education, School of Finance and Banking, Higher Institute of Agriculture and Animal

Husbandry, Umutara Polytechnic, Institute of Legal Practice and Development, Kabgayi School of Nursing and

Midwifery, Rwamagana School of Nursing and Midwifery, Byumba School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kavumu College of Education, Rukara College of Education, Kibungo School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kicukiro College of Technology,

Tumba College of Technology, Kigali Health Institute, and Nyagatare School of Nursing and Midwifery. By categorization, they are 10 Colleges, 1 Polytechnic, 5 Institutes and 1 University (National Council of Higher Education website http://www.highereducationcouncil.org).

1.1.2 The National University of Rwanda (NUR)

The National University of Rwanda (NUR) is a Rwanda’s state university, founded in November 1963 as an institution of higher learning, with a mission to provide higher education, conduct research, and offer services to the community. It is the oldest and largest University in the country. The University is located in the Southern Province, 150 km south of the capital city of Kigali. It was the only publicly funded university until the 1990’s. Before the 1994 war and genocide, it had three campuses in Butare, Kigali and Ruhengeri. After 1994, because of resource constraints, the three campuses merged into one campus in Butare. Since the reopening of NUR in 1995, 8,747 students have graduated from NUR. With over 10,

000 students registered this year. NUR has over one third (1/3) of the total student population in all the higher education institutions in Rwanda. NUR is currently having 7 Faculties, 2 Schools and 6 Centers. NUR has also 10 Postgraduate

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Programs. The medium of teaching and learning is English. The current staff is around 1035 including Academic,

Administrative and Technical.

Between April and July 1994 , the University community lost a good number of its staff and students who were killed during the genocide. The University suffered a great loss; laboratory equipment, the computer equipment and academic infrastructure were destroyed or taken away. NUR was closed because of the prevailing war in the country, those who were not killed had to hide themselves, and others fled in exile. In 1995 the university reopened. The campus of

Ruhengeri and the Kigali Faculty of Law shifted and became part of the campus of Butare. The main change was that all the faculties and schools were regrouped in Butare Campus for security and administrative reasons. The beginning was not easy but the government decided the smooth running of NUR at all costs. The Campus that was supposed to cater for

1,600 students now lodged more than 4,500. NUR took off smoothly but surely despite the wounds to dress, the buildings to repair and English became a new language of teaching (National University of Rwanda website: http://www.nur.ac.rw).

The National University of Rwanda is committed to building an institution whose motto is ‘Excellence in Education and

Service to the People.’ As it is vivid no country can develop without adequate knowledge institutions supplying relevant expertise and skills for social and economic transformation. In all successful nations, the role of the university has gone beyond the traditional missions of teaching and research. NUR is as a matter of fact the “engine of social and economic development” in terms of innovations and the commercialization of ideas that lead to entrepreneurial activities and the formation of business enterprises. The university, above all, provides the bulk of the required skills and knowledge for the national labour market to meet both public as well as private sector demands. In Rwanda, Vision 2020 recognizes the need for a critical mass of skills in all areas of national life. As the premier knowledge institution in Rwanda, the National

University of Rwanda is repositioning itself so that it can play a developmental role and thereby assist the country to realize its vision (National University of Rwanda website: http://www.nur.ac.rw

).

According to Aosa (1998), organizations being environmental dependent have to constantly adapt their activities and internal configurations to reflect the new external realities and failure to do so may put the future success of an organization in jeopardy. Rwandan environment is not isolated from happenings on the global scene. National University of Rwanda is facing several challenges and how to manage their effects, including inadequate resources, rapid technological changes, growing number of students as a result of increasing demand for higher education, the changing of the medium of instruction from French to English, and the introduction of the Bologna system of education based on student centered learning (National University of Rwanda: Strategic Plan 2008-2012).

Change has become a constant phenomenon which must be attended to and managed properly if an organization is to survive. Changes in technology, the marketplace, information systems, the global economy, social values, workforce demographics and the political environment have a significant effect on the processes, products and services produced.

The culmination of these forces has resulted in an external environment that is dynamic, unpredictable, demanding and often devastating to those organizations which are unprepared or unable to respond (Burnes 2000). While organizational change is a constant experience, knowledge and awareness about many of the critical issues involved in the management of such change is often lacking in those responsible for its progress. Clearly if organizations are ever to experience a greater level of success in their development efforts, managers and program officers need to have a better framework for thinking about change and an understanding of the key issues which accompany change management. Change management has been linked to the organization’s competitiveness and response to changes in the environment (Ansoff and McDonnell, 1990). This implies the readiness to change within an organization and the ability to implement the proposed changes.

According to Pearce and Robinson (1991) a host of external factors influence an organization’s choice of direction, action and ultimately, its organizational structures and internal processes. These factors, which constitute the external environment, can be divided into three interrelated strategy categories that are factors in the remote, industry and operating environment. National University of Rwanda is one of the institutions that has tried to implement changes over a number of years in order to deliver its services to the ever growing population of students.

Though change management is a subject studied extensively in Kenya, the subject is least if not at all studied in Rwanda.

Most studies in this area have embarked on the process of change management. Rukunga (2003), studied strategic change management at the Nairobi Bottlers Ltd and found out that Nairobi Bottlers Ltd had successfully embraced change management as a strategy and that it had positively affected their operations. Ongaro (2004), conducted a study on strategic change management practices at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), he concluded that change management were needed in service industries and that implementation of reforms was successful at KNH. These studies have all been carried out in Kenya and none has crossed or tackled a Rwandan context. It is therefore imperative to note that there is a need for this research to be undertaken to investigate and establish the effects of change management in organizations in

Rwanda. The problem of this study therefore was to find out the effects of change management in National University of

Rwanda.

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1.2 Organizational Change and the Effects on its Management

Generally, it is assumed that managers are in favour for or against a (new) strategy “neither as a habit nor as a mindless repertoire.” (Stubbart, 1989, p.330) but for rational reasons and on the basis of objective facts. And one can hear a lot about the official reasons for managerialistic change; to increase efficiency and reduce costs, to increase profits and growth, to become more business-like and to secure the survival of the organization – you name it. All these claims might be true, many managers may really believe in what they say and work very hard to achieve the changes and results proclaimed. However, behind such claims there can be also reasons and drivers which are being mentioned less often, if at all. Despite all assurances by the proponents of new public management that the new agenda is solely about rational strategic responses and “technical” aspects, organizational politics imply otherwise. Strategic change initiatives, their formulation and implementation are much about influence, power and control (Diefenbach 2006).

Walsh (1995) (similar Humphrey (2005)) draws the attention to the fact “that the struggle for power in an organization is often a struggle to impose and legitimize a self-serving construction of meaning for others”. Managers want to get “their” version through, their interpretation of how the world “is” and what the organization should be doing – because they know very well that getting ones “meaning” through will generate further chances and possibilities. Organizational change is a socially constructed reality with negotiated meaning as outcomes of power relationships and struggles for supremacy

(Grant et al., 2005). “Between the lines” a particular strategy is primarily about power and control, dominance and supremacy, whose access to resources will be enlarged or reduced, who can stay and who has to go.

Managers might have to deliver “results” and therefore are not absolutely free in their choices. But they make decisions on quite a rational basis – seen from their perspective. Hence, many managers – like many other people – make decisions first with regard to their personal interests (in the West, at least), to their own position and career aspirations, to their families and social affairs and the like (Willmott, 1997, p. 1335). These personal interests usually fit to group interests, i.e. to strengthen the roles, position and influence of managers (in comparison and against other professions, lower ranks or external stakeholders). Strategic change initiatives, discourses about strategy, change, and other management issues provide excellent opportunities for senior and middle managers to set the agenda, to get their ideology through as the organization’s primary strategic objectives, to strengthen their role and position, to keep, gain or increase internal influence. Managerialistic strategies and change management are “the modernist project which has as its heart the transcendence of professional management as a means of achieving control in organizations” (McAuley et al., 2000): For those who believe in the principles that underlie it, managerialism as a philosophy legitimize ‘the interests of management in how organisations are managed, stressing the role and accountability of individual managers and their positions as managers’ (Lawler and Hearn, 1996; McAuley et al., 2000). By pursuing their personal interests they also pursue group interests. New public management change initiative is an odd combination of managerialistic ideology, personal and group interests.

1.3 Conceptions of Change and Strategic Management

The strategic management model assumes that the changes in the organization can be captured by one or a few objectives

(Thompson and McEwen, 1958). But what if the change-process involves multiple changes simultaneously? This question leads the discussion into a path discussing hierarchies of objectives or complexity. Therefore, it is often assumed that the strategic management effort solves a single business problem or situational challenge. In most modern theories of managing change, the goal-setting and objectives have been substituted by the vision as a driver for planned change. The vision plays a central role in modern change management as an abstract organizing and driving force creating meaning and motivation in the change process (Kotter, 1990, 1995, 1996; Beer et al., 1990; Li, 2005; Kaplan and Norton, 2007).

There is a generic difference between incremental changes on the one hand and major or radical changes on the other hand. There are four basic ways of understanding change. If these four basic ways of understanding organizational change are looked at, then the practical paradox challenge to the strategic balance assumption and planning when the demand for strategic change is more frequent than the strategic ability to plan and implement change strategy can be seen. The faster the change cycle runs and the frequency raises, the more paradoxical strategic planning and managing intentional change processes becomes, since vision, mission, and strategies cannot be changed too often without making the strategic efforts meaningless. There is some inspiration towards dissolving or coping with the practical paradox of keeping up with strategy in reference to the theory of evolution.

Change may be understood relative to its’ frequency (how often does change occur), and its’ intensity (is it minor, incremental, stepwise, or major, radical). The intensity may be subdivided into whether the change is continuous, evolutionary, developmental, or is discontinuous, revolutionary, or transformational. But change should also be understood relative to its’ degree of successfulness – how much time does it contribute to survival and sustainability by creating periods of relative stability.

1.4 Employees Resistance to Change

People do not like change, any change. A “strong preference for stability and continuity” (Brooks and Bate, 1994, p. 181) might be in the human nature. People only want to change when both the pull- and push-forces are that strong that people

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Another issue people are quite sensitive about is the “technical” aspects of change initiatives, i.e. how change is introduced, communicated and discussed, if and how their viewpoints are not only being heard but seriously taking into account. Many people are (still) of the opinion that an organization is or should be much more than a profit-generating, efficiency-improving machinery. Such values and convictions can be quite deeply embedded in an organization’s culture and people’s attitudes (Kirkpatrick and Ackroyd, 2000). Any change initiative has to take this into account: There is a significant body of literature that draws attention to the difficulty of changing organizational culture on the grounds of that culture is deeply ingrained in the underlying norms and values of an organization and cannot be imposed from above

(Parker and Bradley, 2000).

In this sense, many people seem to be against top-down and paternalistic approaches of leadership and centralization of power and control (Diefenbach, 2006). But what many people perhaps resist the most is the cynical use and misuse of

“grand” ideas for personal and group interests. People resist ambitious senior managers who join organizations they do not know, who are only interested in furthering their own career and market-value, mess with several change management initiatives, and then leave the organization in a state worse than before for good and with a golden handshake. People resist managers who have only little understanding of the business, who do not care for the ideas and needs of their employees, and the organizational necessities and opportunities, with managers who pretend to be busy and important, even crucial for the sake and survival of the unit but at the end of the day are only interested in their career and the increase in their market value, in strengthening their position and securing their pension scheme. Therefore, people are not against change per se, but these specific tendencies. Managerialism produces resistance (Kirkpatrick and Ackroyd, 2000)

– and other negative outcomes. It is often the cause of the problem and not the cure.

1.5 Change Management and the Challenge to Rationality

Those charged with bringing about changes in organizations have a myriad of challenges to deal with. There is evidence to suggest that the universal, prescriptive model of change management is inadequate to describe the diversity of approaches actually used by organizations (Dunphy and Stace, 1993). Some seek to restrict the meaning of change management to the felt need to improve organizational performance and members’ own position within the organization

(Goodstein and Burke, 1991). Dawson (1996) has discussed the limitations of adopting such a simple definition of change. She sees conflicting interests and resistance as some of the barriers to achieving the desired results in the felt need for change. Other researchers (Tichy, 1983) acknowledge the frustration that manager’s feel when their organizations do not respond to elaborately analyzed plans, where there is a lack of interaction between decision and action.

There are those who perceive change management as a systemic process incorporating systems of interpretation and meaning (Hassard, 1991; Knights and Willmott, 1995). This view is particularly important, as it emphasizes the social aspects of exchange through which the locus of knowledge and the understanding of “real” things is subjectively shared and shaped by individuals through conversation and dialogue. What is seen as real is made real through sense-making processes (Weick, 1995), and “the social world is best understood from the viewpoint of the participant-in-action”

(Hassard (1991, p. 277). In an empirical sense, this perception of change management reflects the management of processes through liberal exchange of knowledge, building of trust and acknowledgement of the heterogeneity in values, preferences and interests. In spite of the attention that the management of change has received, organizations continue to have problems in managing organizational change and “the search for generalized laws of change still pervades the discipline” (Wilson, 1992). There is a gap between what the rational-linear change management approach prescribes and what change agents do.

1.6 Change Management and the Rational-Linear View of Change

In line with the classic argument on “environmental determinism” (Burns and Stalker, 1961), change in organizations is perceived by internal change agents in this study as being triggered by change in environmental conditions such as competitive pressures, legislation, environmental and safety regulations, world-wide economic threats, key stakeholders and leadership preferences and technological advancements. However, the wider political struggles to gain control over scarce resources emerge as the most powerful stimulator of change. As far as the cases are concerned, considerable time is invested into building relationships to this end.

Unity in goals and full participation in change efforts, despite the fact that such participation may not generate a complete agreement on various aspects of the change process, are seen as desirable conditions for effective implementation of organizational change. These espoused values reflect a “‘unitary’ frame of reference which emphasizes the philosophy that organizations have goals to which all organizational members subscribe, with all working towards their attainment”

(Senior, 1997, p. 167). The need for united efforts is exemplified by the need for integrated systems and change initiatives.

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It is claimed that change regarding a tangible output, such as a capital investment or a new building, is easier to bring about than change concerning an intangible output, such as the degree of learning. This is because procedures that guide actions in the case of tangible product changes are seen as more codifiable than those for tangible outputs (Nonaka and

Takeuchi, 1995). There is an extensive difference in the way change management is perceived between managers having administrator roles and engineers reflecting the non-linear, quasi-rational nature of change. Administrators are seen by some of the engineers as heavily embedded in politics and detached from actual change.

1.7 Discourse-Based Theory of Organizational Change

A number of studies have suggested that discourse theory and the analysis of organizational discourse offer considerable potential for understanding the nature and complexity of organizational change. However, while these studies demonstrate some of the potential contributions that a discourse based theory of organizational change might make, they also exhibit two inter-related problems. First independently or in combination, none of the studies attempts to provide a comprehensive or integrated discourse theory of change. The discursive change model, if one exists, is implicit, but not fully articulated. Second, by virtue of the model being underspecified, the value of the observations and results of studies of organizational discourse and change are potentially open to question or even undermined (Ford, 2008).

In reference to level of change related to discourses, it operates at several different levels. It is possible to identify five that merit attention in relation to organizational change – the intrapsychic, the Micro, the Meso, the macro and the Meta.

At the intrapsychic level a discourse might manifest itself in the form of internalized stories and introjected beliefs that an individual tells them self. It can also refer to cognitive frames and schemas (Ford, 2008). Analyses of discourses at the micro level focus on the detail of language in use by individuals. Beyond the individual focus of the micro-level, it is possible to consider discourse at the meso-level to explore the interpersonal. At this level discursive interactions will impact on the actions and behavior of individuals within a localized context, e.g. a department or among a specific group of actors who socially interact on a regular basis (Mumby, 2004).

Macro level discourses can be viewed as an aggregation and accumulation of an amalgam of meso-level discursive interactions in organizations. Here, interactions such as conversations and texts coalesce to form the dominant thinking, institutional practices and collective social perspectives within an organization. Meta level discourses have been described as discourses that are recognized and espoused at the broader societal level and across institutional domains. As such they might address “more or less standard ways of referring to/constituting a certain type of phenomenon” (Alvesson &

Kärreman, 2000: 1133). The texts within any level of discourse are linked to, and informed by discourses and the texts that operate from other levels. This inter-textuality means that it is important to identify and analyze specific, micro-level discourses pertaining to change, within say a conversation, and to then place them in the context of other meso, macro or even meta discourses (Boje, 2001).

1.8 Three-Step Change Theory

Kurt Lewin (1951) introduced the three-step change model. This social scientist views behavior as a dynamic balance of forces working in opposing directions. Driving forces facilitate change because they push employees in the desired direction. Restraining forces hinder change because they push employees in the opposite direction. Therefore, these forces must be analyzed and Lewin’s three-step model can help shift the balance in the direction of the planned change.

According to Lewin, the first step in the process of changing behavior is to unfreeze the existing situation or status quo.

The status quo is considered the equilibrium state. Unfreezing is necessary to overcome the strains of individual resistance and group conformity. Unfreezing can be achieved by the use of three methods. First, increase the driving forces that direct behavior away from the existing situation or status quo. Second, decrease the restraining forces that negatively affect the movement from the existing equilibrium. Third, find a combination of the two methods listed above. Some activities that can assist in the unfreezing step include: motivate participants by preparing them for change, build trust and recognition for the need to change, and actively participate in recognizing problems and brainstorming solutions within a group

(Robbins 564-65).

Lewin’s second step in the process of changing behavior is movement. In this step, it is necessary to move the target system to a new level of equilibrium. Three actions that can assist in the movement step include: persuading employees to agree that the status quo is not beneficial to them and encouraging them to view the problem from a fresh perspective, work together on a quest for new, relevant information, and connect the views of the group to well-respected, powerful leaders that also support the change.

The third step of Lewin’s three-step change model is refreezing. This step needs to take place after the change has been implemented in order for it to be sustained or “stick” over time. It is highly likely that the change will be short lived and the employees will revert to their old equilibrium (behaviors) if this step is not taken. It is the actual integration of the new values into the community values and traditions. The purpose of refreezing is to stabilize the new equilibrium resulting from the change by balancing both the driving and restraining forces. One action that can be used to implement Lewin’s

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(Robbins 564-65).

1.9 Phases of Change Theory

Lippitt, Watson, and Westley (1958) extend Lewin’s Three-Step Change Theory. Lippitt, Watson, and Westley created a seven-step theory that focuses more on the role and responsibility of the change agent than on the evolution of the change itself. Information is continuously exchanged throughout the process. The seven steps involve diagnosis of the problem; assessing the motivation and capacity for change; assessing the resources and motivation of the change agent; choosing progressive change objects; selecting and clearly understanding role of change agents by all parties so that expectations are clear; maintaining the change; communication, feedback, and group coordination are also essential elements in this step of the change process; finally, the change agent should gradually withdraw from their role over time. This will occur when the change becomes part of the organizational culture (Lippitt, Watson and Westley 58-59).

Lippitt, Watson, and Westley point out that changes are more likely to be stable if they spread to neighboring systems or to subparts of the system immediately affected. Changes are better rooted. Two examples are: the individual meets other problems in a similar way, several businesses adopt the same innovation, or the problem spreads to other departments of the same business. The more widespread imitation becomes, the more the behavior is regarded as normal (Lippitt, Watson and Westley 58-59).

2.1 METHODOLOGY

This is a case study that has utilized a descriptive case study approach to achieve the set objectives. According to Yazici

(2009), a case study places more emphasis on a full contextual analysis of fewer events or conditions and their interrelations. This design was suitable because the study requires an accurate examination of the effects of change management; whereby in-depth, insightful and unique information on the effect of change management at National

University of Rwanda can be obtained best through a descriptive case study method.

2.2 The Population and Sample Design

The study population was staff of National University of Rwanda who has experienced various forms of organizational change. The population targeted for the study must have been involved in organizational change both directly and indirectly impacted upon by the new administrative systems. The total population of staff at the National University of

Rwanda is 1035 out of which the researcher targeted 57 staff members involved in making decisions and are the top of management in the institution.

A purposive sample of 57 staff members who were senior staff and are directly involved in managing organizational change were involved in the study. According to Winter et al. (2009), a purposive sample is a non-probability sample that conforms to a certain criteria. The research took purposively 57 staff members who are at the top management of the

University.

2.3 Data Collection

Data collection is the process of gathering information about a phenomenon using data collection instruments (Sekaran,

2000). Data collection was based on secondary and primary sources where primary data was obtained through the use of questionnaires as the main data collection instrument while secondary data was obtained from journals and books in the library and the University’s annual reports. Questionnaires was both open ended and closed and were also both qualitative and quantitative in nature to capture all the aspects of the effects of change management in an organization.

A total of 57 questionnaires were developed which were then be administered through drop and pick method.

2.4 Data Analysis

Data was analyzed using content analysis of written materials drawn from personal expressions of participants. The data collected from questionnaires, interviews and secondary sources was summarized according to the study themes being change management and its impact on organizational structure, culture and leadership. Data was then analyzed to determine its accuracy, credibility, usefulness and consistency. According to Cooper and Schindler (2011), content analysis measures the semantic content or the “what” aspect of the message. Its breadth makes it flexible and wideranging tool that is used as a methodology or as a problem-specific technique. Quantitative data was analyzed through coding in SPSS version data editor where inferences were drawn and descriptive statistics like mean, mode, median and frequencies of responses were used to give the results of the analysis which were then presented inform of charts and tables and prose for qualitative data.

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3.1 DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS

This section discusses the interpretation and presentation of the findings. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of change management in an organization; taking a case of National University of Rwanda. The objectives of this study were to analyze the effect of change management on organization culture at National University of Rwanda; to determine the effect of change management on Organization structure at National University of Rwanda; and to investigate the effect of change management on leadership at National University of Rwanda. This chapter focused on data analysis, interpretation and presentation. The researcher made use of frequency tables and percentages to present data.

The researcher targeted a sample of 57 staff members who are at the top management of the University out of which 49 responses were obtained. This represented an 85.96% response rate. According to Babbie (2002) any response of 50% and above is adequate for analysis thus 85.96% is even better.

3.2 General Information

As part of their general information the researcher requested the respondents to indicate their gender. The results are shown in figure 3.1 below:

Figure 3.1: Gender of the Respondents

It was realised that 56.25% of the respondents in this study were male while 43.75% were female. This clearly shows that majority of the respondents in this study were male.

Figure 3.2: Respondents’ Age Bracket

On the respondents age bracket, the study found that majority of the respondents (50.02%) were aged between 31 and 45 years, 28.57% were aged between 46 and 60 years and 20.40% were aged between 18 and 30 years. This shows that majority of the respondents were aged between 31 and 45 years.

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Figure 3.3: Respondents Education Level

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On their level of education, 46.94% of the respondents indicated that they had masters’ degree, 38.78% had postgraduate diploma and 14.29% had PhDs. This shows that majority of the respondents had masters degree.

Figure 3. 4: Work Experience

In an effort to determine the respondents work experience the researcher requested them to indicate the number of years they had been working at National University of Rwanda. From the findings 35% of the respondents indicated that they had been working in the university of Rwanda for between 5 and 10 years, 24% had been working there for between 10 and 20 years, 16% had been working there for between 3 and 5 years, 14% had been working there for more than 20 years and 11% had been working there for between 1 and 3 years. This clearly shows that majority of the respondents had a working experience of between 5 and 10 years.

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Figure 3.5: Number of Staff Supervised

On the number of staffs the respondents were supervising, 44% indicated that they were supervising more than 20 staffs,

21% were supervising 10 to 20 staffs, 19% were supervising 5 to 10staffs, 11% were supervising 4 to 5 staffs and 5% were supervising 1 to 3 staffs. From these findings we can deduce that majority of the respondents were supervising more than 20 staffs.

3.3 Effect Of Change Management On Organization Culture

3.3.1 Changes in Line with Responsibilities

On the changes the respondents were overseeing in line with their responsibilities the respondents indicated that they were overseeing changes in Academics, Administration and Management of the Faculty.

Regarding administration, there are changes in the requirements and performance of the staff. Administrative staffs are now to have at least a bachelor’s degree in relation to the positions they occupy, this affects the existing culture, where for administrative staff there were no such restrictions and conditions to occupy such slots. Module system was introduced and it replaced the classical way of teaching by course units, now similar/related units are grouped into one module and taught one after the other, in a logical and chronological order.

The University Administration has introduced the idea of performance contracting. Here all employees are required to set targets from which they are evaluated and/or appraised. The influence of culture is an impediment since it affects a lot the implementation of performance contracting. This is because, employees are required to deliver and perform effectively compared to the previous way of how things were done.

3.3.2 Impact of Change in an Organisation

The study established that the changes have a significant impact on the whole institution. Such changes include: Human resources; downsizing, outsourcing and recruiting more staff to fill some new posts. Technological changes; the increase of the internet bandwidth in the university has considerably had a significant impact on the operations of the university both in Academic and administration. These changes mostly have a fundamental impact on the University.

The study also sought to determine the changes that were essential. From the findings the respondents indicated that the fundamental changes are essential; this is because they have a paramount impact on the whole institution. However, even other changes depending on where they are initiated and implemented are also very essential in the University. This is due to the fact that such changes in different units add up to organizational change, for example, changes in the academia especially the language of instruction, changes in administration and the increased use of IT in the University.

3.3.3 How Changes Arise

The study also sought to know how the changes arised. The respondents indicated that most of these changes were planned and come or take place in an incremental form. However, some of these changes came in abruptly. On the ideal procedure for making changes upon request the respondents indicated that the ideal procedure is that the idea has to be endorsed by all the University organs especially top management and the University board.

3.3.4 Change Management Procedure

On the change management procedure applied the respondents indicated that the university was applying planned change management process procedure. Change requests are made by the units with change initiative and they are endorsed by the top management.

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3.3.5 Situations that Interfere with the Change Management Procedure

The study sought to determine the situations that interfere with the change management procedure. From the findings the respondents indicated that it is too tedious to get all the university management organs to approve change initiatives. They further added that the process is too bureaucratic and many change initiators find it as stumbling block to their development ideas.

3.3.6 Monitoring the Change Management

The study also sought to know who monitored the change. The respondents indicated that the Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation was established to oversee and monitor the decisions taken by the top management of the University.

On how and where the change documentation was stored the respondent indicated that the Directorate of Monitoring and

Evaluation and the Unit(s) which initiate the idea keep and mostly make a follow up of the change initiatives and therefore, keep all the necessary documentation on change management.

On whether there were alterations that needed to be made to the change management system the respondents indicated that a proper change management procedure should be established in order to track well the effects of change management.

The study found that the types of emergency changes that have been experienced included change of the Language of

Instruction; from French and English to English only and the introduction of the Module system (Bologna System of

Education) in the University and the whole country was too abrupt. Others changes have also occurred in a reactive manner. For example, after Rwanda joined the East African Community, it has embarked on harmonizing its operations to the rest of the community, though such initiatives come in a reactive and abrupt manner. On how the emergencies were dealt with, the respondents indicated that in case of emergencies the university management introduces and induces the staff to adopt such changes. However, in some cases when such emergencies are initiated at a higher level, for example from the Ministry of Education and the Cabinet, the University just implements the decision.

3.3.7 Approval of Various Changes

On approval of various changes that were to be made the study found that most changes are approved by the University

Management. Some are approved by the Management Committee, the Executive Committee and the Academic Senate.

However, the overall body that oversees and approves all the University change ideas and activities is the Board of

Directors which is the highest decision-making organ of the NUR, appointed by the Cabinet. On the level of management that was involved in the change process the respondents indicated that mostly the middle level managers are more involved in the management of change at NUR. On the process of approval the respondents indicated that after all the necessary organs or levels have approved and/or endorsed the idea, the University Board of Directors then finally adopts the idea which is then implemented thereafter.

The respondents indicated that the change approval was not easily obtained. This is because the process of approval is too bureaucratic and centralized in the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is the only body or level mandated to oversee and endorse all the university activities.

3.3.8 Main Challenge Facing Change Management

The respondents indicated that the main challenge facing the management was inadequate resources, lack of enough skilled and experienced staff due to low motivation in terms of salaries and wages, inadequate infrastructure, and strong resistance from the staff due to the organizational culture.

On how the change was dealt with the respondents indicated that a consultative way of handling and implementing change should be adopted in the University, otherwise there will always be resistance to change initiatives by some members of the staff who also would like to be part and parcel of the change initiators and implementers.

3.4 Effect of Change Management on the Organization Structure

The study sought to determine the kind of impact change had on an organization’s structure. From the findings the study found that one of the greatest challenges the University faces today is helping their workers deal with change. It is important that you are prepared to help your workers navigate this complex and often emotional process. Understanding how people deal with change will help you manage a successful transition. Change affects workers in different ways.

Some common responses that observed are: conflict, confusion and loss of confidence. Other kind of impact that change has on the University are; university restructuring, expansion and introduction of new programs especially at post graduate level. The study depicted that there was no approved organization structure (organization chart) of the

University.

11


3.4.1 Organizational Change

The respondents also agreed that organizational change was experienced. They further added that there have been several changes all over the institution which amounts to organizational change. Most of the changes have had a fundamental impact on the whole University.

From the respondents who indicated that organizational change was being experienced, the study also sought to know there was a need for organizational change to be frequently experienced. The respondents indicated that there was need for frequent organizational change to be able to cope up with the ever/turbulent environment in which the University operates. Failure to adapt and adopt change in the organization would lead to stagnation and therefore unfit to compete favorably with other actors in the industry.

Figure 3.6: Those Directly Impacted by Change

The study sought to determine who in the University was directly impacted by the change. From the findings as shown by figure 3.6 above the study found that senior employees were impacted most (32%). These were followed by junior employees (31%), managers (20%) and senior mangers (17%). This clear shows that the change was directly impacting the low level management most.

Figure 3.7: Sole Responsibility to Monitor the Impact of Change

On whether there was a dedicated team of members that were having the sole responsibility to monitor the impact of the change, 71.43% of the respondents indicated there was while 28.57% indicated that there wasn’t. This clearly shows that there was a dedicated team of members that were having the sole responsibility to monitor the impact of the change.

The respondents further added that the university Management through Board of Directors has established a new

Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation. It’s headed by a director with 4 other staff members. The Directorate is responsible for following up, monitoring and evaluating the University decisions, resolutions and projects. This

Directorate gathers information from departments, centers, schools and other units which are then evaluated to advice on the implementation of different projects in those units.

12

Table 3.1: Main Important Problems during Change Implementation Phase

Problem Mean

Barriers between departments

Not enough support from senior management

Resistance of middle management to change

Focus too much on technological aspects, too less on people

4.23

4.00

4.00

3.92

13. Samuel

Std. Deviation

.725

1.080

.739

.760

Scope not well defined, project is oversized

Resistance of users to change

Project does not have appropriate priority

3.85

3.92

3.85

.555

.641

.899

Not enough resources available

Budget needed, higher than expected

Organisation and procedures are not adapted to the new situation

(technological and organisational integration on different levels)

No transparent goals/objectives

3.77

3.54

3.92

.599

.967

1.115

Time for implementation needed, longer than expected

Goals are to aggressive, organization is not capable to cope

Availability of people from implementation team

Technological limitations (performance/missing functionality)

Barriers to external stakeholders (customers/supplier...)

Intercultural problems (i.e. language barriers)

3.85

3.73

3.59

4.64

4.58

3.72

3.58

.689

.599

.961

.519

.506

.768

.519

Table 3.1 shows the findings on the main important problem during change implementation phase. A five point Likert scale was used to interpret the respondent’s responses. According to the scale, those problems which were considered very important were awarded 1 while those which were considered not important were awarded 5. Within the continuum are 2 for less important, 3 for not sure and 4 for less important. Mean (weighted average) and standard deviation were used to analyze the data.

According to the researcher those problems with a mean less than 3.5 were rated as important while those with a mean less than 3.5 were rated as not important. On the same note the higher the standard deviation the higher the level of dispersion among the respondents.

From the findings, the study found that all the listed problems were important problem during change implementation phase. The problems that were rated as important include Barriers between departments (M=4.23, SD=0.725), Not enough support from senior management (M=4.00, 1.080), Resistance of middle management to change (M=4.00, SD=.739),

Focus too much on technological aspects, too less on people (M=3.92, .760), Scope not well defined, project is oversized

(M=3.85 .555), resistance of users to change (M=3.92, SD=.641), Project does not have appropriate priority (M=3.85,

SD=.899), Not enough resources available (M=3.77, SD=.599), Budget needed, higher than expected (M=3.54, .967),

Organization and procedures are not adapted to the new situation (technological and organizational integration on different levels) (M=3.92, SD=1.15), No transparent goals/objectives (M=3.85, SD=.689), Time for implementation needed, longer than expected (M=3.73 SD=.599), Goals are to aggressive, organization is not capable to cope (M=3.59,

SD=.961), Availability of people from implementation team (M=4.64, SD=.519), Technological limitations

(performance/missing functionality) (M=4.58, SD=.506), Barriers to external stakeholders (customers/supplier...)

(M=3.72, SD=.768) and Intercultural problems (i.e. language barriers (M=3.58, SD=.519).

13


Figure 3. 8: Implementation Approach

On whether the implementation approach depended on the organization culture, 41% of the respondents indicated that it sometimes depended on the organizational culture, 23% indicated that it depended on organizational culture and 12% indicated that it did not depend on organizational culture.

3.5 THE EFFECT OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT ON LEADERSHIP

Table 3.2: Leading and Managing Change

Task

I create a sense of urgency to reinforce the need for change

Mean

3.53

Std. Deviation

0.897

I provide people with facts, figures and evidence to persuade them for change

I select the right people to form the guiding coalition

I get the guiding coalition to work together as a team

I create clear and tangible vision for change

4.03

4.21

4.23

4.01

0.895

0.976

0.765

0.956

I construct effective strategies to deliver the vision

I change systems that get on the way of the changed vision

I recruit promote and develop the right people to promote change

I ensure the right people are chosen for the role of change development

3.98

3.89

3.97

3.78

1.02

1.11

1.07

0.967

Table 3.2 shows the findings on the extent to which they practiced the stated practices. A five point Likert scale was used to interpret the respondent’s responses. According to the scale, those practices which the respondents were practicing

(always) were awarded 5 while those which they were not practicing (never) were awarded 1. Within the continuum are 2 for rarely, 3 for sometimes and 4 for mostly. Mean (weighted average) and standard deviation were used to analyze the data.

According to the researcher those practices with a mean less than 3.5 were rated as practiced while those with a mean less than 3.5 were rated as not practiced. On the same note the higher the standard deviation the higher the level of dispersion among the respondents.

From the findings the respondents indicated that when they were leading and managing change they were creating a sense of urgency to reinforce the need for change (M=3.53, SD=0.897), they were providing people with facts, figures and evidence to persuade them for change (M=4.03, SD=0.895), they were selecting the right people to form the guiding coalition (M=4.21, SD=0.976), they were getting the guiding coalition to work together as a team (M=4.23, SD=0.765), they were creating clear and tangible vision for change (M=4.01, SD=0.956), they were constructing effective strategies to deliver the vision (3.98, SD=1.02), they were changing systems that get on the way of the changed vision (M=3.89,

SD=1.11), they were recruiting promote and develop the right people to promote change (M=3.97, SD=1.07) and they were ensuring the right people are chosen for the role of change development (M=3.78, SD=0.967).

4.1 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This section presented the discussion of key data findings, conclusion drawn from the findings highlighted and recommendation made there-to. The conclusions and recommendations drawn were focused on addressing the purpose of the study which was to examine the effects of change management in an organization; taking a case of National

University of Rwanda. The objectives of this study were to analyze the effect of change management on organization culture at National University of Rwanda; to determine the effect of change management on Organization structure at

National University of Rwanda; and to investigate the effect of change management on leadership at National University of Rwanda

14

15. Samuel

4.2 SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

This research study found that the respondents were overseeing changes in Academics, Administration and Management of the Faculties. Regarding administration, there are changes in the requirements and performance of the staff.

Administrative staffs are now to have at least a bachelor’s degree in relation to the positions they occupy, this affects the existing culture where for administrative staff there were no such restrictions and conditions to occupy such slots. Module system was introduced and it replaced the classical way of teaching by course units, now similar/related units are grouped into one module and taught one after the other, in a logical and chronological order. The University Administration has introduced the idea of performance contracting. Here all employees are required to set targets from which they are evaluated and/or appraised. The influence of culture is an impediment since it affects a lot the implementation of performance contracting. This is because, employees are required to deliver and perform effectively compared to the previous way of how things were done.

The study established that the changes have a significant effect on the whole institution. Such changes include: Human resources; downsizing, outsourcing and recruiting more staff to fill some new posts. Technological changes; the increase of the internet bandwidth in the university has considerably had a significant impact on the operations of the university both in Academic and administration. These changes mostly have a fundamental effect on the University.

The study also sought to determine the changes that were essential. From the findings the respondents indicated that the fundamental changes are essential; this is because they have a paramount effect on the whole institution. However, even other changes depending on where they are initiated and implemented are also very essential in the University. This is due to the fact that such changes in different units add up to organizational change for example, changes in the academia especially the language of instruction, changes in administration and the increased use of IT in the University. The study also sought to know how the changes were arising. The respondents indicated that most of these changes were planned and come or take place in an incremental form. However, some of these changes came in abruptly.

On the ideal procedure for making changes upon request the respondents indicated that the ideal procedure is that the idea has to be endorsed by all the University organs especially top management and the University board. On the change management procedure applied the respondents indicated that the university was applying planned change management process procedure. Change requests are made by the units with change initiative and they are endorsed by the top management.

The study sought to determine the situations that interfere with the change management procedure. From the findings the respondents indicated that it is too tedious to get all the university management organs to approve change initiatives. They further added that the process is too bureaucratic and many change initiators find it as stumbling block to their development ideas. On how and where the change documentation was stored the respondent indicated that the Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation and the Unit(s) which initiate the idea keep and mostly make a follow up of the change initiatives and therefore, keep all the necessary documentation on change management.

The study also sought to know who monitored the change. The respondents indicated that the Directorate of Monitoring and Evaluation was established to oversee and monitor the decisions taken by the top management of the University. On whether there were alterations that needed to be made to the change management system the respondents indicated that a proper change management procedure should be established in order to track well the effects of change management.

The study found that the types of emergency changes that have been experienced included change of the Language of

Instruction; from French and English to English only and the introduction of the Module system (Bologna System of

Education) in the University and the whole country was too abrupt. Others changes have also occurred in a reactive manner. For example, after Rwanda joined the East African Community, it has embarked on harmonizing its operations to the rest of the community, though such initiatives come in a reactive and abrupt manner.

On how the emergencies were dealt with, the respondents indicated that in case of emergencies the university management introduces and induces the staff to adopt such changes. However, in some cases when such emergencies are initiated at a higher level, for example from the Ministry of Education and the Cabinet, the University just implements the decision.

On approval of various changes that were to be made, the study found that most changes are approved by the University

Management. Some are approved by the Management Committee, the Executive Committee and the Academic Senate.

However, the overall body that oversees and approves all the University change ideas and activities is the Board of

Directors which is the highest decision-making organ of the NUR, appointed by the Cabinet.

On the level of management that was involved in the change process the respondents indicated that mostly the middle level managers are more involved in the management of change at NUR. On the process of approval the respondents indicated that after all the necessary organs or levels have approved and/or endorsed the idea, the University Board of

Directors then finally adopts the idea which is then implemented thereafter.

The respondents indicated that the change approval was not easily obtained. This is because the process of approval is too bureaucratic and centralized in the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is the only body or level mandated to oversee and endorse all the university activities. The respondents indicated that the main challenge facing the management was inadequate resources, lack of enough skilled and experienced staff due to low motivation in terms of

15

16. Mgt. & Bus. Stu. salaries and wages, inadequate infrastructure, and strong resistance from the staff due to the organizational culture. On how the change was dealt with the respondents indicated that a consultative way of handling and implementing change should be adopted in the University, otherwise there will always be resistance to change initiatives by some members of the staff who also would like to be part and parcel of the change initiators and implementers.

The study also sought to determine the kind of effect change had on an organization. From the findings the study found that one of the greatest challenges the University faces today is helping their workers deal with change. It is important that you are prepared to help your workers navigate this complex and often emotional process. Understanding how people deal with change will help you manage a successful transition. Change affects workers in different ways. Some common responses that were observed are: conflict, confusion and loss of confidence. Other kind of impact that change has on the

University are; university restructuring, expansion and introduction of new programs especially at post graduate level.

The respondents also agreed that organizational change was experienced. They further added that there have been several changes all over the institution which amounts to organizational change. Most of the changes have had a fundamental impact on the whole University. From the respondents who indicated that organizational change was being experienced, the study also sought to know there was a need for organizational change to be frequently experienced. The respondents indicated that there was need for frequent organizational change to be able to cope with the ever turbulent environment in which the University operates. Failure to adapt and adopt change in the organization would lead to stagnation and therefore unfit to compete favorably with other actors in the industry.

The study also realized that change was directly impacting the low level management most and there were dedicated team of members that were having the sole responsibility to monitor the impact of the change. The respondents further added that the university Management through Board of Directors has established a new Directorate of Monitoring and

Evaluation. It’s headed by a director with 4 other staff members. The Directorate is responsible for following up, monitoring and evaluating the University decisions, resolutions and projects. This Directorate gathers information from departments, centers, schools and other units which are then evaluated to advice on the implementation of different projects in those units.

On the main important problem during change implementation phase, the study found that all the listed problems were important problem during change implementation phase. The problems that were rated as important include Barriers between departments, Not enough support from senior management, Resistance of middle management to change, Focus too much on technological aspects, too less on people, Scope not well defined, project is oversized, resistance of users to change, Project does not have appropriate priority, Not enough resources available, Budget needed, higher than expected,

Organization and procedures are not adapted to the new situation (technological and organizational integration on different levels), No transparent goals/objectives, Time for implementation needed, longer than expected, Goals are too aggressive, organization is not capable to cope, Availability of people from implementation team, Technological limitations (performance/missing functionality), Barriers to external stakeholders (customers/supplier) and Intercultural problems (i.e. language barriers).

The study also found that when they were leading and managing change they were creating a sense of urgency to reinforce the need for change, providing people with facts, figures and evidence to persuade them for change, selecting the right people to form the guiding coalition, getting the guiding coalition to work together as a team, creating clear and tangible vision for change, constructing effective strategies to deliver the vision, changing systems that get on the way of the changed vision, recruiting, promote and develop the right people to promote change and ensuring the right people are chosen for the role of change development.

4.3 CONCLUSIONS

On the effects of change management on organization culture at National University of Rwanda the study concludes that the staffs were overseeing change in line with their responsibilities in Academics, Administration and Management of the

Faculty. Regarding administration, there are changes in the requirements and performance of the staff. Administrative staffs are now supposed to have at least a bachelor’s degree in relation to the positions they occupy, this affects the existing culture where for administrative staff there were no such restrictions and conditions to occupy such slots. Module system was introduced and it replaced the classical way of teaching by course units, now similar/related units are grouped into one module and taught one after the other, in a logical and chronological order. The University Administration has introduced the idea of performance contracting. Here all employees are required to set targets from which they are evaluated and/or appraised. The influence of culture is an impediment since it affects a lot the implementation of performance contracting. This is because, employees are required to deliver and perform effectively compared to the previous way of how things were done. The study also concludes that there was need for frequent organizational change to cope with the ever turbulent environment in which the University operates. Failure to adapt and adopt change in the organization would lead to stagnation and therefore unfit to compete favorably with other actors in the industry.

The study also concludes that when they were leading and managing change they were creating a sense of urgency to reinforce the need for change, providing people with facts, figures and evidence to persuade them for change, selecting the right people to form the guiding coalition, getting the guiding coalition to work together as a team, creating clear and

16

17. Samuel tangible vision for change, constructing effective strategies to deliver the vision, changing systems that get on the way of the changed vision, recruiting promote and develop the right people to promote change and ensuring the right people are chosen for the role of change development.

4.4 RECOMMENDATIONS

The study found that one of the main problems the University was facing in the implementation of change was barriers between departments. This study therefore recommends that the management should ensure that teamwork is enhanced in order to get rid of conflict of interest between departments. This will also help to curb resistance of middle level management to change.

The study also found that there were no transparent goals/objectives. The study therefore recommends that the university management should ensure that organizational goals, objectives, vision and mission are clear. From the study and related conclusions, the researcher recommends further research in the area of the role of organizational culture in strategic change implementation.

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18

Challenges in Change Management in Central Banks

35

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice, 2013, 1, pp. 35-49

Received: 28 March 2013; accepted: 19 April 2013

UDK: 336.71:005.6

Radoica Luburić

*

Challenges in Change

Management in Central Banks

(Based on the Systemic and Process Approach to Total

Quality Management and Operational Risk Management)

* Executive Director of the Central Bank of

Montenegro

Email: radoica.luburic@cbcg.me

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

The best way to predict future is to create it.

Peter F. Drucker

People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.

Peter Michael Senge

Abstract : Someone said long time ago that everything is subject to change and that change is the only constant. If changes, as occurrences of long duration, are viewed through their temporal dimension, we will see that they are unstoppable. This is how it has always been and how it will always be. What is a novelty, however, is that changes have accelerated over the recent years and this trend could continue in the future. Scientists have been warning that this acceleration of changes should be taken very seriously because these are not some kind of sporadic and accompanying occurrences of limited effects and duration but ongoing and dynamic processes taking place in every sphere of social life to varying degrees. Successful change management, therefore, has been increasingly gaining importance and becoming the conditio sine qua non for a sustainable development of organisations and, therefore, of financial and banking institutions. Although I tried to focus on central banking here, it could be said that the key challenges in change management in central banks are much alike challenges that arise throughout the financial and banking system from which they are inseparable. Certain specific

36

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice features that are characteristic of a central bank are primarily determined with the importance this supreme monetary authority has not only in the financial system of a country, but also in the entire society. The main task of a central bank is the preservation of price and financial stability, and indirectly and keeping in mind the global interconnections, even broader than that. Acceleration of changes in all spheres of social life calls for not only the need to question the traditional understanding of change management in central banks, but also to redesign and innovate the existing models thereof. If central banks change following the principles of quality management and if they successfully manage risks and become more committed, powerful and transparent in strengthened their role in the area of social responsibility, they will have the opportunity to go down the road of success, regardless of all temptations that will be waiting for them on this road.

Key words : change management, systemic approach, process approach, total quality management, operational risk management, financial and banking system, central banks

JEL classification : E58, M00

1. Introduction

In order for institutions in the financial and banking systems to successfully manage changes, they must create an environment that will allow the application of the systemic and process approaches to management. These approaches promote full customer orientation, continuous improvement and innovation, team leadership and teamwork, and in particular, full involvement of employees in all work processes and, as required, in decision-making. However, this is easy to say but not that easy to implement because the systemic and process approaches to organisation management are very complex and demanding tasks. These approaches inevitably require certain changes in order to create awareness in organizations, not only of those who manage and work in these organisations but also of their customers and stakeholders. These approaches allow for effective and efficient achievement of sustainable success because they are beneficial to the organisation and its overall improvement. It is very important that people who manage organizations realise on time that it is much better to meet ever accelerating changes than to lag behind them because changes are inevitable and everyone will face them, sooner or later.

Although central banks are conservative institutions by nature and not prone to rapid changes, we cannot say that these are not dynamic systems that do not change to the extent inherent to their purpose of existence. Those who work in these institutions for a long time consider this to be an advantage not a handicap because they have seen in practice that any accelerated change, and in particular radical ones in conservative organisations such as a central bank entail a big risk. Fast-paced and extensive changes can cause functional disturbances in


37 its numerous and diversified subsystems that would not change synchronously.

Practice has shown that too rapid changes greatly reduce the possibility of synchronous effectiveness and efficiency. All this could lead to some disintegration of the system, and this means many different problems and conflicts. This, however, should not be an excuse to the financial and banking sectors to fail in timely anticipation of changes, their creation, improvement of their work processes; in other words, failure to give full and ongoing attention to changes. This sector, as one of the most important subsystems in the social and governmental system and its bloodstream, should have to be more aware and up to date with changes in the environment, and in certain segments to be changing faster than the system itself.

Let us remember the financial crisis that erupted in late 2008 and is still ongoing, and which consequences will be long felt. The financial, and especially the banking sector, have been blinded by enormous profits and failed to timely anticipate, create and innovate; simply put, they did not adequately manage changes. When the crisis already emerged, stereotypical contingency plans were being prepared but without any significant results. Many early warning mechanisms that had already been in place failed to detect danger in timely manner. Moreover, they proved to be insufficiently functional and ineffective, which means that change management was unsuccessful. Joseph Stiglitz links the causes of the crisis to untimely and inadequate change management, defining them as follows: “Sins of both commission and omission – most notably, excessive deregulation, a failure to effectively enforce the regulations that existed, and the failure to adopt new regulations reflecting changes in financial markets – made the economies of the

United States and, to some extent, Europe vulnerable to collapse. These failures led to the crisis and have continued in its wake” (Blanchard, Romer, Spence &

Stiglitz 2012, p. 31).

Although the creators of the financial boom at the beginning of this century have been identified as the main culprits of the current economic and financial crisis, its severe consequences have been suffered by everybody else other than those who caused it. Paul Krugman believes that “the fundamentals of the world economy aren’t, in themselves, all that scary; it’s the almost universal abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a growing sense of dread” (Krugman, 2012). Such an approach to the rapidly changing world should be changed everywhere, even in these institutions, but this will not be easy because it is necessary to change the awareness and it is most difficult to change. All the aforesaid could apply to any organisation, but here we focus on the financial and banking sector, including central banks, as in these turbulent times of crisis, much greater social responsibility for overcoming the crisis is expected from cen-

38

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice tral banks as well as financially (and not just financially) powerful institutions than from other institutions. We have often witnessed that these institutions are the ones that are often the target of numerous discontent people worldwide. And if life problems of people are not quickly and adequately addressed, such occurrences may be more frequent and more dramatic as time goes on and people find it increasingly difficult to get by. But `profit and profit only` are the words that are often heard in the business world. Ichak Adizes worryingly notes: “Profits should not be the goal. They should be the constraint: Of course we do not want to go bankrupt, but the goal should be to make a better world. The benefit must be higher than the cost –– and I’m talking about the cost not just to the company but also to the world, to society, to our children” (Adižes 2011a, p. 155).

Accelerating changes and the current economic and financial crisis have made all advantages and disadvantages of the global society whose backbone is the “digital world” come to surface more clearly than ever. Another issue has also emerged here and it is not exactly encouraging: How come that in the informational, technological and in every other sense we are more developed than we have ever been, yet we are not able to successfully cope with many nowadays problems? Many have lived in the illusion that the “digital world” can solve everything quickly and efficiently. Such thinking is very dangerous for young people but also to all others who think alike and are addicted to it. The virtual world can be intoxicatingly imaginary, yet the life is inevitably realistic. Economic problems will not be solved either by the “virtual consciousness” dictated by the information capital or by economic theories offered by “virtual economy”. People need fast, clear and concrete solutions from a real human and not from some “virtual” character.

Something they will truly believe.

Someone has wittily said that there is no difference between theory and practice

- except in practice. Theory is necessary, but it predominantly remains in the sphere of imagination. If it were only to theory and theoretical considerations, there would never be a crisis because everything is mostly thought out in theory.

Life, however, is different. We should learn lessons from life, and not just those of yesterday but those experienced by many generations before us and which we call historical lessons. Have the institutions in the financial and banking sector, including central banks, drawn lessons from the recent crisis? Even in the full swing of the crisis, Krugman viewed this through the prism of preventive actions “Everything that needs to be regulated in a financial crisis, because it plays the key role in financial mechanisms, should be subject to regulations in normal times with a view to preventing excessive risk-taking” (Krugman 2010, p. 200).

The philosophy of change management, as well as risk management, should primarily aim at preventive acting. In order to successfully manage both changes


39 and risks in crisis times, these should be much better managed in normal times.

As vividly noted by R. S. Kaplan and A. Mikes, “A firm’s ability to weather storms depends on how seriously executives take risk management when the sun is shining and no clouds are on the horizon” (Kaplan & Mikes 2012, p. 58).

2. Systemic and process approaches to change management in central banks

Everything in this world is a system. The Earth is a system as well - it is divided internally, but externally it is round and complete. And each system, by its nature, is composed of subsystems. The Earth, as a perfect system, consists of numerous and various subsystems such as continents, countries and cities. The rule, therefore, is universal and applies to every system, every organisation regardless of the business it pursues, including financial and banking institutions and central banks as well. Since anything that consists of subsystems at different levels is considered a system, everything is subject to change. When a change occurs, however, subsystems do not change synchronously. A lack of synchronization creates gaps that manifest themselves through what are initially called problems, and later a crisis, if the problems are not tackled in timely and appropriate fashion but are left to expand and erupt.

It may sound paradoxical, but while on one hand we develop owing to changes, on the other hand, the very same or new changes will make us stagnate sooner or later. And so this goes on forever because this is the road that has no end.

John Harold Johnson was obviously right when he said: “Whatever has made you successful in the past, won’t in the future” 1 .While it is necessary and cannot be stopped, any change ultimately leads to both integration and disintegration as the respective roots of every success and every failure. Why is this so? Because a lot of things change before people realize that benefits brought by the old changes have well worn. And despite all kinds of progress, not only that the problems have not disappeared but they have merely changed appearance, becoming more complicated to deal with and expanding their range substantially.

From one reason or the other, neither people nor organisations are eager to make changes. Why is the resistance to change so deeply rooted in people’s minds so they feign them rather than truly implement them? A funny yet insightful answer to this question was given by Peter Michael Senge: “People don’t resist change.

1 John Harold Johnson is an American business and publicist.

40

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice

They resist being changed!”(Sengi, 2003). However, if they must change, people rather choose small over big changes. Small changes require less effort, entail fewer problems, speed of change is less conspicuous, expectations are low, and everything is much easier to be “put under control”, including trials and surprises. Big changes, however, represent big challenges to any system, its management and employees. Nevertheless, they also represent a great opportunity and entail a big risk.

Why is this so?

Because there has to be a good judgment of timing the changes, it must be determined in advance who is going to lead and carry them out at each level, support forces, and what is more important - how and at what pace they should be implemented (extremely carefully, thought out, programmed and controlled and not without a “brake”, without synchronization, “mindlessly”; organically rather than mechanically). Bearing in mind that changes are constant, the foundations have to be extremely strong so that they could stabilize, build into the system and their infrastructure consolidated, as well as make them functional and effective. All this, in one way or the other, is necessary to repeat the entire life. Adizes advises that whenever we are faced with a change that requires us to behave differently, we ask ourselves these questions: “Who needs to change?

(and here you start from

yourself

). How big is the change? Is the commitment to change proportional to the size of the change? Is the price you are willing to pay proportional to the size of the changes you want to make? Are you launching big ships in shallow waters or in sufficiently deep waters?” (Adižes 2011a, p. 128).

Peter Drucker warned that before you go on with a change you take a good look at the steps you can take “in order to change and to stabilize the change.” When you make a decision or implement the change, ask yourself “Who should be informed about it?” He says: “For me the tension between the need for continuity and the need for innovation and change was central to society and civilization” (Draker

2006, p. 40, 45). What does this mean? It means that there is no point in starting everything all over again like nothing has existed or has been good before you, which, unfortunately, often happens in this region. Where executives are alternating per political or any other directive, discontinuing practices of the previous management in all aspects and at all costs can be detrimental to successful management of changes. Precious time can be wasted on experimenting with what in general should not have been experimented with. It is necessary to change only what is not good and continuously improve and innovate everything else. And not to forget that after the occurrence of the change it has to be incorporated into the system to avoid system disintegration process instead of integration.


41

It is the nature of people to feel safest in a familiar and stable environment, which is not characteristic of changes since they bring along uncertainty and unease, as well as numerous problems. People, as we have already said, do not bother about changes that happen to others, but they reluctantly accept and implement them if they refer to themselves, especially if they are to interfere with the privileges they have acquired. Simply put, both people and organisations would like to live and work peacefully and avoid problems. But this is not possible, and even if it were, it would not be good for neither of them. People and organisations could temporarily avoid problems if, temporarily, they would be able to stop changes - but their systems would inevitably die out. For changes, in fact, make life. Where there is no life, there is no change. The same applies to organisations of any profile, so in that sense, central banks as well.

In order for both people and organisations to become more sustainably successful, they must build their own system of success and continuously improve and innovate it, especially its weakest parts because the system is only as strong as its weakest link. Brian Tracy believes that you cannot reach the results you want if you think like a layman so he says: ”You must have a system. Without a system that will enable you to integrate ideas that you’ve learned, you are like a person trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without having seen the picture of what it represents. Any system or blueprint for success is better than none at all” (Trejsi

2005, p. 36).

People need to be meticulous in developing and preparing their plans of changes since changes do not include only progress but also problems that need to be addressed. Many problems arise from our failure to adapt to changes. If managed timely and adequately, there is no need to fear changes and problems they entail.

Ichak Adizes claims that problems induced by changes can be proactively tackled because their causes are predictable, which means that every phase in the change management has a predictable chain of events as well as predictable problems

(Adižes 2011b, p. 237).

In addition to this, there are no changes that are linear and that progress in a straight line, especially those that are rapid and radical. Even if they are skilfully managed, you cannot go only straight forward, but you must also go backwards.

Usually you must take a few steps forward and at least one step back. As time passes by, the distance between these steps reduces, leading to the escalation of problems as well as conflicts. Constructive conflicts do not represent problems because they are unavoidable in the process of change management and can often be beneficial, unlike destructive conflicts that may occur if there is insufficient mutual trust and respect for proper conflict resolution in an organisation. Full

42

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice significance of the human factor – both of the management and employees – is best recognized in change management. It is unreasonable to expect that organisations can perform better if people who manage them fail to change for the better. On the other hand, employees can give a full swing to an organisation with their latent creative abilities and energy, balance the systems and processes, and effectively work on continuous improvements.

Decision-making should be based on the principles of quality management and risk management, paying particular attention to their synergistic effects as the key segments (Luburić, 2012). If central bank employees successfully manage operational risks whilst managing processes based on total quality principles, they will also be able to manage changes.

As a paradigm of business excellence, total quality management has the ability to stabilise and strengthen the key prerequisites for development and sustainable success of central banks, regardless of all limitations. Operational risk management, on the other hand, is predetermined to be an indispensible managerial tool that allows central banks to survive in all circumstances. The focus is on a comprehensive and continuous improvement and innovation of the system and processes, with the participation of all employees and their full commitment to preventive actions in emergency and unforeseen situations such as natural disasters and the like (Claudio, 2011; Woods, 2011).

Total quality management represents a philosophy that is based on continuous improvements and efforts by all employees in the organisation aimed at understanding, meeting and exceeding requests, needs and expectations of users. It also represents a learning system and a collection of several methods, techniques and tools needed to meet the needs of users, employees, business partners and stakeholders. Quality acts as a pillar that supports this corpus of approaches and participants in the system, and in addition to other management systems, it is especially complemented by risk management. Total quality management relies on several approaches, but essentially depends on efficiency of implementation of the process approach and involvement of employees (Hubert, 2010). As pointed out by O. Rentzhog (2000, p. 17-18, 42) “the result never gets better than the process that forms it, and therefore, working with process is a key principle.”

3. Leadership and change management in central banks

Talented persons, that is, leaders of changes are crucial for the successful changes in all organizations, in particular in central banks (Peter F. Drucker). They have a


43 chance to survive in times of fast structural changes, precisely due to their capability to see the chances and possibilities and not only threats and danger. To the leaders of changes, as well as to those who are not leaders, Peter F. Drucker sent the following message: “Do not “master” people. People should be guided. The goal is to make special virtues and knowledge of each individual productive”. In particular, Peter F. Drucker thought that managers, in general, make bad decisions related to the promotion of employees: “Percentage of good decisions does not exceed one-third. In the best case, one-third of decisions turn to be good, one-third is very efficient while one third is completely wrong. Other management areas do not have that bad result”. In addition, Drucker claims that the most important decision is in relation to the top position, which is the most difficult decision to be cancelled: “If we do not spend four hours on appointing a person, we will spend four hundred hours on correcting our own mistake”. Drucker was amazed how “completely innocent” people, become bosses: “The largest waste of resources I have ever seen in all organizations was wrong decision on promotion”

(Draker 2003, p. 68).

If management wants to be successful, it has to take proper decisions as well as to implement them. This is not an easy task, since each management consists of people with different personalities, which means different management styles.

In order to bring proper decisions, in addition to competences and moral qualities, managers have to work as a team, to cooperate and be devoted to reaching goals. However, this is not always the case, since all managers do not share same interests. Maybe the goal is the same in the beginning, but as time goes by and changes speed up, different interests emerge not only among managers, but also among employees. Therefore, mutual trust and respect are the keys for a successful change management and for the success of every organisation, including banking and financial institutions as well as central banks. Faster and more radical changes generate more complex problems, which calls for mutual trust and respect.

Team work and team leadership play special roles in change management in central banks. Top management has critical responsibility, while activities of middle and lower management, including all employees, play very important roles. Team work in change management in central banks is not only a precondition for its establishment and development but also for its survival. Managers and people we work with represent the key to our success or our failure. According to many management theoreticians, the most important decision is the decision on staff selection, which is confirmed in practice. Management is a very complicated process – it represents skills, science, privilege, profession, knowledge and talent. In reality, it represents managerial skills. Ability to engage staff for different tasks

44

Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice represents the base of the management. For example, if a governor and his/her team in a central bank do not emphasise the importance of change management and processes improvement, no one will pay any special attention to this. Bad examples are followed primarily by those who are closest to them despite the effort not to do so.

The first responsibility of the management is to show results, thus, imputation of guilt to others is not a good choice. Thereby, this is not an easy task. On the contrary, “a manager must, so to speak, keep his nose to the grindstone, while lifting his eyes to the hills – quite an acrobatic feat”, as Peter F. Drucker once explained. Managers should be at a high enough level to have the authority to make a decision and on sufficiently low level to know the details. Finally, a successful management requires competences rather than formal positioning. In many organizations, especially in central banks, a typical hierarchical and functional approach is still dominant and this creates difficulties in focusing on main tasks, creation of values for beneficiaries. Thus, it is necessary to focus more on beneficiaries than on hierarchical structures, although this is much easier to say than to implement in a traditional (and still transitional) society.

Success in central bank operations depends mostly on its managers. Thus, it is very important for them to be honest, competent and responsible. Employees should contribute to success as well by working hard, by being loyal to the institution in which they earn much more than employees in other institutions, and by loving their job. Anyhow, we should be realistic – few organizations were closed down due to incompetent employees, but many of them collapsed due to incompetent managers! For those who are just initiating changes aimed at successful management and those who already reached success and want to maintain this level as much as possible, I tried to create twenty guidelines towards this goal based on discoveries and life experience of many eminent scientists, philosophers, traditional wisdom, as well as on my own research and life experience, convinced of their efficiency in organisations such as central bank. However, feel free to judge for yourself ... (Luburić, 2010).

1. Focus should always be on people. Search for the best among them, which primarily refers to honest, competent and hard working ones. Haters and schemers are not welcome especially as associates or, even worse, as friends.

2. Make an effort to make good decisions regarding staff, otherwise you will take risk of generating worse results. You are risking your reputation as well as the reputation of your institution.


45

3. Be open-minded and do not stop the process of hiring young, competent and talented people. You cannot have too much of such people. Nevertheless, do not estimate life experience – experience is everlasting life coach.

4. Support women in organizations, you will not regret. Foster adventurous spirit as it stimulates changes, and considers enthusiasm as a driving force of your organization. Do not hobble imagination. Your future will be limited only by limits of your own imagination!

5. If you haven’t done this already, introduce team work, do not suffocate creativity and individuality. Create opportunities for leadership on every level. The one who tries to do all work by himself and to take all credits for it will never be a good leader. A good leader is the one who works on making himself replaceable.

6. Lead by trying to win people over and command them only if necessary.

Manage facts. You should know this as well – keep your friends close but your enemies even closer, if you can recognize them for who they are. But don’t despair. Greatness of the many was paved by their enemies…

7. Keep an open dialogue with your associates and subordinates and point to the importance of respect and trust. Try to help them whenever you can. To have is to give – the hand that gives is above the hand that takes, and life gives you back only what we give to others. Communication is one of the most important elements of success.

8. You have to set up goals because if you do not have your own you will be forced to work on achieving the goals of others. Goals are not destiny; they represent directions and a road. Live in harmony with nature and ethic principles, and let your inner peace become your ultimate objective.

9. Always welcome changes, choose priorities, and delete the unnecessary from your life. There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently something that should not be done at all.

10. Never ignore your “inner voice” and intuition. They transcend knowledge.

11. Follow business trends and be forward-looking. Business, as any other game, has its players, language, rules, controversies and rhythm. The best thing is when money works for you and not when you work for money!

And remember: the one who knows when enough is enough, will always have enough.

12. Praise and encourage people skills, especially innovation and innovators.

Innovations should be assessed according to their contribution to the market and buyers. Thus, make an effort to make sufficient investment in innovations in order to be prepared for the day when you profitable business becomes outdated.

46


13. Set very high standards and introduce a quality system. Cheap quality is expensive, good quality is cheap.

14. Improvement, improvement, improvement (this refers to the entire organization). You cannot improve your products if you do not improve yourself.

15. Use benefits of the digital technology – but keep your soul. In the digital world, information flow is your bloodstream. Not only that the big eat the small, but in many cases, the fast eat the slow.

16. Always have time for your family, especially for your children. They represent the measure of your success and they will be your future judges.

17. Preserve health. A healthy person has thousand wishes, and a sick person only one – to get well. Therefore, keep smiling – smile heals soul and follows success.

18. Whenever you reach success celebrate it with your family, co-workers and friends.

19. Find the measure of perfection if you can as nobody has found it yet. If you don’t succeed, always strive for perfection. This means you should make and effort to be as perfect as possible. Perfection represents an attempt to be better than others. Therefore, in order to become successful, work hard and in order to stay successful, work even harder!

20. Finally, try not to miss the goal when you get so close to it; so, be as careful at the end as at the beginning. Don’t forget your failures in the moments of success or your benefactors. And pray that success does not come before you are ready to deal with it.

Conclusion

This paper has focused on challenges in change management in central banks in times of accelerated political, economic and technological changes, more frequent natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and other external events. Our analysis is focused on systemic and process approach to

total quality management and operational risk management

, since these are two very compatible and complementary approaches which synergic effects may substantially contribute to a more successful change management in central banks. Comprehensive but gradual and continuous changes designed as small steps in which all employees are participating and which are based on continuous improvements may give better results than when they are fast and radical, and they are much more applicable in institutions such as central banks, even if they are very limited in coverage and time.


47

For change management to be adequately implemented in the financial and banking sector, specialised knowledge in finance, banking and central banking is not sufficient any more. This also requires many other interdisciplinary knowledge, experiences and skills. The world in which we live and work is more advanced than it has ever been, and at the same time it is becoming more and more complicated, complex and unsafe place for living and changing much faster than we could have imagined it. Looking at the big picture, the world is a large and complex system consisting of many subsystems. When subsystems do not change simultaneously and do not coexist for the sake of the entire system, disturbances occur that lead to disintegration and problems. If these problems compound and are not resolved in timely manner, various turbulences and crisis are bound to occur. Why do we link all this to the financial and banking sector when it has

“survived” the crisis, continues to make profit, and even follows the same old patterns of behaviour? Because risk and change management in these sectors have proved to be unsustainable and unacceptable in many aspects, especially observing from the aspect of social responsibility. These institutions should anticipate changes in timely fashion, create and manage them properly, which is, de facto, the most complex part of this task.

If financial and banking institutions, in particular central banks as the regulators and supervisors act as self-sufficient isolated islands lagging behind changes instead of anticipating, creating and managing them in a proper manner, if they fail to work on fast-paced introduction and implementation of the systemic and process approaches to management, especially change and risk management, if they do not realize that accelerating changes also change our environment and that external events may have disastrous effects if they fail to ensure timely and proper response, they will find themselves on a slippery and foggy road – with much more severe consequences than in the case of the existing crisis. The sooner they realize this the sooner they will be facing numerous challenges arising from the accelerating changes. However, we should have in mind that starting with timely changes does not represent any reliable guarantee of success, even if they are properly managed. But, this is certainly one of the key and inevitable preconditions for reaching success. In simple words, if organizations do not manage changes successfully, they will not be able to manage anything with success, even if these are central banks.

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International Affairs and Global Strategy

ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online)

Vol.9, 2013 www.iiste.org

Employee Engagement and Change Management Programmes: a Comparative Study of Organisational Commitment between

Thai and Irish Cultures

Mark J. Dunne

Ramkhamhaeng University, Institute of International Studies,

Ramkhamhaeng Road, Huamark, Bangkok 10240, Thailand

Email: mjadunne@yahoo.com

Bahaudin G. Mujtaba ( correspondent author )

Nova Southeastern University

H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship,

3301 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33314-7796, USA

Email: mujtaba@nova.edu

ABSTRACT :

The objective of this research was to explore the nature of employee commitment and to determine if this commitment is enhanced if the company encourages a climate of inclusive change and whether there is a difference in the nature of this relationship based on nationality. The survey was conducted amongst 121 respondents in full-time employment in Thailand and Ireland. The findings indicate that change management styles in both countries show some statistically significant changes along with room for improvement and that the appetite for more active participation in change management programmes does exist. Limitations and implications for management and future research are presented.

Key Words : Change climate, change management, commitment, Ireland, Thailand.

INTRODUCTION

Change is an inevitable and constant feature of modern corporate life. Whether the process is called

‘re-engineering’, ‘downsizing’, ‘rightsizing’ or ‘strategising for efficiencies’ it can be a very expensive undertaking, and not only in monetary terms: traumatic for employees, demanding and difficult for management and disruptive to company productivity. Most employees tend to react with resistance rather than seeing change as an opportunity to initiate improvements. The legacy of a difficult Change Management process can linger long after the actual programme has been completed and can adversely affect employees’ sense of job security, satisfaction, trust and can lead to issues with staff retention. However, change processes conducted in an open and inclusive manner can facilitate new thinking, enhance efficiencies, improve innovation, inspire all employees to work at higher levels of self-awareness and should lead to a greater degree of commitment to the organisation.

This study investigates the relationship between the level of an employee’s commitment to his/her employer organisation and the environment in which change management programmes are implemented

1




within that organisation. Does an open and inclusive change management climate engender greater commitment from employees? ‘Commitment’ is seen according to Allen and Meyer’s (1991) three-component model: Affective, Continuance and Normative.

Furthermore, it attempts to identify if there is a significant difference in the nature of this relationship between European and South-East Asian work cultures, specifically Ireland in the former category and Thailand in the latter category.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In today’s fast-moving and increasingly globalised business world ‘change’ is not the exception but rather a steady, relentless process. This is evident in the inexorable move from legacy, top-down, value creation models to more horizontal models that necessitate collaboration across different work groups, departments, companies, cultures and even countries. The cultural and business revolution initiated by invention of the

Internet, the creation of the World Wide Web and the mass availability of open source software to leverage the power of both has had profound effects on companies and countries. An increasingly interconnected, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society is in evidence all across the developing and developed worlds. To operate in this new world and profitably engage with it organisations require confidence, structural agility, flexibility of thought and, critically, an ability to welcome change and see the opportunities it presents. Change is an unavoidable process in modern business life and, if handled insensitively, it can have an insidious effect on the level of employee commitment to his/her company. On the other hand it can provide benefits for all stakeholders if the ‘Change Management’ process is transparent and inclusive.

Change requires the continuous adaption of corporate strategies, and consequent changes in company structures, as well as innovation in business processes to respond to changes in the external and internal environments. In this context change may be concerned with a wide variety of issues, from introducing a new product line to implementing a completely new corporate strategy. Organisational change can be described as a way of altering the structure and/or processes of an existing company in order to increase its effectiveness in pursuit of its strategic objectives.

Change management means to plan, initiate, realise, control, and finally stabilise change processes on a corporate and personal level. Change management comprises both, revolutionary one-off projects and evolutionary transformations (Frans, 2010).

In a business environment where change is unrelenting, and its rate increasing, organisational structures must be nimble enough to support change and empower their people, not only embrace change but, to drive it also. Burke and Cooper (2009, p.XXI) state that there is increasing evidence that people, their management and their organisational culture are the only really unique source of competitive advantage available to companies today.

It has been widely known that high levels of organisational commitment from employees lead to higher productivity, reduced levels of staff turnover, lower rates of absenteeism and the urge to ‘go the extra mile’ in seeing a job done well. How is it possible to maintain such high levels of commitment from people in the face of constant change and uncertainties about their futures? Worley and Lawler (2006, p.4) contend

“built-to-change firms are anxious about being caught off-guard, so they place everyone close to customers and the environment…That way, when the time comes to alter the direction of the organisation, everyone

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moves together based on a common understanding and felt need for the change.” Additionally they state that ‘shared leadership’ facilitates effective change management but requires constant input from employees to develop business strategy (p.7).

Conger and Pearce (2003, p.1) offer the following definition of ‘shared leadership’: “A dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organisational goals or both”. They continue, “This influence process often involves peer, or lateral, influence and at other times involves upward or downward hierarchical influence”.

According to Duck (2001), the four main reasons for people’s resistance to change are as follows:

• Parochial self-interest – people are fearful of the potential losses as a result of the change, organisational objectives are given secondary consideration;

• Misunderstanding and lack of trust – people misunderstand the drivers and objectives of the changes, this attitude is hardened if there is a high degree of organisational distrust;

• Different assessments – people’s (managers and employees) decision-making abilities are based on different knowledge sets, even within these groups there can be a broad spectrum of opinion;

• Low tolerance for change – people may be fearful that their present skills and competencies do not equip them to perform well when the changes are implemented, others may be reluctant to expend the additional effort required to gain new skills.

The difficulty lies in motivating people to accept change, embrace it and leverage it to produce new opportunities for growth for themselves and for their organisations. People typically perceive change in seven stages (Recklies, 2001):

(1) Shock – faced with an unexpected situation people can suffer a loss of self-confidence;

(2) Denial – people believe change is unnecessary, ‘if it’s not broken don’t fix it’;

(3) Rational Understanding – realise that change is necessary but personal behaviour patterns remain embedded;

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(4) Emotional Acceptance – management need to influence people to change personal habits, beliefs and values fundamentally;

(5) Exercising and Learning – change champion needs to implement new processes and encourage new behaviours;

(6) Realisation – positive feedback from new behaviours encourages new thinking patterns;

(7) Integration – new behaviours and beliefs are completely assimilated.

Lewin (1947) contended that most people are fearful of change and are more confortable in a stable, unchanging environment. In order to overcome this fear-driven mindset he proposed a three stage model involving (1) ‘unfreezing’ old ways and attitudes, (2) establishing a new vision and learning through inclusion, training and empowerment, and (3) ‘refreezing’ this new behaviour, through support, reinforcement and feedback, so that it becomes the new norm. This process was to be repeated each time a new change is required.

Burke and Fiksenbaum (2009, p.23) states “emotions that work against change include anxiety, fear, insecurity, fatigue, cynicism, pessimism, arrogance and anger. Emotions that support change include optimism, urgency, trust, passions, hope enthusiasm and excitement”. Senge (2006, p.18) observes that many see themselves as working in a system over which they have no control. They do what is expected of them and go home – their responsibilities end at the boundaries of their roles. So it is essential that people are motivated to act for the right reasons; the ability to tap into the emotions associated with employee-supported change are powerful enablers towards enhanced performance at a personal and organisational level.

For managers to perform this task they must have finely honed ‘soft skills’, excellent interpersonal communication, empathy and political skills, as well as more traditional management skills such as business and analytical skills. Fullan (2002, p.8) states that,

Leaders must be consummate relationship builders with diverse people and groups — especially with people different than themselves. This is why emotional intelligence is equal to or more important than having the best ideas. In complex times, emotional intelligence is a must.

Managers must get the ‘buy-in’ of all stakeholders involved in the change in order for that change to be successful. Employees, particularly, need to understand the objective of the change, must see the benefit for them and must be active in the implementation, if not the development, of the change so that they can bring all their skills, experience and enthusiasm to bear to change ingrained habits and work towards new goals.

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Organisational managers with responsibility for implementing change need to create an open, accommodating and inclusive climate in which to engage with their employees. Clear communication is critical to all such undertakings. Managers need to employ a number of influencing techniques to establish a trusting environment, throughout the organisation, within which to elicit the best from their staff. For example, Vengel (2000) identified two types of energy that can be used to influence people: ‘push’ energy which is forceful, persuasive and ‘pull’ energy which is involving, inclusive (Mujtaba, 2014). Other techniques include building rapport, consultation and, importantly, appeals based on friendship. All these techniques illustrate that building and maintaining relationships are the keys to successful change management. Employees need to believe that they are included in the process, their opinions have value and their voices are heard.

The organisational structure must facilitate unleashing the creative forces within employees to harness and direct those energies towards achieving corporate objectives. Senge (2006, p. 7) describes the concept of ‘personal mastery’ as “the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience and of seeing reality objectively”. He says that this is a cornerstone of a learning organisation but that few such organisations exist and the vast majority of organisations do not encourage the personal growth of their staff. Senge goes on to state that employees with high levels of mastery are highly committed, learn fast, take responsibility and work under their own initiative (p.133). Bill O’Brien (as cited in Senge 2006, p.134) said “to seek personal fulfilment only outside of work and to ignore the significant portion of our lives which we spend working, would be to limit our opportunities to be happy and complete human beings.”

If the premise is accepted that, in response to the increasing pace of globalisation and business innovation, all organisations’ new modus operandi in dealing with a never-ending series of change processes then it is essential to include employees in the shared leadership process, motivate them towards continued self-development and leverage their intellectual capital in responding to developing business challenges.

Senior management need to demonstrate that tacit knowledge is valued for the asset it really is and organisational memory is recognised and utilised for its ability for comparing past outcomes and making inferences about what actions will improve future results.

Mahler and Casamayou state “it is not enough that information exists somewhere in the organization. It must be shared, interpreted, argued over, and reinterpreted to tease out trends and understand the link between actions and results” (2009, p.203).

This concept is of such critical importance that the US Army even has an office called the ‘Center for Army Lessons Learned’ located in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Here the Army tries to learn from encounters with the enemy and then incorporate these lessons into its training manoeuvres (Ricks, 2006, p.193). Kanter (1979, p.72) argues that,

Powerless people are usually the last ones to whom anyone wants to entrust more power, for fear of its dissipation or abuse. But those people are precisely the ones who might benefit most from an injection of power and whose behaviour is likely to change as new options open up to them.

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He goes on to explain that the reasons that most organisation’s are not inclusive and do not empower employees are mundane: current managers will feel threatened, the existing hierarchy will not be respected, less skilled people should not be opining on management issues, and that predictability is rated more highly than flexibility(p.74).

Conger and Kanungo (1988, p.476) believe that “empowerment processes may allow leaders to lessen the emotional impact of demoralising change or to mobilise organisational members in the face of difficult competitive challenges”.

Eisenberger et al . (1986, p.501) defined an employee concept of ‘perceived organisational support’ and noted that employees “develop global beliefs concerning the extent to which organisations value their contributions and cares about their well-being”. Furthermore they state that, assuming expectations for praise and reward for extra effort are met, employees would identify themselves with the organisation and develop a positive affective attachment. Thus there would be an increase in the employee’s efforts to achieve organisational objectives.

The concept of ‘organisational commitment’ and its relationship to job satisfaction, innate employee beliefs and behaviours has been widely researched and documented in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors (Porter et al ., 1974, 1976; Mowday et al ., 1979; Vandenberg and Lance, 1992; Haluk, 2008).

Organisational commitment is defined as acceptance as well as a strong belief in the organisation’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation, and a desire to maintain organisational membership (Mowday et al ., 1979).

Furthermore, Allen and Meyer (1990, p.1) defined three distinct components of organisational commitment as:

• Affective commitment – ‘employees’ emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in, the organisation’;

• Continuance commitment – ‘based on the costs the employee associates with leaving the organisation’;

• Normative commitment – ‘employees’ feelings of obligation to remain with the organisation’.

In addition, research (Allen & Meyer, 1990) has also investigated the antecedents of commitment, including work experience (affective commitment), perceived lack of alternatives & magnitude of side-bets

(continuance commitment) and family and cultural socialisation experiences (normative commitment).

The rise of interest in this concept is due to the increased dislocation of the world of work and its perceived effects on the output and efficiency of employees. Due to the rapid changes in business over the last thirty years employees in modern organisations are expected to be more proactive than ever before. The expectation from management is for employees to show more flexibility, initiative, motivation, and commitment while the employees may be inclined to display less of these qualities due to a perceived lack

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of reciprocal commitment from their managers. The success of any organisation depends, not only on how it leverages its human capital and organisational memory but also, on how it encourages further commitment and innovation from its employees in the face of market pressures, rapid market changes and increased pressure on existing corporate structures and processes.

Organisational leaders need to create a coherent overview of the change they are seeking, communicate this vision to all employees and invest resources into building and maintaining the processes required to embed these practices and engage their staff in a consistent, meaningful and rewarding manner.

Real inclusion must mean more than rhetoric.

Ackoff (2006) defined two types of mistakes that organisations could and should learn from: (1) errors of commission – something that should not have been done, (2) errors of omission – something that should have been done. According to Ackoff, the latter are not recorded, are unacknowledged and there is no accountability for them. He states,

In such a situation a manager who wants to invoke as little disapproval as possible must try either to minimize errors of commission or transfer to others responsibility for those he or she makes. The best way to do this is to do nothing, or as little as one can get away with. This is a major reason that organizations do not make radical changes (2006, p.4).

Many studies have been undertaken to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and these have shown that there is a positive correlation between the two. The focus of this study is on the influence of change management culture on all three elements of organisational commitment. However, if we assume that if an organisation fosters a more open and inclusive change management policy, and this leads to increased levels of job satisfaction for employees, then we would expect such a policy to also lead to greater levels of commitment to one’s organisation.

HYPOTHESES

This study focuses on the potential relationships between an organisation’s change management philosophy or climate and the degree of commitment to that organisation experienced by its employees. As stated previously today’s increasingly globalised business world is characterised by ‘change’ being the norm rather than the exception. If it could be demonstrated that an inclusive company-wide change management climate leads to higher levels of employee engagement and commitment then there are significant implications for senior management teams regarding organisational strategy, and therefore structure, as well as middle managers, coaches and mentors.

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Vol.9, 2013

Figure 1: Model of hypotheses www.iiste.org

This is a quantitative study where the data was gathered by using a Web-based questionnaire survey instrument. The unit of analysis is the individual respondent who completed the survey. The six hypotheses that were tested are:

1.

Irish employee’s organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative) will be higher if the organisation in which he/she works employs a more inclusive type of change management style.

2.

Irish employees with longer company service have a greater degree of continuance commitment.

3.

Irish employees with higher educational qualifications have a greater degree of affective commitment.

4.

Thai employee’s organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative) is unaffected by the climate for change applied in his/her company.

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5.

Thai employees with longer company service have a greater degree of normative commitment.

6.

Thai employees with higher educational qualifications have a greater degree of affective commitment.

METHODOLOGY

The dependent variables are ‘Organisational Climate for Change’ and ‘Organisational Commitment’. The latter is sub-divided into ‘Affective Commitment’, ‘Continuance Commitment’ and ‘Normative

Commitment’, as identified by Allen and Meyer (1991). The independent variables are the demographic information comprising the respondents’ nationality, gender, age, education, number of service years, and occupation grade.

The survey was targeted at a population sample of two hundred (200) Irish nationals working mainly, but not exclusively in the Republic of Ireland, and two hundred (200) Thai nationals working mainly, but not exclusively in Thailand. The population was aimed at employees working in full-time employment in companies, from small- to large-scale enterprises. No industries were deemed as excludable.

In actuality 131 responses were collected, of which 121 were valid for the purposes of this project.

Fifty-three (53) were from Irish respondents (43.8% of total) and sixty-eight (68) were from Thai respondents

(56.2% of total). In addition six (6) responses were collected from nationals outside these target populations.

This latter category was not considered for data analysis.

The survey instrument used in the collection of data for this research consists of forty (40) statements divided into four sections:

• Section 1 - consists of seventeen (17) statements that comprise the ‘Survey of Organisational

Climate for Change’ questionnaire (Mujtaba and McCartney, 2010);

• Section 2 - consists of eight (8) statements that comprise the ‘Affective Commitment’ component of Allen and Meyer’s organisational commitment questionnaire;

• Section 3 - consists of nine (9) statements that comprise the ‘Continuance Commitment’ component of Allen and Meyer’s organisational commitment questionnaire;

• Section 4 - consists of six (6) statements that comprise the ‘Normative Commitment’ component of Allen and Meyer’s organisational commitment questionnaire.

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The final section consists of the six (6) categories that describe the demographic data of the sampled population.

The respondents were asked to consider each statement in turn and indicate their level of agreement by placing a checkmark on a five-level Likert scale: (1) Strongly Disagreeing, (2) Disagreeing, (3) Neutral,

(4) Agreeing, (5) Strongly Agreeing.

The survey was prepared in English, however considerable efforts were made to ensure the survey introductory statement, instructions and research statements were accurately translated into Thai and back-translated into English language by another person who spoke both languages fluently to make sure there is equivalency in the meaning. As a result, minor adjustments were made prior to implementation.

The decision to expend efforts in translation was driven by the need to make the survey instrument as accessible as possible to potential Thai respondents. The aim is that the survey would be answered by

Thais not normally exposed to non-Thai nationals or non-Thai work cultures. The survey instrument was bi-lingual (English and Thai).

The survey was initially sent to Thai students of the part-time MBA programme at the Institute of

International Studies, Ramkhamhaeng University who were engaged in full-time employment, as well as professional contacts in Thailand’s telecommunications industry.

Similarly, the survey was initially sent to friends, former colleagues and professional contacts in

Ireland’s telecommunications industry. In both cases it was requested of the initial respondents that they forward the survey to friends and colleagues employed full-time in as wide a spectrum of industries as possible in order to obtain a more representative population sample. The survey instrument was distributed as a unique weblink through e-mail.

Data analysis

Frequency analysis was used to indicate the respondent’s opinions on each of the survey statements. Then, as the aim of the study was to determine the relationship between employees’ organisational commitment and their perception of change management climate, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used. The hypotheses were tested using one-way ANOVA, mean, standard deviation, t-test and F-test.

Using the online survey collection method a total of 131 responses were collected, of which 121 were deemed valid for the purposes of this project. 53 were from Irish respondents (43.8% of total) and 68 were from Thai respondents (56.2% of total).

Reliability analysis was conducted using SPSS for Windows Version 16 statistical analysis programme and this resulted in the calculation of an overall Cronbach's α co-efficient of 0.902 for the 46 items that constituted the survey instrument.

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Vol.9, 2013

Demographic characteristics of respondents www.iiste.org

Gender. Of the total number of responses 40.5% were from females and 59.5% were from males, however there was quite an imbalance between the sexes if viewed across the nationality category. Irish responses were decidedly male, 92.4%, versus 33.82% for Thai respondents. Females only accounted for 7.55% of Irish respondents whereas they accounted for almost two-thirds of Thai respondents, 66.18%.

This can probably be attributed to the way in which the survey instrument was initially distributed.

For Irish respondents the survey was sent to friends and former work colleagues of the first author who used to be employed in the telecommunications industry. In Ireland this has traditionally been a male-dominated profession, although this is changing in recent years. One consequence of this is very few women have yet to reach middle- and upper-management grades. However, this is changing, and will continue to change, as more women are entering tertiary level education in general and engineering in particular. Due to the low numbers of total responses received and the small representation of females in the sample, one can surmise that the survey instrument was not circulated much beyond the initial recipients and, therefore, was primarily answered by male telecommunication engineers and managers.

Over 60% of the Thai respondents were female, and this is due to the fact that the initial circulation for the survey was amongst colleagues who worked in a diverse range of business sectors. In addition, many of them passed on the survey to their friends, mostly female, in full-time employment. This was confirmed by follow-up discussions with respondents.

Age. There were also significant differences in the age profile between Irish and Thai respondents. Half of the Thai respondents were between 21-35 years of age, but only 25% of the

Irish respondents were in this category. The 36-50 age category accounted for 44% of Thai, versus

66% of Irish, respondents. This disparity may again be explained by

• the age profile of the first author’s peer group in Ireland’s telecommunication industry;

• the suspected lack of success in circulating the survey instrument beyond the initial target group;

• the significant age spectrum that existed in the researcher’s MBA programme class;

• the age profile of the peer group of the MBA programme respondents who participated in the survey.

Table 1: Respondents by Age

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Education. One very noticeable feature of the education profile is that all Thai respondents were qualified to a minimum of Bachelor’s degree level and about 46% had attained a Master’s degree or above.

In stark contrast 45% of Irish respondents had attained a Bachelor’s qualification and only 26% had a Master’s degree or above. A further 9.4% had a diploma. Surprisingly, nearly 19% had no qualification beyond a high school education. Without having specific knowledge of the industry background of the respondents it is impossible to draw any kind of conclusion from this statistic, beyond stating that it does seem high given the profile of the population sample.

A discussion with one Thai respondent on this issue prompted them to say that a minimum of a

Bachelor’s degree qualification was required to secure any kind of decent job, regardless of its specification or responsibilities, in the Thai labour market. This seems to result in academic inflation but, as a result,

Thai society places great store on achievement of a tertiary level qualification.

Table 2: Respondents by Education

Service Years. In this category the results showed similar percentages for Thai and Irish in each of the four categories. The majority of respondents of both nationalities were in the sub-10 year, at over 60%. There were three Irish respondents in the 31-40 year service category and two Thais, accounting for 4% of the total.

Table 3: Respondents by Service Years

The large number of Irish respondents in the sub-10 year category may be accounted for by the economic boom that occurred in that country between 1998 and 2007. Many new technology companies, in particular, were established during that period, the labour market was very vibrant and the economy effectively had full employment. There was much fluidity in the job market for suitably qualified personnel, leading to frequent job changes, increased salaries and accelerated advancement up the managerial ladder. It is interesting to note that, although 66% of total Irish respondents were between 36-50 years old, 62% of total respondents had less than 10 years service in their present companies. One would normally expect

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Vol.9, 2013 employees in an older age group to change jobs less frequently. www.iiste.org

Compare this to the Thai nationality, where a much smaller percentage of total respondents (44%) were between 36-50 years old, but 66% of total respondents had less than 10 years service in their present companies.

If causation could be proven we would expect this trend to be reversed as Ireland is now in the early stages of a prolonged recession and, conversely, Thailand is entering a period of sustained economic prosperity as they prepare to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the ASEAN trade agreement initiating in the coming two years. This environment should facilitate greater fluidity in the job market with consequent rises in salaries and accelerated career development, but there may be socio-cultural aspects that come into play. This topic is worthy of further research.

Occupation Grade. Nearly 65% of Thai respondents were in the ‘Staff’ occupation grade versus 34% of Irish respondents. This may be explained by the fact that Thais accounted for nearly twice the percentage of Irish respondents in the 21-35 age group, 64.7% and 33.96% respectively.

One would normally expect that younger staff would occupy a proportionate amount of junior positions.

Table 4: Respondents by Occupation Grade

The first-line management grade shows comparable percentages between the two nationalities, 20.59% and

20.75% respectively.

The mid-level management category accounts for 13% of Thais but 30% of Irish respondents. This may be explained by the different age profiles discussed previously, as could the percentages in the senior management categories.

Hypotheses Testing

The hypotheses were tested using one-way ANOVA, mean, standard deviation, t-test and F-test. A significance level of 0.05 was selected to determine if a hypothesis was supported by the collected data or not.

Hypothesis 1. Irish employee’s organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative) will be higher if the organisation in which he/she works employs a more inclusive type of change management style.

One-way ANOVA was used to test this hypothesis, with the dependent variable being the degree of organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative). This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.527. As this number is greater than 0.05 it means that there is a 'difference'

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but this difference is 'Not Significant', therefore the research hypothesis is not supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is not consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

This implies that an organisation with a more inclusive type of change management style does not cause an Irish employee's organisational commitment (OC) to be higher. The ‘mean’ data does show that

Irish employees that work in organisations with more inclusive style of change management will have a higher level of organisational commitment, however the difference across the five groups of the Likert scale is such that this ‘difference’ is not deemed to be statistically significant. There is a steady rise visible in the mean commitment level until that category of employee who perceives that that change management climate was most inclusive (group 5), where a drop in commitment was recorded.

This is an interesting result – intuitively one would have expected the hypothesis to hold true. Any organisation that actively engages its employees in decision-making, shared leadership and empowerment should engender greater levels of commitment. It is possible the result for group 5 is an anomaly since the number of respondents in this group is quite small and other, more transitory or superficial (for example a negative performance review), factors may be involved that served to reduce overall commitment level at the time of the survey. Maybe a larger sample would provide more conclusive evidence in this regard.

It is interesting to note that no Irish respondents chose Option 1 (Strongly Disagree) for the statements relating to change management style and only one Thai respondent chose this option. The three middle options (Disagree, Neutral and Agree) accounted for 96% of Irish respondents’ and 94% of Thai respondents’ opinion.

Hypothesis 2. Irish employees with longer company service have a greater degree of continuance commitment.

The dependent variable is the degree of organisational continuance commitment. This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.078. As this number is greater than 0.05 it means that the research hypothesis is not supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is not consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

This implies that, overall, Irish employees with longer company service do not have a greater degree of continuance commitment, i.e. employees will not stay with the organisation just because they feel they have to. Closer examination of the ‘mean’ data does show that employees with 21-30 years service show an increased level of continuance commitment but this is at odds with reduced level of commitment in the 11-20 years service category. It is interesting that the mean continuance commitment should reduce after the first decade in an organisation increase and then fall off in the 31-40 years service category.

There are so many factors that may play a role in this, such as cultural, societal and economic. As discussed previously the dramatic change in Ireland’s economic fortunes, and hence its labour market and work attitudes, over the last 30 years may help explain this. For example, because of the world economic crash in 2008 and its consequences for the Irish economy, those employees with relatively short service who retained their jobs were probably more inclined to feel that they had to stay in their jobs as they provided a degree of financial security. Those with 11-20 years service, having lived through a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity, may have felt that opportunities would always exist for people (like them) of talent and experience. Employees with 21-30 years service would have lived through a period of economic stagnation and mass unemployment so they would place great store on a job, continuance

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commitment and the security they provided. It is difficult to explain the mean in the last service year category with only three respondents. It is possible that employees so close to retirement may have other priorities that impact negatively on their continuance commitment.

Hypothesis 3. Irish employees with higher educational qualifications have a greater degree of affective commitment.

The dependent variable is the degree of organisational affective commitment. This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.05. In itself this result is insufficient to prove that the data supports the hypothesis or not. By using Scheffe’s Theory (as the samples are of unequal sizes) as a secondary test, the p-values calculated range from 0.085 to 0.973. As these numbers are greater than 0.05, therefore the research hypothesis is not supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is not consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

This implies that, overall, Irish employees with higher educational qualifications do not have a greater degree of affective commitment, i.e. employees will not stay with the organisation just because they want to continue work there – they could be easily tempted by other offers of higher salaries or better working conditions. This indicates that the social aspect of work, for example esprit de corps , workplace friendships and a mutually supportive and comfortable environment, become less important as employees attain higher levels of education. Maybe this is because, with better education, career advancement and managerial aspirations become more important than the social aspect of the workplace. A senior manager interviewed remarked, “I didn’t earn an MBA and become a manager to make friends” (John Cusack, personal communications, 17 th

March 2012).

Additionally, during the boom years in Ireland there were significant shifts in societal priorities and a boom in the middle-class (and the extent of their aspirations). Greater emphasis was placed on attaining higher levels of education and post-graduate degrees as these were seen as the way to corporate respectability and managerial (and therefore financial) success. As a result there was fluid labour market for qualified staff and opportunities for advancement were in abundance. This led to wage inflation and an increased emphasis on financial incentives as the main arbiter of job satisfaction and commitment, with a reduced emphasis on the, heretofore, valued social aspects of work and the workplace.

Hypothesis 4. Thai employee’s organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative) is unaffected by the climate for change applied in his/her company.

The dependent variable is the degree of organisational commitment (affective, continuance and normative).

This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.92. As this number is greater than 0.05, therefore the research hypothesis is not supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is not consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

This implies that an organisation with a more inclusive type of change management style does cause a change in Thai employee's organisational commitment (OC). The ‘mean’ data seems to show that

Thai employees that work in organisations with more inclusive style of change management will have a higher level of organisational commitment up to a certain point, however the difference is not deemed to be statistically significant.

What is interesting is that there seems to be a positive correlation between an open change climate and organisational commitment and then a decrease in the level of the latter before it rises again as the

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change management climate tends towards the most inclusive. The mean result for category 5 may be an anomaly as a result of the small number of respondents (there were only 3 in this category). A larger sample would probably provide more conclusive evidence in this regard.

In the cases of both Hypotheses 1 and 4 there does seem to be a positive correlation at the lower end of the change management climate scale but the higher end of the scale produced contrary results. In both cases the number of respondents was quite small and therefore may provide false readings.

The intention of Hypothesis 4 was to see if Thai employees were ‘immune’ to change management climate as a result of inherent cultural mores and the data seems to show that this is not the case. Has this always been the case or is a result of attitudinal shifts in the workplace amongst the younger generation of

Thai employees? This is an area ripe for further research.

Another observation is that in both Thailand and Ireland the change management climate is unremarkable, i.e. opinion of the vast majority of both nationalities was that their respective companies’ practices were average. This would indicate that there is much room for improvement in the need for perception-shift on the part of senior managers to fully appreciate the value of organisational memory and employee empowerment.

Hypothesis 5. Thai employees with longer company service have a greater degree of normative commitment.

The dependent variable is the degree of organisational normative commitment. This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.007. As this number is less than 0.05 it means that there is a 'significant difference', therefore the research hypothesis is supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

Thai employees with higher educational qualifications have a greater degree of normative commitment. The increase in the value of the 'mean' from the <10 years service group 1 (2.7889) to the

31-40 year service group (3.9167) shows a large increase in normative commitment in the groups with more years of service. However, as commented on previously, with the small number of respondents in the latter group this high ‘mean’ level could be anomalous – a re-test with a larger sample would probably provide more conclusive evidence in this regard.

This result complies with earlier studies and highlights the importance of loyalty to older employees with long service to one company. This is also probably true in Ireland but there are also specific cultural dimensions to be considered in Thailand. Relationships and hierarchy are fundamentally important concepts in Thai culture and they both take time to build. In Thailand, there are some norms which can be said to exist:

• Thais work hard to build and maintain relationships among a wide and complex network of people;

• Thais’ interactions are more or less controlled within the context of a strong hierarchical system

(Holmes & Tantongtavy, 2000, p. 17).

16




It would seem logical that to function effectively in an organisation is predicated on one’s success in building and developing personal networks throughout the organisation. Once an employee leaves the organisation the network ceases to provide the advantage it once did. In addition older people generally feel more loyalty to their employers, particularly if they have long service.

In more developed Western countries, this sentiment has changed amongst the younger generation as a result of the restructuring of labour markets and increased globalisation over the last twenty years. It will be interesting to see if similar cultural changes occur amongst Thailand’s educated younger population in light of the country’s flourishing economy and advent of the ASEAN Free Trade Area in 2015.

Hypothesis 6. Thai employees with higher educational qualifications have a greater degree of affective commitment.

The dependent variable is the degree of organisational affective commitment. This resulted in a calculated significance level or p-value = 0.306. As this number is greater than 0.05 it means that the research hypothesis is not supported. The measured value obtained in the sample is not consistent with that implied in the hypothesis.

This indicates that Thai employees with higher educational qualifications do not have a greater degree of affective commitment, i.e. employees will not stay with the organisation just because they want to continue work there – they could be easily tempted by other offers of higher salaries or better working conditions. This indicates that the social aspect of work has become less important. This is an interesting finding, as it seems to be contrary to the value that most Thai’s find in workplace relationships. According to

Holmes and Tantongtavy (2000, p.76), Thais feel that the ultimate workplace is where he or she feels at home. For most Thais the workplace should have ‘gan eng’ , a pleasant and friendly atmosphere.

Another perspective on this issue is that maybe modern day workplaces in Thailand no longer have these attributes due, as in the Irish case (Hypothesis 3), to a burgeoning economy, fluid labour market and a cultural shift (however slight) away from group orientation towards individual self-realisation.

There are an increasing number of Thais who are receiving tertiary, and some receiving secondary and tertiary, education in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand over the last 10 – 20 years. This must be having an effect on their career expectations and managerial performance on returning to Thailand. This

‘Westernisation’ of work attitudes, in conjunction with an increasingly globalised business environment, may have an effect on the traditional social norms of individual and group behaviour.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this research project was to investigate if there was a positive correlation between an open and inclusive change management climate and an increased level of organisational commitment from employees.

Furthermore, a nationality dimension was added to see if there was any difference in the nature of this relationship between Irish and Thai employees.

The data showed there was a positive correlation between change management style and levels of organisational commitments for both Thais and Irish employees, however at the more inclusive end of the change management scale the survey showed contrary results. The Irish respondents’ commitment dropped sharply while the Thais’ commitment rose. What caused this?

17




It may be an error due to the small sample sizes for both nationalities in this category. It would seem that few companies in either country provide truly open and inclusive change management climates. For

Hypothesis 1 (Irish) and Hypothesis 4 (Thai) over 90% of all respondents selected statements characterising their change management climate in the ‘Disagree’, ‘Neutral’ or ‘Agree’ categories. This indicates that the majority of organisations are still being driven in a top-down style of management. In light of the fundamental changes in the business environment over the last 15 years it is questionable as to where this style of management in still appropriate for companies as the 21 st

century lies ahead of them.

In the case of Hypothesis 1 (Irish), it is surprising that there were not more instances of higher ratings for open change management climate. The Irish economic boom of the last 15 years certainly improved salaries, facilitated accelerated career mobility but, on the basis of this research data, has done little to improve the application and practice of advanced management techniques such as empowerment, distributed leadership and the learning organisation. Anecdotal evidence points to an increase in the availability and uptake of post-graduate management studies and yet there seems to be little evidence of the active application of these management theories in the workplaces of those surveyed.

It is possible that it will take time for such practices to ‘trickle up’, either by the senior management teams being convinced of their merits or by the promotion of the technique practitioners into influential positions such that they are able to implement new policies, change structures and evolve strategy in a direction more congruent with the requirements for business survival and prosperity in the globalised business world.

In the case of Hypothesis 4 (Thai), we found the results were also surprising but for a different reason. Thai cultural traits are generally believed to include risk avoidance, an ingrained respect for hierarchy, non-questioning of the ‘normal’ way of doing things and a generally conservative outlook. All of which leave employees with little chance to try new ideas or questions old ways. Knowledge of these traits informed the construction of Hypothesis 4. The data did not support this hypothesis – there does seem to be evidence of a positive correlation between the two. Why is this the case as it seems to contradict accepted

Thai traits?

It is difficult to provide a definitive answer. Also more detailed enquiries need to be made into the backgrounds of the Thai respondents to determine if the results are related to:

1.

age;

2.

education received in an international school in Thailand;

3.

education in a foreign university (UK, Australia, USA, Canada, India, New Zealand etc.);

4.

international work experience;

5.

work experience in a Thai-based multinational or multi-domestic company.

18




Are these changes a result of direct foreign education and/or work experience? Are they locally-driven changes as a result of years of Western teaching methods and textbooks filtered through the prism of local cultural sensibilities and nuances? This is a topic that invites further research. The findings indicate that,

1.

practised change management styles show room for improvement in both countries;

2.

Thai respondents are open to fuller engagement with inclusive change management styles if given the opportunity;

3.

Irish respondents are in a similar position, but it is surprising that inclusive change management styles are not more widespread given the recent period of unprecedented economic growth, labour market development and ubiquity of professional management education.

In the cases of Hypotheses 3 and 6 the findings indicate that personal motivation and the desire for self-realisation might become more important in both Thai and Irish society – the root causes are unknown and would provide another interesting topic for research.

LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The study was limited by the small sample size, the imbalance in respondents’ gender and the non-uniform size of each age category. All of these factors have the potential to provide greater insight into the issues investigated. Attempting to identify the real driver for increased appetite for participation amongst Thai employees, for example, could provide a very interesting topic for further research.

The implication for managers and organisations in both countries is that the appetite for more active participation in change management programmes exists and will be embraced if employees are provided with the appropriate support and structures. However, it is important to note that policies must be taken at senior management level and must be identified and prioritised as strategic goals of the organisation. Deeds must follow words.

The difficulty for many organisations is that there can be a gulf between the inclusive policies espoused by the management and what is actually practiced. The first author worked for a large US multinational for six years. This company invested heavily in corporate training and orientation programmes, but to little effect. From the employees’ point of view it just seemed as if there was a new programme every quarter with accompanying inspirational posters and coffee mugs. The employees became cynical of these efforts, as there were no real structural changes to facilitate programme implementation and subsequent monitoring of progress. They became increasingly frustrated as there was a disconnect between what management said and actually did. The moral is that real inclusion must mean more than rhetoric.

Senior management needs to create a coherent overview of the change they are seeking, invest resources into building and maintain the structures required to embed these changes and engage their staff in

19




a consistent, meaningful and rewarding manner: reward success and tolerate failure. There has to be goal congruence, follow-through and a willingness to amend or scrap change programmes that are judged to be defective or unworkable. Openness, mutual respect and communication are critical to greater openness: clarify expectations, dispel rumours, harness creativity and focus enthusiasm towards realising corporate objectives.

Among the recommendations for organisations and managers are the needs to facilitate job enrichment, empower employees, optimise knowledge management and harness organisational memory.

Charles Handy said “trust, like learning, requires unconditional support, and forgiveness for mistakes, provided always that the mistakes are learnt from” (1997, p.190).

Retention of qualified and experienced staff needs to become a strategic goal of the organisation.

Only by valuing employees, promoting their self-development, actively seeking their opinions and facilitating them in participating in developing and achieving strategic goals can an organisation hope to maintain competitive edge in the 21 st

century business world.

Thomas Friedman in his award-winning book, ‘ The World Is Flat’ , which examined the implications of the globalised world for people and businesses in the 21 st

century, states that “the great challenge for our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people or leave them behind. None of this will be easy...It is inevitable and unavoidable” (2006, p.49).

CONCLUSIONS

Charles Franklin Kettering, inventor and businessman, said “the world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress” (as cited in Bateman and Snell, 2010, p.321).

Too often change is presented in a negative light and, for many employees, experience has taught them to engage with it in a circumspect manner due to the dichotomy between the words and deeds of their company’s management with respect to planning and implementing it.

Amongst the findings the data indicates that change management styles in use in both countries show room for improvement. The implication for managers in both countries is that the appetite for more active participation in change management programmes exists and will be embraced if employees are provided with the appropriate support and structures.

Senior management need to create a coherent overview of the change they are seeking and engage their staff in a consistent, meaningful and rewarding manner: reward success and tolerate failure. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, said “I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success”

(as cited in Bateman and Snell, 2010, p.313).

Change is unavoidable in the modern business world and needs to be embraced fully and implemented inclusively for all its benefits to be realised. Ricks (2006, p. 194) states that “…all big organisations tend to do what they know how to do, rather than what they need to do differently to address the situation they face.” This strategy is no longer commensurate with survival, never mind success, in the globalised world in which we now live. The key to understanding the ‘situation’ is to engage fully with the people who deal with the daily realities of the business, the employees.

20



Vol.9, 2013

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

Mark J. Dunne is a project manager, telecommunications consultant and an MBA graduate from the Institute of International Studies, Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok, Thailand. His areas of business research interests include leadership, change management, motivation, and cross-cultural management.

Mark can be reached through e-mail at: mjadunne@yahoo.com

Bahaudin G. Mujtaba is Professor of Management and Human Resources at the Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship; Nova Southeastern University, Florida, U.S.A. Bahaudin has worked as an internal consultant, trainer, and teacher. His areas of research include business ethics, diversity management, change management, and cross-cultural management. Bahaudin can be reached through e-mail at: mujtaba@nova.edu

22

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JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Change Management

1

Change Management

Jeff Slattery

Azusa Pacific Online University

The ubiquitous nature of change seems to imply that change comes easily, but this is certainly not the case in most instances. The world of business and information technology requires frequent, and at times significant, change initiatives. Successful change appears even more elusive, and thus, the following information strives to address the major factors that aid in change management. The paper describes the technical and human elements of change and includes components of change management that relate to the field of information system management. The results provide guidelines and processes for successfully implementing change initiatives.

The level of global competition, corporate scandals, and continually changing governmental regulations and standards requires that firms of all sizes implement change initiatives in order to survive, remain competitive, and be in compliance with laws and standards. The changes range from minute to enterprise-wide and bring many challenges and benefits. Firms that embrace change and utilize it to their advantage receive a comparative advantage that increases their ability to compete and remain efficient in the marketplace. Due to the critical nature of change, the following information describes the role of change management in organizations, discusses the key factors of change, the potential impact, leadership characteristics, common barriers to change, and offers guidelines to aid in the successful implementation of change initiatives.

Gans (2011) states that 80% of firms polled reported experiencing “some” confusion with the concept of change management and another 57% indicated that they “often” experienced confusion during the process of change. These statistics clearly indicate the necessity to implement a clear, consistent, and comprehensive change management strategy (p. 48).

Information technology projects are not devoid of change issues, as well. In fact, as Flynn, Pan,

Keil, and Mahring (2009) state, IT projects at times “grossly exceed their planned budget and schedules, often by a factor of 2-3 fold or greater”; again these instances emphasize the need to focus on key initiatives and the process of change management (p. 131). The stakes are simply

Journal of Strategic Leadership , Vol. 4 Iss. 2, Spring 2013, pp. 1-5

© 2013 Regent University School of Leadership & Business

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Change Management

2 too high; firms must take change management seriously and dedicate the time and resources necessary to effectively implement the initiates. The very survival of a firm often depends on their ability to adapt and effectively change with the quickly adapting global business marketplace.

As stated prior, change in business remains a constant and continual process. Firms need to manage changes and, at times, seek to limit the degree of change while at the same time aggressively forging forward with changes, prioritizing becomes a key point.

Change creates a sense of uncertainty, stress, and anxiety for employees, which is often interpreted as resistance by change agents who are already aware of the change and the end results or ramifications. The change agents have spent countless hours developing, revising, and strategizing about how the change will improve business operations or advance the firm, but when the information is presented to frontline employees, they are often surprised and upset by the suggested or required changes. Balestracci (2003) states that firms and individuals in our technological age are “ expected to absorb in 10 years what used to be assimilated in two or three generations,” which creates untold stress and has been identified as “ corporate craziness” (p.

39). This same author goes on to cite the 85/15 rule: 85% of the problems in an organization derive from faulty process while only 15% or fewer are related to employees, and thus, management should take the stance to “ blame the process, not the person” (Balestracci, 2003, p.

40). For some firms this may be a major cultural shift, but doing so decreases defensiveness, makes the actual problem the problem, and enables employees to unite against the problem in creating a solution. Depersonalizing the problem decreases the emotional reactivity to the situation, which allows for, and even encourages, change. Once the emotional reactivity has dissipated, the firm and employees are able to move into the change mode. The ability to respond appropriately requires five essential skills:

1.

Self-awareness

2.

Emotional maturity

3.

Self-motivation

4.

The ability to show empathy

5.

The ability to develop and maintain positive relationships (Balestracci, 2003 p. 42)

Displaying these skills and abilities makes the change process much easier and flow more smoothly, but there are leadership and corporate cultural characteristics and factors that are also essential for a success change process.

Bejestani (2011) states that, “management is partly science and partly art” (p. 302). The humanside or soft-skills account for a major element of change, even with regard to the technical aspects of change. IT systems or applications do not develop, install, and maintain themselves.

People are at the center of change, and the successful implementation of change requires leadership and management acumen. Great leaders and managers are able to overcome



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Change Management

3 resistance, unite employees, create a shared vision, and motivate employees or a team to implement change and accomplish tasks. Bejestani (2011) lists the following leadership characteristics:

• Consistency—to build confidence in the people who work for you

• Observation—to observe team members and their behaviors in a positive light

•

Problem solving—to make right decisions and solve problems, especially in critical situations

• Training friendly—to believe in the necessity of training and provide resources for training

• Humor—to build happiness without non-logical stress

• Communication—to have face-to-face interactions

•

Responsibility—to be responsible for completing objectives (p. 303)

In addition, Bluestone (2011) notes the difficulties associated with change and states that leaders should work to create a culture where mistakes are allowed and discussed in a positive light, using the mistakes and failures as learning opportunity. Employees should not be afraid to report mistakes and failures. The corporate culture should encourage a sense of forgiveness and restoration; employees should not obsess on making the right and perfect decision at the expense of actually implementing a decision and experiencing an error or setback. Bluestone (2011) ends by stating that “cultural change is evolution, not revolution”; this speaks to the continual process of organizational change and change management (p. 21).

Gee and Gee (2011) continue with the same line of thinking by stating the firms should work to “ create a culture of change and innovation…which is one the best ways to build organizations that can respond to change in a positive and proactive manner” (p. 31). The actions and behaviors of managers account for up to 50% of how employees view a firm. Managers who encourage the following behaviors and attitudes are working to instill a culture of creativity, innovation, and change, which again provides a competitive advantage for their firm:

• Encourage new and creative idea sharing

• Promote diversity of thinking

• Support conflicting or opposing points of view

• Allow time for innovation and provide resources

• Allow people the freedom to make decisions with parameters

•

Nurture risk taking as opposed to being risky (Gee & Gee, 2011, p. 31)



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4

Similarly, firms that primarily operate from a top-down mentality are punitive, allow silos to exist, fail to communicate decisions, are overly controlling and fail to see the value of their employees, severely limit or hinder their ability to react quickly to market trends and implement creative and innovative change initiates. Although the soft-side of change requires extensive management and interaction, the technical aspects remain and are vital to the process.

Hayes (2010) notes that IT projects are vital for all firms but the role of many IT professionals has changed. IT managers and even frontline staff are not simply able to maintain and interact with IT systems; they are being required more and more to collaborate and negotiate with other functional areas of the business. Hayes (2010) goes on to state that, “the change from provisioning physical IT assets and virtual IT assets is changing the relationship between IT and business units inside and organization” (p. 54). IT professionals are being pushed to not only upgrade existing skills and competencies but to learn, acquire, and utilize a whole new set of skills beyond specific IT skills (Hayes, 2010).

Firms must move beyond utilizing standard management and IT-related change management software and applications, such as SWOT analysis or Balanced Scorecards (Barraso, 2011).

Firms that embrace and utilize project management techniques in addition to the standard techniques in developing and designing change management systems and protocols will become much more efficient and innovative in implementing changes that will serve to advance their firms. The time of being able to set back and rely upon prior successful change initiatives and practices has past. Firms must take advanced of their employees’ enthusiasm, creativity, and innovative spirit when diving into major change initiates. The results will be astonishing; successful, innovative, and creative change projects will become the norm as opposed to the dreaded.

About the Author

Jeff Slattery, MA., DBA., is the discipline chair for management at Azusa Pacific Online

University. He can be reached for questions regarding this article at jslattery@apou.net

.

References

Balestracci, D. (2003). Handling the human side of change. Quality Progress , 36 (11), 38-45.

Barroso, B., H. (2011). The balanced scorecard: The evolution of the concept and its effects on change in organizational management. EBS Review , 28 , 53-66.

Bejestani, H. (2011). Improving project change management using leadership spirit. iBusiness , 3 ,

302-306.

Bluestone, A. (2003, July). Process of change: What it really takes. Practice Management

Solutions , 21.



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Flynn, D., Pan, G., Keil, M., & Mahring, M. (2009). De-escalating IT projects: The DMM model. Communications of the ACM , 52 (10), 131-134.

Gans, K. (2011, October). Should you change your thinking about change management?

Strategic Finance 48-50.

Gee, V., & Gee, S. (2011, October). Business improve creates a culture of change and innovation. The Journal for Quality & Participation, 30-33.

Hayes, J. (2010, September 24). Virtual impacts. Engineering & Technology, 54-55.

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1293 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1990

The Evolving Philosophers Problem:

Dynamic Change Management

Jeff Kramer and Jeff Magee

Abstract-One of the major challenges in the provision of distributed systems is the accommodation of evolutionary change. This may involve modifications or extensions to the system which were not envisaged at design time. Furthermore, in many application domains there is a requirement that the system accommodate such change dynamically, without stopping or disturbing the operation of those parts of the system unaffected by the change. Since the description of software structure

(components and interconnections) provides a clear means for both system comprehension and construction, it seems appropriate that changes should also be specified as structural change, in terms of component creation /deletion and connection/disconnection. applied to the operational system itself to produce the modified system.

This paper presents a model for dynamic change management which separates structural concerns from component application concerns. This separation of concerns permits the formulation of general structural rules for change at the configuration level without the need to consider application state, and the specification of application component actions without prior knowledge of the actual structural changes which may be introduced. In addition, the changes can be applied in such a way as to leave the modified system in a consistent state, and cause no disturbance to the unaffected part of the operational system. The model is applied to an example problem, “evolving philosophers.” The principles described in this model have been implemented and tested in the Conic environment for distributed systems.

Index Terms-Change management, distributed systems, dynamic configuration, system evolution.

I. INTRODUCTION

ISTRIBUTED computing systems are in widespread use in D commercial, industrial, and research establishments. One of the major difficulties in the development and maintenance of such systems is that of systems management, particularly with respect to the management of change. Distributed systems need to evolve as human needs change, technology changes, and the application environment changes. It has been argued [ 18) that the introduction of the computing system is itself a stimulus for change. These changes may require modification of a function already provided by the system, or extension by the introduction of new functions. In general, these changes, termed evolutionary, are difficult to accommodate as they cannot be predicted at the time the system is designed. Consequently, we would like systems to be sufficiently flexible to permit arbitrary, incremental change. In addition, we believe that systems should be capable of supporting such change dynamically, without interrupting the processing of those parts of the system which are not directly affected. Hence, it should be possible to direct changes at the operational system itself.

Manuscript received July 6, 1989; revised May 8, 1990. Recommended by

N. Schneidewind. This work was supported by the SERC ACME Directorate under Grant GEE62394 and by the CEC under the REX Project (2080).

The authors are with the Department of Computing, Imperial College of

Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of London, 180 Queen’s Gate,

London SW7 2B2, England.

IEEE Log Number 9038334.

Distributed systems potentially offer a flexible environment for dynamic modification and extension [4], [ 151. The underlying support mechanisms for change (software component creation, binding, and deletion) are readily available. However, there has been little suggestion as to how such dynamic change should be specified, managed, and controlled. This paper describes an approach based on a separation of concerns: functional concerns of the application processing components which can be provided with a general capability for change independent of what structural changes are introduced, and structural configuration concerns for specifying structural change without the need to consider application state,

Recent work on distributed software specification and construction confirms the benefits of separating the software component programming concerns from those of system configuration

[3], [15], [17]. A separate configuration specification is useful both as a description of the system structure and to generate the actual system. As for software construction, we believe that change is well handled at the configuration level in terms of software components and their interconnections [lo], [14]. Fig. 1 identifies the central role of configuration management which is required to interface between the functional view of application programming and the structural view of system configuration.

Changes are specified declaratively in terms of system structure only. The system itself is modified by the application of proce- dural change transactions, which include ordered sets of structural and control actions. These change transactions are derived by management from the change specifications. Hence, the system evolves incrementally by the application of change specifications as shown in Fig. 2. Alternatively, a change specification could be derived by comparing the desired configuration specification with that of the current system.

In addition to the means for specifying and performing change, it is also necessary to provide facilities for controlling change such that application consistency is preserved both while the change is applied and subsequent to the change. This is the role of change management.

What exactly are the required characteristics of a configuration management system for managing dynamic change? Section I1 identifies the objectives of change management, and defines more precisely the distributed system environment in which it is expected to operate. The form of interaction between management and the application nodes (software components) is presented in

Section 111, defining the management view of node states and the desirable properties which this provides. This leads to the development of a management protocol in Section IV which describes how change management is applied, illustrating the process with some simple examples. It also briefly discusses the required application contribution to the change process. This is followed in Section V by a detailed example, the Evolving Philosophers.

Section VI extends the work to cover systems with more interdependence, and illustrates the principles for the evolving philoso-

0098-5589/90/1100-1293$01.00 0 1990 IEEE

1294 IEEE TRANS 1YYO c o n f i g u r a t i o n / change s m e c i f i c a t i o n

Fig. 1 . System configuration and change management. configuration changes

Fig. 2. Evolution of a system by incremental changes. phers problem. The concluding section of the paper discusses other approaches to dynamic change management which range from pragmatic support for procedure replacement to the more formal transformational approach. The conclusions also examine the adequacy of our approach and discuss its implications.

11.

This section identifies the objectives of change management, and defines more precisely the distributed system environment in which it is expected to operate. These objectives represent an approach which clearly separates application specific functions from structural configuration functions. As mentioned, the intention is to provide an application independent configuration management facility. uration management can exploit parallelism for implementing changes. Declarative specifications leave such decisions to the implementation mechanisms.

Change specifications should be independent of the algorithms, protocols, and states of the application.

In order to provide generic configuration management, the configuration management system which carries out the changes should be independent of the application. Since changes are to be specified in terms of the configuration structure, the paper will demonstrate that dependence on aspects such as application state can be abstracted to a general requirement for application quiescence, and dependence on application algorithm to a need for component connection initialization/finalization actions.

Changes should leave the system in a consistent state.

Informally, a consistent application state is one from which the system can continue processing normally rather than progressing towards an error state. It is usually expressed in terms of some global system invariant. A system is viewed as moving from one consistent state to the next. In fact, application transactions modify the state of the application, and, while in progress, have transient state distributed in the system. While transactions are in progress the internal states of nodes may be mutually incon- sistent. In order to avoid the loss of application transactions and achieve a consistent state after change, a consistent application state is required in the affected part of the system before the change.

Changes should minimize the disruption to the application system.

It should not be necessary to stop the whole of a running application system to modify part of it. The management system should, from the change specification, be able to determine a minimal set of nodes which are affected by the change. The rest of the system should be able to continue its execution normally.

These objectives have a number of consequences for both the application and the configuration management system. In particular, the management system must give the affected part of a system the opportunity to reach a consistent state before a change is performed. The management system does not force changes but waits for the application to reach a consistent state.

This consistent state requires that there is no communication in progress between the affected nodes nor with their environment.

Each node is said to be in a quiescent state. Further, the nodes must remain quiescent while the change is executed. This gives newly created nodes the opportunity to be initialized in a state which is consistent with the rest of the system and nodes which are being removed the opportunity to leave the system in a consistent state. Later sections will describe how the affected nodes are identified and controlled by management, and discuss the application level responsibilities.

A . Objectives

Changes should be specified in terms of the system structure.

Systems, and in particular distributed systems, are constructed in a modular way consisting of a configuration of software nodes.

We propose that system evolution at the level of programming in the small [6] is at too low a level, being both too detailed and impractical due to the tight coupling of program elements.

Instead, change should be supported at a component node level

(or levels) where the possibility exists for understanding the effects of change and where the internode coupling is such that change is both possible and pragmatic.

Change specifications should be declarative.

By this we mean that it should be the responsibility of the configuration management system, not the user, to determine the specific ordering of actual change operations applied to the system. This clearly separates the change required (which is application specific) from how it is to be executed. Config-

B. Distributed System Model

In order to provide a sound basis for a discussion on change management, we first describe the environment and the assumptions made. We also briefly define the terms used.

System: A system is assumed to consist of a set of processing nodes with directed connections indicating the communication paths between the nodes.

Node: A node is a processing entity which can initiate and service transactions.

Connection: A connection is a directed communication path from the initiator of the communication exchange to the recipient (Fig. 3).

KRAMER AND MAGEE: EVOLVING PHILOSOPHERS PROBLEM 1295 connection

Fig. 3. A connection.

Initiator

(b)

complete

-

Recipient -

....

E complete

Fig. 4. Examples of (two-party) transactions.

A system may thus be represented as a directed graph

(Fig. 1 ) . The edges in the figure indicate that node N1 may initiate and receive transactions with both of N 2 and N 4 .

N 2 may only initiate transactions with N1, but may receive transactions from nodes N1 and N 3 .

Transaction: A transaction is an exchange of information between two and only two nodes, initiated by one of the nodes. Transactions are the means by which the state of a node is affected by other connected nodes in the system.

Transactions consist of a sequence of one or more message exchanges between the two connected nodes. It is assumed that transactions complete in bounded time and that the initiator of a transaction is aware of its completion.

Fig. 4 illustrates valid examples of transactions. In practice they may consist of a remote procedure call (rpc) or request-reply message exchange as in (a), or some sequence or combination of rpc’s or message passing as shown in

(b). The only requirement is that one of the two parties is identifiable as the initiator of the transaction and is informed of the completion of the transaction. Completion of transactions at the initiator is required to ensure correct termination of the management protocol described later. We assume only independent transactions, where completion of a transaction does not depend on any other (possibly nested) transactions with other nodes. Section VI discusses the implication of relaxing this restriction to permit dependent transactions, where completion is dependent on consequent transactions with other nodes.

Change: A change is described in terms of modifications to the structure (configuration) of the application system.

Changes take the form of node creation and deletion, and connection establishment and removal. Changes are effected by a Configuration Manager. Previous work [ 1 4 ] , [ 1 9 ] has identified a set of management primitives for both specifying and modifying the structure of systems. In abstract form these are: create N:T [at L ]

Create node N of type T, optionally specify at physical location L.

The name N must be unique within the system.

(For simplicity, T is omitted in later examples where the type is obvious.) remove N

Remove node N link N1 to N 2

Create a connection from node N1 to node N 2 .

(For simplicity, we omit the detail of multiple connections between nodes since this does not alter the algorithms presented in the following.) unlink N1 from N 2

Remove a connection between node N1 and node N 2 .

Consistency: This is determined by the re!ationship between node application states and is usually described by some global invariant (constraint) which must be preserved. For local consistency of a node, it is necessary that there are no partially complete transactions at the node.

The next section describes the interface between management and the application nodes and refines the notion of quiescence.

When performing configuration changes it is important that application information is not lost and that the application is left in a consistent state. To do this, the management system should have an interface with the application which allows it to direct the application towards an appropriate state for reconfiguration.

Further, the management system must be able to confirm that the application has reached this state. The interface between application and management system must be a generic one which makes management independent of the particular application. To meet this objective, application state is abstracted into a set of configuration management states for each node. This set of states provides sufficient information about application state to allow the management system to perform changes which leave the application in a consistent state. These configuration states and the transitions between them are outlined below.

A . Node Configuration States and Transitions

The state transition diagram of Fig. 5 specifies the possible states for an application node from the configuration viewpoint

(cf. process states from an operating system viewpoint). The interaction between configuration management and the node are indicated as transitions. These transitions are instigated by configuration management (cf. “control actions” [8]) and should be distinguished from the normal application level transactions

(“basic communications”).

B. Transitions

Each transition depicted in Fig. 5 represents the management action which initiates the transition. Node application actions are required to reach the destination management state (Fig. 6).

The temporary state involved in each transition gives a node the opportunity to perform the initialization and finalization actions necessary to preserve application consistency when it is createdlremoved and when connections are linkedlunlinked.

The application indicates that these actions are complete by asserting the destination state of the transition to the change management system. Activate and passivate (Fig. 5) are the transitions between the active and passive states described below.

C . States

111. APPLICATION-MANAGEMENT

A node in the active state can initiate, accept, and service transactions.

A node in the passive state must continue to accept and service transactions, but

1) it is not currently engaged in a transaction that it initiated, and

2) it will not initiate new transactions.

1296 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16,

NO.

11, NOVEMBER 1990 link y n activate produce further output. Our notion is stronger in the sense that the trace produced by a quiescent node will not be extended by any further output.

2 remove unlink passivate

Fig. 5. Node state transitions. management

.

Fig.

The particular state identified as necessary for reconfiguration is the passive state. A node in the passive state must continue to accept and service transactions while it is in the passive state, but it must not initiate any new transactions as a result of accepting or servicing transactions. This passive state is so defined as to permit connected nodes to progress towards a passive state by completing outstanding transactions. In addition it contributes to system consistency by completing transactions. However, the passive state is not sufficient for reconfiguration as it may still be processing transactions initiated by other nodes.

D. Node Quiescence

6. perform actions

Node assert(state) transitions.

ACTIVE

For consistency during change we require, a stronger property, viz. that the node is not within a transaction and will neither receive nor initiate any new transactions. This property is called quiescence of a node and is that state in which the node is both passive and has no outstanding transactions which it must accept and service. Such a state depends not only on the node itself, but on the connected nodes.

Consequently, a node is quiescent i f

1) it is not currently engaged in a transaction

’ that it initiated, }passive

2) it will not initiate new transactions, }properties

3) it is not currently engaged in servicing a transaction, and

4) no transactions have been or will be initiated by other nodes which require service from this node.

In the quiescent configuration state, the application state of a node is both consistent and frozen. It is consistent in that the application state does not contain the results of partially completed transactions, and is frozen in that the application state will not change as a result of new transactions. Quiescence is significant for dynamic configuration changes since, in cases such as unlinking, it permits a node to make decisions based on a stable and consistent state regarding the particular actions it should take before it is unlinked. For instance, the node may pass a consistent uptodate version of its application state to its environment before it is unlinked.

Our notion of quiescence is loosely based on earlier work

[ 131 which specified node behavior using a “quiescent invariant”: the stable, steady properties of a node characterized by a local invariant preserved by the node. Quiescence is also related to that defined by Misra [20], except that the discussion there focuses on traces and termination, whereas we focus on node state and consistency. Misra defines a node as quiescent if it may not

E. Resultant Properties for Systems Using

Independent Transactions

Given that the passive and quiescent states are desirable node management states, we now show how they can be achieved for systems constructed from independent transactions. From

Section 11, an independent transaction is a two party transaction whose completion does not depend on any other transaction. In these systems, a transaction serviced by a node may cause that node to initiate transactions to other nodes, however, completion of the service may not depend on completion of any transaction which the node may initiate. Section VI discusses the extensions required for dependent transactions.

The following propositions and justifications demonstrate the reachability of the passive state, the relationship between passive and quiescent states and the reachability of the quiescent state.

Proposition 1: Reachability of the Passive state.

In independent systems, a node can move from the active to the passive state in bounded time, irrespective of the configuration state (active or passive) of the nodes to which it is connected.

Justification I :

To be passive, the node must satisfy two conditions: i) it is not currently engaged in a transaction that it initiated:

A node will complete in bounded time any transaction which it initiated since transactions complete in bounded time and completion is independent of the completion of transactions at other nodes. Transactions complete in bounded time even if the recipient node is in the passive state since passive nodes accept and service transactions. ii) it will not initiate new transactions.

This property can be immediately satisfied by the application.

For systems using independent transactions, we define the passive set PS of a node Q, denoted PS(Q), to consist o f

1) the node Q

2) all nodes which can directly initiate transactions on Q, i.e., all nodes with connection arcs directed towards Q.

Proposition 2: Passive requirements for the Quiescent state.

In systems using independent transactions, Q is quiescent if all nodes in PS(Q) are in the passive state.

Justification 2:

A node is quiescent if i) it is not currently engaged in a transaction that it initiated, ii) it will not initiate new transactions, iii) it is not currently engaged in servicing a transaction, and iv) no transactions have been or will be initiated by other nodes which require service from this node.

Conditions i) and ii) follow from the passive state of Q, i.e.,

Q is in PS(Q).

Conditions iii) and iv) follow from the passive states of the nodes in PS(Q), i.e., if all nodes which can initiate transactions on

Q are also passive, then all transactions involving Q are complete and no new ones will be initiated.

Hence Q is in a quiescent state.

Proposition 3: Reachability of the Quiescent state.

In systems using independent transactions, a node Q can move from the active to the quiescent state in bounded time if all the nodes in PS(Q) are directed to move into the passive state.

Justification 3:

KRAMER AND MAGEE: EVOLVING PHILOSOPHERS PROBLEM 1297

Since all nodes will achieve the passive state in bounded time (Proposition l), and the passive state of all nodes in PS(Q) imply quiescence of Q (Proposition 2), then Q will achieve the quiescent state in bounded time.

This section has defined an interface through which a configuration manager communicates with and controls an application node. Communication between configuration maqagement and the node is synchronous in the sense that a management action is always confirmed by the node. (For pragmatic reasons, it may be necessary to support the forced removal of “rogue” nodes which do not obey or react correctly to configuration commands. These can be added as remove transitions from the active state.) Note that the node configuration state is the only way that configuration management can affect the application state. The passive state has been carefully defined to be readily achievable by a node by completion of any transactions which it initiated. Since transactions complete in bounded time, the passive state can be achieved in bounded time. Similarly, since the passive state permits servicing of transactions initiated by connected nodes, they too will be permitted to progress to a passive state. However, for the configuration manager to achieve quiescence of some target node, it is necessary to make the target node passive and also to create a region of passive nodes (the passive set) around it.

This will achieve a stable situation where there are no incomplete or active transactions. This together with the abstraction of application state into configuration management states forms the basis of the change protocol outlined in the next section. this can be achieved by requiring that all nodes in PS(N) are in the passive state.)

Justification: Quiescence of the initiator node ensures that its state is consistent and frozen with respect to that connection, thereby enabling connection initialization/finalization to occur in a stable environment. iii) Node C r e a t i o n 4 r e a t e .

Rule: The precondition is trivially true.

Justification: When a node is created it is initially isolated and consequently must be in the quiescent state since it can neither respond to nor initiate transactions on other nodes.

2) Change Transactions: A change transaction consists of a set of partially ordered configuration actions (or commands), which is derived from the structural change so as to satisfy the preconditions outlined above. One possible algorithm for deriving change transactions is outlined below.

Step 1: Determine the set of connections CS which must be unlinked to isolate nodes to be removed [to satisfy i)]. From this, together with the set of connections LS directly specified in link or unlink directives, determine the set of nodes QS (quiescent set) which must be made quiescent to satisfy i) and ii) above, i.e.,

CS = {connections c

I c is a connection to/from a node to be removed}

LS = {connections 1

I

1 is a connection in a link/unlink directive}

QS = {nodes n

1 n is the initiator node on a connection in

(CS U LS) or n is to be removed}.

Step 2: Form the change passive set CPS as the union of passive sets PS of each node in QS, i.e.,

A . Management View

In this section we outline a change protocol for systems constructed from independent transactions. This protocol meets the change management objectives of Section 11. In particular, the objective of a declarative, as opposed to imperative, change specification means that changes are specified using only structural actions create, remove, link, and unlink (see Section 11).

The activate and passivate actions on nodes are essentially an implementation device which should not be visible to a user.

The following outlines a change protocol in which the change transactions, including activate and passivate actions and the ordering of execution, can be automatically derived from the change specification (see Fig. 1).

1 ) Change Rules: The change protocol involves establishing a region of quiescence, specified as the set of nodes required to be passive, where the change is to occur. As mentioned in Section 11, changes involve node creation and deletion, and connection establishment and removal. We now examine each of the possible changes in turn and present the rules for contributing nodes to the passive set. i) Node deletion -remove.

Rule: The precondition for removing a node N is that it is quiescent and isolated. By isolated, we mean that it has no connections directed to it from other nodes or from it to other nodes.

Justification: An isolated node cannot affect the system and so can be independently removed. ii) Connection-link and unlink.

Rule: The precondition for either linking or unlinking is that the node N from which the connection is directed must be in the quiescent state. (From Proposition 2, we know that

CPS = U P S ( i )

Step 3: Perform the configuration actions in the following order: passivate <all nodes in the change passive set CPS> unlink remove create (could be performed at any time before link) link activate <CPS

- removed nodes

+ created nodes>

It should be noted that if the change management system permits multiple change transactions to be performed in parallel then the set of nodes which must be locked for a change is a superset of the change passive set. In detail, the lock set is

LockSct = CPS U {nodes n forall i in QS.

I n is a recipient node on a connection in (CS U LS)}.

The lock set includes nodes to which connections are directed so that a change transaction does not attempt to make a connection to a node which has been deleted by another concurrent transaction.

3) A Simple Example: In order to illustrate the management view of the change protocol, we briefly describe some possible changes for a simple client-server system. The system graph for the client-server system is shown in Fig. 7. i) Adding a client: ii) Unlinking or

Removing a client C1: iii) Removing the server S :

Change Passive Set = { }

Change Passive Set

Change Passive Set

=

=

{Cl}

{Cl, C2,

1298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFIWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1990 c3 i+

Fig. 7. A simple client-server system. the connection initialization/finalization actions are likely to be correspondingly complex.

The application contribution is illustrated in the detailed example in the next section.

To illustrate the management scheme developed in the preceding sections, it is applied to the Dining Philosopher’s

(Diners) problem [ 7 ] . Philosophers are arranged in a ring with neighboring philosophers sharing a fork. A philosopher is either thinking, hungry, or eating. To move from the hungry to the eating state a philosopher must acquire both his left-hand and right-hand fork. The solution presented below is a modification to

S is passive when all client transactions have completed. In order to replace the server S with a modified server S’, the following change specification is provided: remove S <and unlink dangling connections> create S’ link C1 to S’, C2 to S’, C3 to S’ and the derived change transaction is as follows: passivate C1, C2, C3, S & create S‘ unlink C1 from S , C2 from S , C3 from S

<unlink dangling connections> the fully distributed diners solution due to Chandy and Misra [5] to permit dynamic change. First, we outline Chandy and Misra’s solution for a static number of philosophers and then describe the modifications necessary to permit arbitrary changes to a dining philosopher system such as the addition/deletion (birth/death) of philosophers and the merging/splitting of communities of philosophers. Coping with these dynamic changes is the evolving philosophers problem. Based on the change model, a solution is described below. This solution has been implemented and tested in the Conic environment for distributed programming [ 141, [15],

~ 9 1 . remove S link C1 to S’,C2 to S’,C3 to S’

A. Chandy and Misra’s Hygienic Solution to the Diners Problem activate C1, C2, C3,S’

B. Application Contribution

The description so far has concentrated on the management view of change. System consistency is an application dependent notion and in general requires nodes to contribute to its preservation. One of the main contributions that an application node must make is preservation of the passive state, i.e., the application must not initiate any new transactions, but must be prepared to service transactions from other nodes. The change from active io passive state is implemented in a node by converting the general description of the passive state into an invariant constraint in application terms (i.e., referring to local node variables) that must be preserved by the node. When in the passive state, the node confirms this by responding assert(passive) (Fig. 6) to management.

Furthermore, in order for a newly connected application node to preserve consistency, it must be given the opportunity to initialize itself so as to be consistent with its new environment.

Similarly a node which is about to be disconnected must be given the opportunity to clean up in order to leave its environment in some consistent state. These opportunities are provided for in the management protocol by the link and unlink transitions

(Fig. 5) where the node can, if necessary, execute such actions as necessary. These actions may include communication with other nodes. Again, completion of these actions is confirmed by an assert(passive) response to management.

Obviously the actual actions which need to be executed at these times are application dependent. However, these are simplified by the fact that, by the change rules described above, there is no transient information in the node. In general, these actions may include the initiation of queries on connected nodes. The complexity depends on the complexity of the application and the autonomy of the node. This confirms our intuition that, if a system is designed such that its constituent nodes are tightly coupled and interdependent, then

Each philosopher P, is implemented as a process which communicates with its left- and right-hand neighbors by asynchronous message passing. The system structure is depicted in

Fig. 8.

Chandy and Misra describe their solution informally as follows: “A fork is either clean or dirty. A fork being used to eat with is dirty and remains dirty until it is cleaned. A clean fork remains clean until it is used for eating. A philosopher cleans a fork when mailing it (he is hygienic). An eating philosopher does not satisfy requests for forks until he has finished eating.” When not eating, philosophers defer requests for forks that are clean and satisfy requests for forks that are dirty. This solution can be considered to implement a precedence graph such that an edge directed from a node

U to v indicates that

U has precedence over v (Fig. 9).

In the diners solution a philosopher node

U has precedence over its neighbor v if and only if 1)

U holds the fork and it is clean, or 2) v holds the fork and it is dirty, or 3) the fork is in transit from v to

U .

Chandy and Misra showed that if initially all forks are dirty and located at philosophers such that the precedence graph is acyclic it will remain acyclic since 1) the direction of an edge (from

U to v) can only change when

U starts eating and 2) both edges on a philosopher are simultaneously directed towards him when he starts eating. Chandy and Misra prove that since immediately on finishing eating a philosopher yields precedence to his neighbors, all hungry philosophers will commence eating in finite time, i.e., no philosopher remains hungry forever.

More precisely the algorithm is described as follows:

Messages: forktokenl reqtoken,

Passes fork f f ( f can take the value left or right).

Passes request token for fork f to neighbor.

Boolean Variables: f o w l )

Wf(f 1

Philosopher holds fork f .

Philosopher holds the request token

1299 KRAMER AND MAGEE: EVOLVING PHILOSOPHERS PROBLEM

(R6) Philosopher eating to thinking transition: cating,eating time expired

=> thinking := true; eating := false

(R7) Philosopher thinking to hungry transition: thinking,thinking time expired => hiirigry := triic; thinking := false

Fig. 8. Schematic and structure of the diners system.

P 4 - - - - t 8 - P 3 P4------scP3

( a )

Fig. 9 Precedence graph. (a)

( b )

P1 hungry. (b) P1 eating. for fork f. dirty(f

1 Fork f is at philosopher and is dirty. thinking/hungry/eating: State of philosopher.

Initialization:

1) All forks are dirty.

2) Forks distributed among philosophers such that the precedence graph is acyclic.

3) If

U and v are neighbors then either

U holds the fork and v the request token or vice versa.

The algorithm for each philosopher is described as a set of rules guard=>action which form a single guarded command.

(Rl) Requesting a fork f: hungry,reqf( f ) , fork( => send(reqtokcnf); reqf(f) := false

(R2) Releasing a fork f:

- eating, reqf(f),dirty( f ) => scnd(forktokenf); dirty(f) := false; fork(f) := false

B. An Evolving Community of Dining Philosophers

In the following we consider the creation of a ring (community) of philosophers, addition of a new philosopher (birth). and deletion of an existing philosopher (death). Major changes in the community are performed as the merging’splitting of communities of philosophers.

I ) Application Contribution for Dynamic Change: To permit philosopher nodes to be subject to change we must extend the above algorithm to support the management/application interface described in Section 111. In particular, the algorithm must support the passive state and provide initialization (finalization) actions when a philosopher is linked (unlinked) to (from) another philosopher. The consistency requirements in the system are: i) that a fork is always shared between two adjacent, connected philosophers, and ii) that the precedence graph remains acyclic.

The base case of a single philosopher node is taken care of by connecting it to itself, thereby permitting it to possess two forks. a) Philosopher Passive State: From the definition of passive

(Section 111) a philosopher is in the passive state if firstly, it is not currently engaged in a transaction which it has initiated (i.e., it has not sent a reqtoken which has not yet been answered by a forktoken) and secondly, it will not initiate new transactions, i.e., it is not hungry and it will not become hungry. active passive activate passivate

True when this philosopher is in the active management state.

True when this philosopher is in the passive state.

Management request to make philosopher active.

Management request to make philosopher passive.

(R7)* Philosopher thinking to hungry transition: active,thinking,thinI;ing time expired => hungry := true; thinking := false

(R3) Receiving a request token for f: (R8) Passive to active transition: a c t i v a t e

=> assert(active) receive(reqtokenf) => reqf(f) := true

(R4) Receiving a fork token for f:

(R9) Active to passive management transition:

- hungry.passivate = > assert (passive)

(R5) Philosopher hungry to eating transition: hungry, fork(left), fork(right) => eating := true; hungry := false; dirty(lcft) := trur; dirty(rig1it) := true; hungry. Since a philosopher can only initiate and be engaged in transactions when it is in the hungry state, the above rules satisfy the management requirements for active and passive states. Note that, when neighboring philosophers are both passive, neither is hungry. In this case, the shared fork will be dirty and the precedence edge will be directed towards the holder of the dirty fork.

1300 IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1990 b) Philosopher Link and Unlink Actions: The following rules deal with the actions required to unlink and link a connection between philosophers.

Messages: new-forlttoken, Passes new fork f to neighbor which shares f for connection initialization. new-reqtoken, Passes new request token for fork f to neighbor. link@,) unlink@,)

Management request to initialize a connection to philosopher which shares fork f with this philosopher.

Management request to finalize a connection to philosopher which shares fork f with this thisp other( f) philosopher.

The unique identity of this philosopher.

The other fork from f that a philosopher uses

(e.g., other(1eft) = right).

(R10) Connection finalization: unlink(p,)

=> fork(f) := false; reqf(f) := false; dirty(f) := false assert (passive)

When two philosophers are connected together, we can satisfy fork sharing by ensuring that only one fork is allocated between them. To achieve this, we assume that each philosopher has a unique identity and that these identities have a total ordering.

The philosopher which precedes its neighbor in the total ordering decides where a fork is to be allocated. Consequently only one fork is allocated. To satisfy preservation of the acyclic precedence graph, allocation must be such that at least one philosopher ends up having two dirty forks or none. In the following, we demonstrate that rules (R12) and (R13) maintain an acyclic precedence graph for arbitrary changes.

2) Creating a Community of The following configuration specification describes a ring of N philosopher processes:

RING(p, N ) :: forall i : l..Ncreate p [ i ] ; forall i : 1..N link p[i] to p [ ( i mod N) p [ ( i mod N )

+

11,

+

11 to p [ i ] ;

The corresponding change transaction in this case is simply the specification with the added activate actions as follows:

(R11) Initializing a connection top, where p , = thisp (i.e., this philosopher) link(p,),pf = thisp

=> fork(f) := true; reqf(f) := false; dirty(f) := true assert (passive)

(R12) Initializing a connection to p, where p, > thisp (i.e., this philosopher allocates fork) link(pf),pf

> thisp => if fork (other(f)) then {if the philosopher has the other fork} fork(f) := true; dirty(f) := true; send

( new-reqtoken,) else reqf(f) := true; send(new-forktokenf) assert (passive)

(R13) Initializing a connection to p f where pf < thisp (i.e., the other philosopher allocates fork) link(pf),pf

< thisp

=> receive( new-reqtoken,) => reqf(f) := true or receive(new_forktoken,) => fork(f) := true; dirty(f) := true assert (passive)

Rule (R10) ensures that when a connection between two philosophers is unlinked, the shared fork is removed. Rules (R11,

R,12, R13) are responsible for the allocation of forks when connections are linked.

Rule (R11) deals with the trivial case where there is only one philosopher which is connected to itself. In this case the philosopher is allocated two dirty forks so that it can eat. Rules

(R12) and (R13) ensure that the global consistency requirements of a system with two or more philosophers are not violated. forall i : 1..N activate p [ i ] .

To preserve the precedence graph invariant, the forks must be distributed asymmetrically such that at least one philosopher has no forks and correspondingly one has two forks (see initialization conditions for the original algorithm). Rules (R12) and (R13) achieve this since the identity of one philosopher must precede all others in the total ordering. This philosopher will allocate forks to both its neighbors (R12) and consequently have no forks itself.

3) Birth of a New Philosopher: The following configuration specification adds a new philosopher x between existing neighbors

U and v, where the other neighbors of

U and v are t and w, respectively: unlink

U from create x link x to w ; w from

U x to

U; link

U to

2 ; link w to x

Applying the change algorithm of the previous section to the above change specification produces the following change transaction. From both the preconditions of unlink and link, the quiescent set QS is determined as the two neighbors

U, v of the node to be created x. The change passive set is t,

U , v, and w. t nor w will initiate transactions on

U or v to request forks,

U and v can make decisions based on the state of their forks which will not change. For example, to insert a new philosopher P6 between P5 and P1 in the system depicted in

Fig. 8, P5 and P1 must be quiescent since they are both linked to each other and will be linked to the new philosopher. The change passive set includes P2 and P4 as well. Note that, in the change transaction outlined below, actions on the same line may be executed in parallel. passivate t , w, x unlink

U from

U ; unlink w from

U link

2 to activate t , w, x to

U; link

U to x; link w to

2

KRAMER AND MAGEE: EVOLVING PHILOSOPHERS PROBLEM 1301

The fork shared by

U and v will be discarded when they are unlinked. On linking the pairs

U and x , and x and v, the allocation of the shared fork in each case will be made by one of the pair such that one of each pair will end up with either two forks or no forks..For instance, in the example above of the addition of

P6, P1 and P 5 will perform the allocation as they precede P 6 in the total ordering. If the fork shared by P2 and P1 is currently held by P1, then P1 will retain the dirty fork shared with P6; and if P 5 does not have the fork shared with P4, then it will allocate the other shared dirty fork to P6 (Fig. 10). This clearly preserves the acyclic graph.

4 ) Death o f a Philosopher: Removal of a philosopher x with neighbors

U and v (where the opposite neighbors of

U and v are f and w , respectively) is specified by the following program:

P 5 P 2

\ I '

P 4 d P 3

P 2

P h - - L P 3

(a) (b)

Fig. 10. Addition of a philosopher. (a) Before addition. (b) After addition of P6. remove x link

'U to

U ; link

U to v

(a) (b)

Fig. 1 1 . Removal of a philosopher. (a) Before removal. (b) P1 removed.

This results in the following change transaction: passivate t , v, w, x unlink

U from z; unlink

PI from

5 remove x link v to

U ; link

U to

'U activate t , v , w

- - I

This transaction ensures that U, v, and x will be in the quiescent state before x is unlinked and removed. Consequently, on linking,

U and v can make decisions based on the state of their forks which will not change. As before, allocation will ensure that one of the pair ends up with two or no forks. For example, if in Fig. 11 we removed philosopher P1, P2 would retain the dirty fork shared with P 5 as it has the fork shared with P3, thereby preserving acyclic precedence.

5) Merging Two Communities of Philosophers: Given two communities (rings) of philosophers, called pa of size N and p b of size M , respectively, Fig. 12 shows which connections must be unlinked and which must be linked to merge the two rings of philosophers. The shaded nodes indicate the change passive set.

The change is specified as follows: link f r o m p a [ 11,

$411 f r o m p b [ ( l mod M ) )

+ l],pb[(l mod M ) )

+

11 f r o m pb[l]; p 4 1 to pb[q,Pb[ll to pa[lI; pa[(l mod pb[(l mod

N ) )

M ) )

+

11 t o pb[(l mod M ) )

+

11,

+

I] to pa[(l mod M ) )

+

11;

The corresponding change transaction is:

MERGE-TRANSACTION

Pb 131 ;

:: unlink p a [

, p b [ 11 frornpb[2], pb[2] f r o m p b [ I];

Fig. 12. Merging philosopher rings.

To justify that this change maintains an acyclic precedence graph we need only be concerned with the connection between philosophers which completes the ring. In Fig. 12, this is performed between p a [ l ] and pb[l] or between pa[2] and pb[2].

Rules (R12) and (R13), defined for the linking and unlinking of philosophers, ensure that the philosopher which allocates the fork on that connection retains the fork if it has the other shared fork, otherwise it allocates the fork to its neighbor. In the former case, the allocating philosopher will have two dirty forks, in the latter no forks. In fact, in the situation where neither the allocating philosopher nor its newly connected neighbor has another fork, it does not matter where the new fork is allocated since some other philosopher must have two forks. This can be easily argued as follows:

There are n philosophers and n forks; the two philosophers being connected have 1 fork, consequently the remaining n-2 philosophers have n-1 forks. Therefore, one of these n-2 philosophers must have 2 forks. The original algorithm ensures that a philosopher cannot hold a clean and a dirty fork simultaneously; consequently, the precedence graph must be acyclic.

Note that inserting a new philosopher into an existing ring of philosophers is equivalent to merging a ring of one philosopher.

RING(newphil,l), with an existing ring. Splitting a ring into two smaller rings requires a change specification opposite to that of

MERGE. As before, the connection which completes each ring preserves the global invariant.

1302 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1990

This section has shown how the management protocol is applied to a specific application. Only those philosophers in the change passive set are affected by the change allowing the rest of the system to proceed with its normal execution. Changes can be carried out in parallel as the stable states ensured by node quiescence permits consistent decisions to be made during linking and unlinking. The different cases described in this example have been prototyped and validated in the Conic environment for distributed programming [14], [15], [19]. Further work is required to integrate the change management states into the current environment. r21p

Fig. 13. Client-agent-manager interaction using dependent transactions.

VI. DEPENDENT

In the discussions above, we have considered only two party independent transactions. We now relax the restriction of independence and discuss systems using dependent transactions, which involve one or more consequent transactions. In general, systems include both independent and dependent two party transactions.

A dependent transaction is a two-party transaction whose completion may depend on the completion of other consequent transactions.

This is described more precisely as follows: f, is a dependent transaction if there exists a chain of transactions t,, t,, . . . t , in which each, with the exception of t,, may depend for completion on the completion of its (consequent) successor transaction. We do not forbid cycles in this chain, but require that:

1) progress is made to ensure that the transaction is still bounded,

2) that deadlock is avoided (for example, that it is not a cycle of nested transactions).

We require that the initiator of a dependent transaction is informed of the completion of consequent transactions. This enables a node to determine when transactions, which it initiated, have completed and hence when it has achieved a passive state. ing transactions. There are two main approaches to providing quiescence in such systems with dependent transactions:

1) Require that consequent transactions are recognized in the application.

M must recognize that the transactions with S are part of and a consequence of a wider transaction, and that the passive state can only be reached when that client transaction completes (i.e.,

M must wait for completion of the client use of the printer before it can become passive). This approach has the disadvantage of having to embed, in the application, knowledge of all the transaction dependencies. In addition, this information would be hidden from the configuration view. Transactions would implicitly ripple back and require some time to complete, although we would still require that they do so in bounded time. Another possibility is to abort transactions with consequents when in the passive state.

For example, M could abort the client transaction with C . This carries the overhead of complicating C such that it must regain consistency after transaction abortion (cf. recovery). Aborting reduces dependent transactions to independent transactions at the expense of complicating the application code.

2) Expand the passive set to include all nodes initiating dependent transactions which result in transactions on the link or node targeted for change.

This requires that transaction dependencies are reflected up to and taken account of at the configuration level. Since it is at the configuration level that we wish to manage changes, this is the preferred approach.

A. Extension of the Independent Transaction Approach

Consider a number of client nodes Ci which access a printer server S via their agent Ai and a server manager node M (Fig. 13).

In this case, a transaction may consist of a sequence of message interactions involving Ci, Ai, M , and S . For instance, C1 may initiate transaction s l to request a print service; completion of s l is dependent on the consequent transactions r l and p , which A 1 and finally M will initiate to S, to actually print the lines. Dependent transactions and their potential consequent(s) are denoted as dependent/consequent(s), as illustrated in Fig. 13 where si is dependent on ri, which is dependent on p .

The change transaction discussed in relation to independent transactions, such as removal of S, would require that M is quiescent and all agents Ai, M , and S are in the passive state.

This implies that S could be removed when M and A complete their current two party transactions ri and p , and S completes the associated processing. However, since Ci may still have further lines to send (si is not complete and may require further ri and p transactions), this is clearly not sufficient to maintain system consistency.

Hence, if the change passive set of nodes consists only of the set of nodes which can initiate transactions on a target quiescent node plus the node itself, there is no guarantee that the node is in the quiescent state. Nodes may still initiate consequent transactions on the target node to satisfy completion of arriv-

B. Generalized Passive State for Systems Using

Dependent Transactions

The proposed approach for systems using dependent transactions is to expand the passive set PS(Q) to include those nodes which initiate transactions which have consequent transactions on the node Q required to be quiescent. However, the passive state may not be reachable for nodes utilizing dependent transactions.

Consider the example in Figure 14. In this system suppose N3 is in the passive state and N1 has initiated transaction a . In this situation transaction a cannot complete because transaction b cannot complete because N3 cannot initiate c . Consequently, neither

N1 nor N2 can move into the passive state in bounded time if requested. Hence, Proposition I does not hold for dependent systems.

We could consider providing an ordering on the passive set such that nodes are made passive in the order of the dependence graph. In the example in Fig. 14 we would passivate in the order

N1 then N2 then N3. However, this order cannot be determined in general. In the example in Fig. 15, transaction a / b requires N1 before N2, whereas cld requires N2 followed by N1.

A more appropriate approach is to generalize the definition of the passive state to include the means for dependent transactions to complete:

A node in the general passive state must accept and service transactions and initiate consequent transactions, but


C

Fig. 14. A system with cyclic dependencies.

Fig. 16. Independent and dependent transactions on node N . alb cld

Fig. 15. A system with mutual dependencies.

Proposition 3': Reachability of the Quiescent state.

Given the generalized definition of the passive state and the enlarged passive set, Proposition 3 holds for both independent and dependent systems.

Justification 3':

Follows directly from Propositions 1' and 2'.

1) it is not currently engaged in a (nonconsequent) transaction that it initiated, and

2) it will not initiate any new (nonconsequent) transactions.

Thus a node in the general passive state must respond to transactions while it is in the passive state, and, it must initiate any consequent transactions required for the completion of the transactions to which it responds. For independent transactions, the definition of the general passive state reduces to the same as passive.

For example, in Fig. 16, if node N is in the general passive state it must not initiate x or y as a result of responding to b or c . However, it may initiate x to permit completion of a . (For conciseness, we henceforth use passive to mean general passive where such use is unambiguous.)

C . Resultant Properties for Systems Using

Dependent Transactions

Proposition 1': Reachability of the Passive state.

Given the generalized definition of the passive state,

Proposition 1 holds for systems using both independent and dependent transactions.

Justification 1':

As for Proposition 1, with the added justification that dependent transactions will also complete in bounded time even if the recipient nodes are in the (general) passive state since they respond to and can initiate consequent transactions.

The definition of quiescence for systems using dependent transactions remains the same as that for independent transactions

(see Section 111). However, as discussed above, the passive set must be expanded in order to account for dependent transactions which lead to consequent transactions on the node.

The enlarged passive set EPS for a node Q, EPS(Q), is defined as follows:

1) all nodes in PS(Q) are in EPS.

2) all nodes which can initiate dependent transactions which result in consequent transactions on Q are in EPS.

Proposition 2': Passive requirements for the Quiescent state.

Given the generalized definition of the passive state and the enlarged passive set, Proposition 2 holds for both independent and dependent systems (i.e., if node N and all nodes in the enlarged passive set with respect to N are passive, then N is quiescent).

Justification 2':

As for Proposition 2, with the added justification that all nodes which can initiate transactions (independent, dependent, or consequent) on N are passive, then all transactions involving

N will be complete.

D . Change Rules

The change rules remain as before, except that the region of quiescence where the change is to occur results in an enlarged set of passive nodes specified by the EPS.

E. Composition Rules

In the foregoing, we have been concerned with flat or one- level graphs of connected nodes. However, in general, we are concerned with an hierarchic graph structure such that nodes at one-level may themselves be implemented as graphs of connected nodes at the next level of detail. For example, in the Conic system which represents systems as configurations of logical nodes, these logical nodes are themselves implemented as a graph of subnodes or tasks. The Conic logical node is the unit of change and allocation, and the task is the unit of concurrency [19]. To ensure that the change management system need be concerned with only one level of the configuration graph at a time we must be able to derive the transaction dependency relations of a node from those of its subnodes. In the following, a node which is composed of subnodes is referred to as a composite node. A substitution rule can be used to determine the dependencies of composite nodes from the dependencies of their constituent nodes.

Node Composition by substitution: In composing two nodes, substitute the consequents for each occurrence of the dependent transaction which is hidden by the composition (see Fig. 17).

For more complex structures, the rule can be used for each connection and by repeated application for each node composition. For example, consider the fork structure in Fig. 18, where a is potentially dependent on b and/or c .

Internal transactions are not visible in composite nodes. For example, each philosopher node of the Evolving Philosophers problem can be (and was) implemented as a composite node as shown in Fig. 19. This solution structure follows that of [ l ]

(which addresses only the original Dining Philosophers problem).

The philosopher subnode implements a simple state machine to control the transitions between thinking, hungry, and eating, while the servant subnode encapsulates the protocols necessary to acquire forks. The internal transactions relforks and getforks are not visible in the composite node Phil. It should also be noted that the dependency of the philosopher transaction getforks on the consequent transactions reqright and reqleft (the transactions to request a left and a right fork) is not visible in the composite node. However, this dependency means that for the node Phil to be passive both its subnodes (philosopher and servant) must be passive.

In our prototype implementation of change management in

Conic, we have adopted the following simplified but pragmatic strategy. The change management system views the system as a one-level graph of logical nodes. As mentioned above, logical

1304 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 16, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1990 v

Fig. 1 f . Derived dependencies for simple node composition. v a / c

Fig. 18. Derived dependencies for repeated node composition. servant

Fig. nodes are both the unit of change and the unit of allocation in

Conic. Logical nodes are constrained by design to communicate by independent transactions so that the management system need not be aware of dependency information. The structure of a logical node is fixed at node instantiation time. Transactions between subnodes can be independent or dependent as shown in Fig. 19. To simplify local node management we have implemented the rule that a logical node is passive when all its constituent nodes are passive. A local entity collates management state for each logical node.

Composition thus provides a coarser grain for system configuration and dynamic change management. For a finer grain, decomposition can be used (where appropriate) to expose the internal structure of connected nodes to make them accessible to change.

VII.

19. reqright reqlen

Composite philosopher node.

DISCUSSION reqright

CONCLUSIONS

This paper has presented a comprehensive model of change management which clearly separates the management responsibilities and view from that of the application (see Fig. 1).

In particular, the objectives given in Section I1 have been ap- proached as follows.

Changes should be specified in terms of the system structure,

Changes are specified in terms of the primitives create, remove, link, and unlink which refer only to system structure. In fact, changes specified in these primitives could be derived from the difference between specifications of the current and desired system structures.

Changes specifications should be declarative.

It is the derived change transactions which include the change control actions (activate and passivate) and specify the parallelism or sequencing of the actual change execution.

Change specifications should be independent of the algorithms, protocols, and states of the application.

The node configuration states (active, passive) abstract away the specific application states, and provide a convenient means for viewing and controlling the application.

Changes should leave the system in a consistent state.

The passive and quiescent states together with the possible inclusion of connection initialization and finalization code provide the application with the means to preserve application consistency in a convenient and pragmatic manner.

Changes should minimize the disruption to the application system.

The change passive set identifies the set of nodes affected by a change. In fact, the set is not currently minimal. For instance, in the client server example in Section IV, the clients need only be passive with respect to the particular server being removed and need not actually be prevented from initializing transactions on other (unillustrated) nodes.

Let us consider the connection level further. The current model provides for change in the form of creation and deletion of nodes, and connection changes. Change which only involves connections could place emphasis on each connection rather than the entire node which initiates that connection. Thus the state of each connection (disconnected or connected-passive or connected-active) could be modeled, together with the consistency preserving actions associated with each connection. This leads to a finer grain model in which a node can be active with respect to one connection yet passive with respect to another.

This approach appears to be promising in its ability to describe connection changes at a finer level of granularity however, it does require more passive substates. Furthermore, the design of the connection level actions seems to be more difficult since the node and its environment may be partially active thereby making consistency more difficult to attain. Hence, although our current approach of requiring complete node quiescence may not be minimal in terms of the disruption to a system, it does seem to be sufficient and far simpler to reason about and use.

A. Dependent and Independent Transactions

The approach adopted for dependent transactions generalizes the passive state of a node to permit initiation of consequent transactions and enlarges the passive set to include nodes which can initiate dependent transactions with consequents on the nodes previously in the set. This expansion of the passive set corresponds to our intuition that changes to systems which are more interdependent require more global quiescence and cause more disturbance (i.e., close-coupling makes change more difficult). We believe that the model confirms and, to some extent, quantifies that interdependence. One approach to alleviating this interdependence, is to compose dependent nodes together so that composite nodes communicate using only independent transactions. Changes must then be performed at a “coarse grain” level on composite nodes rather than on constituent dependent nodes. Alternatively, dependent systems can be reduced to independent systems for the purpose of management, if transactions can be aborted by passive nodes. The cost of this is the extra complexity incurred by the application to preserve consistency in the presence of aborted transactions (cf. atomic transactions). However, in real systems, this cost may be inevitable to deal with failure.


B. Detection of the Passive State

The transactions used in the model require that the initiator is aware of the completion of the transaction, whether it is dependent gr independent (see the definition in Section 11). This is required i n order that a node can determine when outstanding transactions that it initiated are complete and hence when it is passive. If this were not the case, it is possible that a node could assume completion of a transaction which was actually delayed in communication and still outstanding. This requirement could be relaxed to permit, for instance, asynchronous messages if the node or management system used some other method for detecting termination of transactions. This would require use of a distributed termination algorithm such as the diffusing detection algorithm of Francez [8]. Assuming that messages do not overtake one another, the management system could initiate detection by sending queries along the dependency chains of the nodes in the passive set and cbtaining confirmation if all nodes agree that they are indeed passive.

C. Related Work

The changes described in this model are directed at the operational system itself, in terms of changes to the software components and their interconnections. It can be contrasted with the model for change incorporated in the Inscape Environment

[21] which concentrates on change validation in relation to a static definition of the system. Inscape utilizes a semantic interconnection model which could form a useful adjunct to our model by permitting static change validation before application to the system itself. A promising and related approach which could be used to model and analyze dynamic configuration changes has been suggested using graph grammars (Garp [ l l ] and A-

Grammars [ 121). This provides a formal graphical description of system structure which is equivalent to our configuration specification. Changes are specified in terms of A transitions which act on the system structure to produce new structures.

However, unlike our approach, they have chosen to model aspects such as message passing at the structural level, thereby making the specification of changes rather more complex than ours at the configuration level. Also, their model appears to be purely for specification purposes, and gives no indication as to how it might be realized. For instance, it is not clear how detailed consistency constraints, such as those preserved by the actions in the evolving philosophers, could be modelled in A-grammars.

Pragmatic approaches to dynamic change management have tended to concentrate on code replacement. The most simple strategies are little more than traditional object code patching which relies on recovery to ensure system consistency. More recently Frieder and Segal [9] have suggested a scheme for procedure replacement which does not require recovery. While we ensure that component quiescence will occur, they rely on detecting procedure quiescence before performing a change.

Continuously active procedures can thus not be replaced in their scheme. Further, while we are concerned with arbitrary restructuring of a system their scheme is firmly focused on replacement.

The transformational approach [2] advocates that changes should be dealt with at the formal specification level. The new system is then “regenerated” from that changed specification using transformational techniques. However, in order to avoid regenerating the entire system, the changed parts need to be identified and generated. Also, dynamic introduction of the changes to an operational system would still need to be supported in some way. Given that even the transformational approach needs to describe nontrivial systems as some composition of components, our model provides a means for obtaining the required structural changes from the new structural specification (Fig. 2) and of deriving the change transactions for integration of the changes dynamically. Hence, although at first sight the two approaches appear to be incompatible, our model provides a systematic and pragmatic basis which could be used in conjunction with the transformational approach.

D . Further Work

The paper has concentrated on evolutionary change where change is instigated by an agent external to the system. However, the change protocol can equally be invoked internally by the application. The application can minimize the disruption caused by a change by instigating the change when quiescence is detected rather than externally imposed.

Change could also occur as a result of failure. Although not explicitly handled by the model, we believe that failures can be handled if the nodes incorporate the necessary recovery actions. These would be used to restore the remaining system to consistency in conjunction with the reconfiguration actions which could be triggered by detection of failure. This area requires further investigation.

The management of evolutionary change is a difficult but important issue. It is therefore essential that the techniques adopted are both practical and soundly based. We believe that our approach, with its clear separation of structural management and application concerns, is very promising in these regards.

Some small case studies have been prototyped and tested in the

Conic environment for distributed programming which provides both textual and graphical facilities for performing dynamic configuration changes [16]. It now remains to be further refined, formalized, and tested on larger case studies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to acknowledge discussions with our colleagues M. Sloman, N. Dulay, K. Twidle, and K. Ng during the formulation of these ideas. In particular we acknowledge the contribution of A. Young in prototyping and refining the change management model.

G. R.

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Jeff Kramer partment of received the B.Sc. (Eng) degree in electrical engineering from the University of

Natal, South Africa, in 1970, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computing science from

Imperial College, London, England, in 1972 and

1979, respectively.

He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the De-

Computing at Imperial College. His research interests include requirements analysis techniques, design methods, software construction languages, and tool support environments, especially as applied to distributed software. He was principle investiga- of the TARA project on Tool Assisted Requirements Analysis, and of the various research projects which led to the development of the

Conic Environment for Distributed Programming. He is coauthor of a book, Distributed Systems and Computer Networks. He is currently the

Technical Director of a major ESPRIT project, REX, on reconfigurable and extensible parallel and distributed systems.

Dr. Kramer is a member of the IEE, the Association for Computing

Machinery, and the IEEE Computer Society.

Jeff Magee graduated from Queens Univer- sity, Belfast, Northern Ireland, with a degree in electrical engineering in 1973. After working with the British Post Office on the design and development of System X he returned to college where he received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computing science from Imperial College,

London, England, in 1978 and 1984, respectively.

He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the De- partment of Computing at Imperial College. His research interests include parallel algorithm design, distributed operating systems and languages, and tool support for distributed systems. He was a principle investigator of the various research projects funded by British

Coal and SERC which led to the development of the Conic Environment.

Dr. Magee is a member of the IEE.

New Paradigms in Organization Development: Positivity, Spirituality, and Comp...

Fahri Karakas

Organization Development Journal; Spring 2009; 27, 1; ABI/INFORM Global pg. 11

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1743445


















African Journal of Business Management Vol.4 (2), pp. 278-281, February, 2010

Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJBM

ISSN 1993-8233 © 2010 Academic Journals

Full length Research Paper

Clarifying spiritual values among organizational development personnel

Akbar Husain and Aqeel Khan*

Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia.

Accepted 17 December 2009

Values lie at the core of all human behavior. Initially, it was believed that human behavior could be best explained in terms of one’s personality system, including needs, motives, beliefs, goals and attitudes.

But eventually, the emphasis shifted towards values, as there are many aspects of human behavior that cannot be attributed to the former concepts, but where values play an important role. The authors believe that values make personnel life more meaningful and give them a sense of direction for organizational performance and development. In this article, the authors have discussed the sources of values, early assumptions about values, a value based approach to organizations and value assessment. Recommendations have also been offered for the human resource managers to inculcate spiritual values among personnel that may in turn be fruitful for organizational development.

Key words: Spiritual values, organizational development.

INTRODUCTION

Industrial organizations are mainly concerned for productivity and quality by personnel. Spiritual values of the personnel are the prerequisites for the organizational health and development. Surprisingly, spiritual values of the personnel are treated casually in organizations. This fact has made many organizations to think that personnel’s spiritual values should be viewed as a potential resource in organization rather than as something to be ignored. According to Mohamed et al. (2001), organizational theories and models that ignore the spiritual dimension will remain deficient. They said in this context:

“our current models of micro and macro behavior do not account for spirituality and its effects and, as such, some of these models may be misleading or incomplete” (p.

647). Values of the personnel may improve quality of products and services and a better workplace. To achieve the organizational goal, that is, a satisfied workforce, spiritual values must be owned and practiced by all the personnel.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: draqeelkhan@gmail.com.

Spiritual leadership and values

Earlier studies has established link between spiritual values and leadership. For example, Fry (2003) defines spiritual leadership as “the values, attitudes, and behaviors necessary to intrinsically motivate one's self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership” (p. 694-695). He says that spiritual leadership is treated more as an observable phenomenon occurring when a person in a leadership position embodies spiritual values such as integrity, honesty and humility, creating the self as an example of someone who can be trusted, relied upon and admired.

A research on effective leadership traits and behaviors

(Den Hartog et al., 1999) claims that attributes and practices widely associated with spirituality have been found to have a global appeal. More than half of the universally endorsed leader attributes (14 out of 22) may be considered to be associated with spirituality, values and ethics: “positive, trustworthy, just, win-win problem solver, encouraging motive arouser, communicative, excellence-oriented, confidence builder, honest, dynamic, team builder, motivational and dependable” (Den Hartog

et al., 1999, p. 239). Leaders who view their own work as a means of spiritual growth have also been shown to increase organizational performance (Himmelfarb, 1994).

Mitroff and Denton (1999) found that many individuals are looking for ways to express their spirituality in their work.

Workers who are able to express their spirituality through their work, find work more satisfying.

Realizing the importance of incorporating spiritual values in the workplace and the possession of spiritual values in spiritual leaders and workers, we considered that organizations should consider the value system, particularly the spiritual ones, among personnel to facilitate their job performance and productivity that in turn may be important for organizational development in a number of ways. This article also discuss sources of values, some early assumptions about values, value based approach to organizations and value assessment.

The sources of values

In an ancient tradition like India, the spiritual values as embodied in its religion and philosophy can claim to be the primary and original source of all derived social values (Ganguli, 1989). Sinha (1972) pointed out that “the moral and social qualities that are valued in a society have their roots in religion, philosophy and tradition and are relatively more enduring facets of our existence”

(p.153).

There are empirical evidences that the transcendental and spiritual values that Indians hold is acquired from their religions and philosophies (Kakar, 1978; Mukerjee,

1949; Nehru, 1946, 1981; Radhakrishnan, 1968; Roy and

Srivastava, 1986; Sinha, 1988; Sinha, J.B.P, 1982;

Tandon, 1981; Tripathi, 1988; Verma, 1987).

Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism have been the mother religions and the sources of values for millions of people around the world. They are the underlying religious traditions for the systems of Yoga, Sufism and Zen, and are the basis of Eastern psychologies and philosophical thought.

Yoga, Sufism, Buddhist teachings have been originated from a common need to understand the relationship between religious practices and everyday life. All these three viewed morals and values in an iconoclastic and practical way. Furthermore, each of them emphasized transpersonal growth and experiences of the adherent.

The value systems of most cultures and societies described as profoundly religious, have emphasized the meditative and ecstatic experiences of the willing individual and has meticulously outlined the process of transpersonal growth of the self (Angyal, 1956).

Modern psychology began late in the 19 th century. To escape religion’s influence, behavioral scientists have adopted a number of assumptions about reality that directly conflicted with traditional religious views of the

Husain and Khan 279 world (Richards and Bergin, 1997). The following assumptions about values, particularly naturalism, ethical relativism, ethical hedonism and positivism seem to be closely linked to the organizational development.

Early assumptions about values

Naturalism

It is the belief that the “universe is self-sufficient, without supernatural cause or control” (Honer and Hunt, 1987, p.225). Naturalists assume that human beings and the universe can be understood without restoring to spiritual explanations and that “the explanation of the world given by the sciences is the only satisfactory explanation of reality” (Honer and Hunt, 1987, p.225). This assumption led many behavioral scientists to conclude that all moral values are ephemeral and of human origin.

Ethical relativism

This is the belief that “there are no universally valid principles, since all moral principles are valid relative to cultural and individual values” (Percesepe, 1991, p.572).

Thus, “whatever a culture or society holds to be right is therefore right or at least, right for them” (Solomon, 1990, p.235). Values are considered as relevant to professsionals and organizations. Ethical relativism led to conclude that, if values are relative, then organizations should lay emphasis on the values of the personnel.

Ethical hedonism

This is the belief that “we always ought to seek our own pleasure and that the highest good for us is the most pleasure together with the least pain” (Honer and Hunt,

1987, p.222). According to some behavioral scientists

(Hillner, 194; Lundin, 1985; Watson 1924/1983), human beings are basically hedonistic and reward seeking. This is the reason for contradicting the assumptions of ethical relativism by endorsing hedonistic ethical values. Relying on this assumption, organizations should encourage their personnel to “throw off the shackles” of religion and be more accepting of their hedonistic tendencies.

Positivism

It holds that “knowledge is limited to observable facts and their interactions” (Honer and Hunt, 1987, p.226), and that the scientific theories can be “shown to be true on the basis of evidence” (Bechtel, 1988, p.18). Positivists assume that it is possible for scientists to be objective,

280 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. impartial observers and that their empirical observations will eventually lead to a complete understanding of reality. Logical positivists sharply distinguished facts and values. They have advocated that only scientific thinking and logical assertions were to be cognitively meaningful

(Tolmin and Leary, 1992) values (understood in ethical terms) and were regarded as intellectually meaningless

(O’ Donahue, 1989; Putnam, 1993).

The assumptions discussed above could bring the major influence on organizations’ beliefs about how personnel values should be managed. In the light of the above mentioned assumptions, it hardly need to be emphasized that the ultimate objective of the organizationquality and productivity will be influenced by the values of the personnel which in turn would improve interpersonal relationships and pave the way for smooth organizational change and rapid development.

Although values were excluded from mainstream psychology for nearly a century, this normlessness is ending. Many organizations are now incorporating value system into practice. It is believed that, spiritual values of the personnel could increase the organizational performance in the right perspective. We therefore, suggest that the organizations should pay full attention to the clarification of spiritual values among personnel.

Spiritual values are built in the universe that is eternal and beneficial. Spiritual values promote spirituality, health and harmonious relationship. According to Richards and

Bergin (1997), humans should “often forego their own rewards (pleasure) for the welfare of others. Responsibility, self-sacrifice, suffering, love, and altruistic service are values above personal gratification (p.30). Personnel cannot keep their values out of work domain, such as performing organizational roles, taking part in training, productivity, nor should they always change or try. When appropriate, organizations should explicitly endorse and respectfully teach healthy values. It is the responsibility of the organizations to explore the personnel values, especially spiritual values, to promote growth and wellbeing.

Value-based approach to organizations

The most ethical and effective approach for organizations is to assess the value of the personnel and to adopt a valuing style. The spiritual valuing style may be the best way for organizational performance and development and consequently to improve quality of work life and satisfaction of the personnel.

Value based approach should consider the following assumptions.

1. Organizations’ theoretical orientations, goals, assessment methods and training of the personnel should be well grounded in spiritual values.

2. The most ethical way for organizations is to assess values of the personnel during in-job training. Value imposition should not occur when training is imparted to the employees.

3. Personnel should be encouraged to have their personal value system while disagreeing with their superiors on certain issues.

4. Spiritual values and beliefs affect personnel’s goals, lifestyle, physical, social, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. When appropriate, organizations should let personnel know that values have personal and organizational consequences and help them increase the quality and productivity.

5. Teaching, training, and modeling spiritual values should be the desirable and honorable activity for the organizational development personnel. Trainers should accept the fact that they are value agents and purposely attempt to model and teach value systems to their personnel.

6. Personnel’s spiritual values can have a significant impact on their mental, physical, social, emotional and spiritual health. Organizations should help the personnel to utilize their values and resources to assist them in their efforts to grow and develop, as fully functioning persons.

Value assessment

We believe that, there are some spiritual values that should be cultivated among personnel through training to promote the organizational development. Organizations can appeal to both the human resource managers and personnel for developing insights to the spiritual values.

Miller and C’de Baca’s (1994) list, includes a sizable number of spiritually-oriented values that we believe is more suitable for organizational development personnel.

Examples of values are as follows: achievement, attractiveness, career, caring for others, equality for all, fame, family, forgiveness, fun, God’s will, growth, happiness, healthy, honesty, intimacy, justice, knowledge, loving, pleasure, popularity, power, rationality, romance, selfcontrol, self-esteem spirituality and wealth.

Organizations can use several techniques to assess, explore and modify their personnel’s values and life style.

For example, organizations can simply ask to the personnel value-related questions such as the following:

1. Are you spiritually oriented?

2. Do you believe in God or a supreme being?

3. What is purpose of your life?

4. What gives your life meaning?

5. What is most important to you in life?

6. What spiritual values do you use to guide your life?

7. What are your goals and aspirations?

8. Do you feel that your behavior is consistent with the values you profess?

9. Do you feel that your values and behavior are congruent?

10. What other personal, moral or ethical values are most important?

These questions can give organizations considerable insight into their personnel’s worldviews and spiritual values, and whether their values are healthy for the organizational development. Organizations can ask personnel to explore how these values are expressed or manifested in their family and work lives. Once personnel have identified their spiritual values, it then becomes more feasible for them to set long and short term goals that will help them regulate their behavior in harmony with their values and the organizational development.

Recommendations

When working with personnel who are spiritually inclined, human resource managers may promote better functioning by appealing to adopt more spiritually oriented values to guide their work and productivity. Spiritual practices such as praying, meditating, reciting Holy Books and scriptures, performing yoga, making pilgrimages to Holy

Shrines, attending religious services, reading books of poetry and philosophy and seeking direction from spiritual leaders can also be valuable interventions for helping spiritually oriented personnel clarify and affirm their spiritual values.

Organizations should make greater efforts to use spiritual values to bring organizational change. Organizations can facilitate spirituality into organizational change and development by asking personnel whether they can think of ways that their spiritual beliefs and values might help them cope with their organizational and extraorganizational stressors. It would be of practical interest for organizations to examine the ways in which spiritual values influence personnel’s activity directly and have wider impact on family and social life.

Organizations would need to do this in a way that guarantees freedom of thought to everyone, whether they are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Jewish, Christian, secular humanist, ethical hedonist, positivist, etc.

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Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 1

Best Practices in Strategic Planning, Organizational

Development, and School Effectiveness

1

Howard M. Knoff, Ph.D.

Arkansas Department of Education—Special Education

Project ACHIEVE Incorporated

Running Head: Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness

1 This chapter is based on previous material and published works copyrighted by Project

ACHIEVE Incorporated Press, Little Rock, AR 72212. As such, the material in this chapter is covered under those previous copyrights.


Overview

Over at least the past twenty-five years, virtually every state and school district in the country has worked in the area of school improvement in order to improve the academic and socialbehavioral outcomes of all students. Prompted in the 1980s by the business community’s demand for a more prepared workforce, in the 1990s by eight National Education Goals

(National Education Goals Panel, 1999), and in the new millennium by the No Child Left Behind legislation, school-wide efforts to hold educators accountable for student outcomes are now required, continuously monitored, and reported annually. And while a number of school improvement models exist, their outcomes have varied (Comprehensive School Reform Quality

Center, 2006), largely due to the interdependency between these models’ ability to adapt and respond to local school and district conditions, and the local acceptance of a particular model along with a commitment to its sound implementation. In the end, schools and districts should focus first on the evidence- or research-based blueprints that can help guide their school improvement efforts. Using these blueprints as a foundation for all school-based initiatives, strategies, and activities, schools should be able to individualize their school improvement efforts while utilizing defensible, accountable school and schooling practices.

This chapter will integrate a number of evidence-based blueprints to provide schools and districts with a strategic “road-map” toward successful strategic planning, organizational development, and school effectiveness. Focused ultimately on students’ academic and socialemotional progress and success, the blueprints also will address school management, classroom instruction, and professional development. As a first pragmatic step, however, schools need to be guided by four fundamental questions as the core of their continuous, outcome-based improvement journey:


1. How do we design and deliver an evidence-based academic and instruction system that successfully addresses the differentiated needs of all students while improving their rate of learning such that they progress through the grade levels and graduate from high school with functional and extended skills; and how do we create functional assessment and monitoring approaches that are curriculum-based and that are used to evaluate the impact of this instructional system and guide development of successful, strategic interventions when students do not respond to effective instruction?

2. How do we design and deliver an evidence-based positive behavioral support system that increases all students’ interpersonal, problem-solving, and conflict resolution (i.e., social) skills; that creates safe and connected classroom and school environments; and that maximizes students’ motivation and their academic engagement, independence, and confidence; and how do we create functional assessment and monitoring approaches that are ecologically-based and culturally-sensitive, and that are used to evaluate these school-wide efforts and guide the development of successful strategic and/or intensive interventions when students do not respond?

3. How do we increase our parent outreach and involvement so that all parents are motivated, capable, and involved in activities that support and reinforce the education of all students? To complement this, how do we increase our community outreach and involvement so that real interagency and community collaboration occurs resulting in effective, efficient, and integrated services to all students at needed prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive service levels?

4. Finally, how do we design and deliver this integrated, unified educational system through a strategic planning and organizational development process that incorporates data-based functional assessment and problem-solving to guide decision making and provide ongoing formative and summative evaluation? Moreover, how do we institutionalize this process such

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 4 that it becomes self-generating, self-replicating, and responsive to current and future student needs?

All of these needs and questions are essential to ongoing school improvement and success.

But one “common denominator” determines all levels of improvement and success: the positive, collaborative relationships among the individuals actually implementing any strategically planned evidence-based initiative. That is, any school can choose and plan to implement an evidence-based school improvement program. But, process determines outcome. If that program is not implemented with integrity, enthusiasm, commitment, collaboration, and consistency, the “evidence base” becomes irrelevant and insignificant. School improvement and success is “all about the people.” And the process needed for success involves “Seven C’s”:

Communication, Caring, Commitment, Collaboration, Consultation, Consistency, and

Celebration.

On a more formal level, we have known, figuratively, about the Seven C’s for over a decade.

For example, the Annie E. Casey Foundation (1995) sponsored a 5-year, five community New

Futures grant program to prepare disadvantaged urban youth for successful lives as adults. After investing an average of $10 million in each community over 5 years, the foundation evaluated the implementation and planned change process to help future initiatives to be more efficient and effective. In the end, the key lesson was that, in the low-income communities involved, systemslevel initiatives, by themselves, could not transform poor educational, school, and health outcomes for vulnerable children and families. That is, institutional change was not enough; the comprehensive change process required home school and community collaboration that included social-capital and other economic-development initiatives targeting entire low-income neighborhoods. Among the other lessons described in this report were the following:


1. Comprehensive reforms are very difficult and involve, at times, the path of most resistance. True integration at the service-delivery level requires collective decision making across budgeting, staffing, and resource allocation; good communication and clear program planning, purpose, design, and expectations; attention to issues of power, race, and ethnicity; and time, trust, risk-taking, and perseverance.

2. Comprehensive reform requires advanced and ongoing efforts to build constituencies that are committed to long-term efforts, to strategic planning, and to the development of systems that can sustain the change process over time and through changes in leadership.

3. Comprehensive reform is not for every community, nor is every community at a readiness level to begin this process. Comprehensive reform efforts must be planned, public, realistic, and shared; and they need core leadership, management systems and skills, conviction and momentum, and credibility and legitimacy to have any hope of success.

4. Comprehensive reform requires a blend of outside technical assistance and local commitment, leadership, planning, funding, and evaluation that results in local ownership and self-renewal.

5. Comprehensive reform requires repair, revision, reassessment, and recommitment.

Significant modification should not be interpreted as a sign of failure.

6. Comprehensive reform often requires the development of entirely new systems and ways of being. The alteration of existing systems or the implementation of new systems built alongside old systems often will not lead to real change and enduring outcomes.

And so, with the focus on people, process, and the Seven C’s as a given, the remainder of this chapter will describe some essential evidence-based blueprints outlining a “road-map” toward successful strategic planning, organizational development, and school effectiveness.


Basic Considerations

To coordinate and facilitate a school-based organizational change and strategic planning process, school psychologists must have expertise and skills in four primary areas: (a) the evidence-based components, activities, and interactions underlying effective schools and educational practices; (b) the data-based problem-solving and decision-making processes, including the planning and development cycles, of schools and districts from an organizational perspective; (c) how to guide or support strategic planning processes such that effective, functional school improvement plans are written and executed; and (d) the consultation skills to facilitate proactive organizational change, effective group processes, student-focused instructional and behavioral skills and mastery, functional assessment, and strategic and intensive interventions. Among the more specific skills needed to succeed in these primary areas are the following: effective functional assessment and data-based problem solving skills; system, school, and classroom ecological or environmental assessment and intervention skills; system, staff, and student instructional, academic, and behavioral intervention skills at the prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive need levels; and action research and program evaluation skills. Among the beliefs needed to succeed in these primary areas, school psychologists need to: accept responsibility for all systems, staff, and students while differentially evaluating and attending to their respective strengths and needs, weaknesses and limitations, history and experiences, and opportunities and potential; deliver services based on functional needs and not perceptions or labels; commit themselves to continuous growth, viewing all challenges as professional development opportunities; and recognize that people, not just programs and interventions, facilitate short- and long-term change.

Best Practices


In the context of continuous school improvement (or any other planned change process), it is important to note that organizational change and strategic planning should be natural, necessary, and ongoing components of any healthy, evolving school. Indeed, as schools focus on student outcomes, they must attend to these organizational change and strategic planning processes to build the “infrastructures”—at the staff, school, system, and community levels—that coordinate resources, build capacity, support school-wide programs, and maximize success. As with most systemic endeavors, a comprehensive problem-solving process is needed (see Chapter XX in this

Volume). But this process is facilitated by understanding (a) the components of an effective school; (b) how strategic planning fits into these components; and (c) how the school improvement process is organized through the committee structure of the school and the activities of school-level committees. Ultimately, a school or district’s School Improvement

Plan (SIP) is the public “document of accountability,” and it synthesizes all of these planning and implementation processes. And yet, an essential question is, “Is the SIP a piece of paper written annually by one or two individuals to meet a state mandate, or is it a functional, comprehensive document that guides the monthly, weekly, and daily operation of the entire staff in the school?”

The Components of an Effective School. While their specific titles may vary slightly across different evidence-based school improvement models, a common core of effective school components has been consistently used to organize organizational development and strategic planning processes and procedures. Using Project ACHIEVE’s evidence-based model as a guide

(e.g., Knoff, Finch, & Carlyon, 2004), seven interdependent components are described briefly— components that form the foundation of a school’s continuous improvement, committee-focused, professional development, and student-specific instructional activities. These components—(a)

Strategic Planning and Organizational Analysis and Development; (b) Problem Solving,


Teaming, and Consultation Processes; (c) Effective School, Schooling, and Professional

Development; (d) Academic Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and

Achievement; (e) Behavioral Instruction linked to Behavioral Assessment, Intervention, and

Self-Management; (f) Parent and Community Training, Support, and Outreach; and (g) Data

Management, Evaluation, and Accountability—are also depicted in the figure below.

Figure 1. Project ACHIEVE’s Seven Interdependent Components of an Effective School

Strategic Planning and

Organizational

Development

Effective School,

Schooling, and

Professional

Development

Problem Solving,

Teaming, and

Consultation Processes

Academic Instruction linked to Academic

Assessment, Intervention, and Achievement

Behavioral Instruction linked to Behavioral

Assessment, Intervention, and Self-Management

Parent and Community

Training, Support, and

Outreach

Data Management,

Evaluation, and

Accountability

1. The Strategic Planning and Organizational Development Component initially focuses on assessing the organizational climate, administrative style, staff decision-making, and other interactive and interpersonal processes in a school. Activities then move into identifying and reinforcing, or establishing and implementing the organizational policies, procedures, and cyclical approaches that support the academic and social-emotional/ behavioral success of all

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 9 students. While this process is outlined in more detail below, the ultimate “product” of this component are three- and one-year School Improvement Plans that help schools build capacity and autonomy, identify and focus resources, facilitate stability and sustainability, and realize student, staff, and system success.

2. The Problem Solving, Teaming, and Consultation Processes Component focuses on consistent, school-wide data-based, functional assessment, problem-solving approaches that all staff learn and use when developing effective instructional processes and then addressing students who are not responding to this instruction and the next “level” of evidence- or researchbased classroom instruction or interventions. This “Response-to-Intervention” component emphasizes a “problem-solving/consultation/ intervention” mode of operation that directly contrasts with past “wait-to-fail” and “refer-test-place” approaches, and it is applied with students experiencing academic and/or behavioral concerns. As such, this component provides a foundation to the primary (whole-school), secondary (strategic intervention), and tertiary

(intensive need, crisis management, and/or wrap-around/systems of care) prevention continua reflected in the academic and behavioral components below. And, as noted earlier, it recognizes that problem solving and intervention processes involve teams that work collaboratively for the school’s “greater good,” and professionals who work, as colleagues and consultants, to share knowledge, skill, expertise, and experience for the benefit of all students.

3. The Effective School, Schooling, and Professional Development Component focuses on processes that ensure that effective and differentiated instruction and effective and positive behavior management exists in every classroom for every student, and that involve all teachers, administrators, related service professionals, and others. To support this, effective schools recognize that professional development occurs, formally and informally, every day for every

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 10 staff person, and they systematically plan and implement ongoing professional development programs and processes resulting in increased knowledge, enhanced skills, and emerging confidence and autonomy. This occurs through in-service instruction and a clinical supervision approach that involves modeling, guided practice, informed feedback, planned applications, and the transfer of training. Ultimately, as with other components, the primary goal is to maximize students' attention to task, academic engaged time, positive practice repetitions, and academic and behavioral achievement.

4. The Academic Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and Achievement

Component focuses on positively impacting the “Instructional Environment” in every classroom within a school. The Instructional Environment consists of the interdependent interactions, in a classroom, of the Teacher-Instructional process, the Student, and the Curriculum. Expanding briefly, the Instructional Environment involves (a) the different curricula being taught, as well as their respective standards, benchmarks, and scope and sequence objectives (i.e., “What needs to be learned?”); (b) the teachers who are teaching, and how they organize and execute their classroom instruction (i.e., “Are appropriate instructional and management strategies being used?”); and (c) the students who are engage in learning, and their capacity to master the instructional material, along with their response to effective instruction and sound curricula (i.e.,

Is each student capable, prepared, and able to learn, and are they learning?”).

Critically, the data-based, functional assessment, problem-solving process and effective school and schooling practices, described in earlier components, are implicit in this component as the three facets of the Instructional Environment are analyzed continually to determine how students can be most academically and behaviorally successful, and what is happening when success is not occurring to the degree desired. When the latter occurs, a functional, curriculum-

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 11 based assessment and intervention approach to student achievement that uses, as much as possible, direct instruction and a mastery-model perspective of academic outcomes is recommended (e.g., Shapiro, 2004). This involves teaching teachers how to identify and analyze curricular and instructional variables and their relationship to student achievement outcomes, how to assess curricular (i.e., scope and sequence) placement and performance expectations, and how to complete curricular task analyses such that assessment is functionally linked to intervention in the classroom. Additionally, research results from learning theory and practice are integrated into the classroom to enhance the learning environment and process and to facilitate more positive outcomes (e.g., Stoner, Shinn, & Walker, 2002).

5. The Behavioral Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and Self-

Management Component focuses on implementing comprehensive positive behavioral support systems across schools. Again using Project ACHIEVE and its evidence-based Positive

Behavioral Self-Management System (PBSS), this whole school approach involves students, staff, administration, and parents building and reinforcing (a) students’ interpersonal, problemsolving, and conflict resolution skills and interactions; (b) positive, safe, supportive, and consistent school climates and settings; and (c) school and district capacity such that the entire process becomes self-sustaining. Thus, “Self-Management” occurs at three levels: student, staff and school, and system and district. This is accomplished through six domains at the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention levels. The first three domains include: (a) the direct instruction of social skills for all students in the classroom by general education teachers with the support of other mental health professionals for more challenging students (e.g., Knoff, 2001);

(b) the development and use of school-wide accountability systems that specify expected student behavior, connected with positive responses, incentives, and rewards, and “intensity levels” of

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 12 inappropriate behaviors, connected with evidence-based responses and interventions that help decrease or eliminate these behaviors while establishing and increasing appropriate behaviors;

(c) staff, setting, situations, system, and strategic consistency relative to social skills instruction and student accountability. The latter three domains include: (d) analyses and interventions, as needed, for a school’s “setting and student special situations”, which involves the common areas of the school (i.e., setting) and incidents of teasing, taunting, bullying, harassment, and fighting

(i.e., student); (e) crisis prevention, intervention, and response; and (f) community and parent outreach and involvement, which should occur within all five of the domains noted above.

When students do not respond, behaviorally, to the preventative strategies within the six domains above, functional assessment is conducted and linked to strategic behavioral interventions that are designed to resolve identified behavioral problems and/or to improve staff’s related instructional and classroom management procedures (Kerr & Nelson, 2002;

Stoner, Shinn, & Walker, 2002). These interventions focus, for example, on specific referred problems exhibited by students (e.g., not completing homework, noncompliance, swearing, threatening others) or specific behaviors that, inappropriately, are or are not exhibited by teachers as part of the instructional process (e.g., not providing advanced organizers or appropriate instructional feedback, reinforcing inappropriate behavior through attention or using discipline inconsistently). In this context, staff need to have skills in behavioral observation, data collection, consultation, intervention, and intervention evaluation strategies and techniques.

Interventions here typically address the direct instruction of specific behavioral skills, stimulus control approaches, behavioral addition approaches, behavioral reduction approaches, behavioral maintenance approaches, and behavioral generalization approaches (Kerr & Nelson, 2002;

Stoner, Shinn, & Walker, 2002).


6. The Parent and Community Training, Support, and Outreach Component focuses on increasing the involvement of all parents, but especially the involvement of the parents of at-risk, underachieving, and students with disabilities (Raffaele & Knoff, 1999). Parental involvement in the school and educational process often occurs less in the homes of these latter students, and it often discriminates achieving from underachieving students (Christensen, Rounds, & Franklin,

1992; Dunst, Trivette, & Johanson, 1994). Relative to community involvement, many schools do not use, much less know, the expertise and resources available to them that can help their mission and the progress of their students. For students with significant academic or behavioral challenges, the coordination and integration of community-based professionals and services often results in stronger and more pervasive progress and outcomes.

Among the activities that schools may consider here are: (a) conducting needs assessments to look at the current and desired state of parent involvement and home-school-community collaboration; (b) organizing building staff around collaboration and community outreach through the school improvement process and plan; (c) teaching parents about the school’s academic program and how to support students at home relative to study skills, homework, and literacy; (d) directly training parents to transfer critical school academic and behavioral interventions into the home; (e) creating Parent Drop-In Centers to encourage parent participation in school activities and parent access to training and learning materials; (f) completing community audits and resource directories to identify important organization, agency, and professional programs, skills, and expertise in areas relevant to the school, staff, and students; and (g) reaching out to these community resources, formally and informally, to establish communication, collaboration, and coordination, especially relative to services for atrisk, underachieving, and challenging students.


7. The Data Management, Evaluation, and Accountability Component focuses on actively evaluating, formatively and summatively, the status and progress of students’ academic and behavioral mastery of skills and concepts, as well as the processes and activities inherent in all of the other supportive components (see above) of an effective school. Part of this process involves collecting formative and summative data that validate the impact of a school’s strategic planning and school improvement efforts; its professional development and capacity-building efforts relative to the staff; its selection, training and implementation of academic and behavioral curricula and, later, interventions; and its effectiveness relative to the functional assessment, strategic intervention, and response to intervention services for students not making appropriate academic and behavioral progress. Another part of this process involves evaluating the consultative success of related service and support personnel with classroom teachers, as well as the interpersonal interactions that address the other process-oriented parts of the Seven C’s that influence system, staff, and student success. Critically, this latter evaluation should evaluate

“staff to staff, staff to parent and community, staff to student, and student and student interactions. All of these interactions collectively determine the climate and functioning of a school.

The Strategic Planning Process. Strategic planning is a continuous, systematic process that helps schools and districts to anticipate and plan their annual and multi-year goals and activities by analyzing their system-specific strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities, as well as those of their communities. Designed to increase organizational and staff capacity and resources while facilitating outcomes, strategic planning involves ongoing activities whereby schools and districts (a) develop, implement, and evaluate programs and activities designed to meet their mission, goals, and student-related outcomes; (b) track their needs, plans, and progress over time,


(c) analyze and decide what programs, curricula, or interventions to add, delete, substitute, or supplement to existing programs, while determining when and how to make the “mid-course adjustments” to maximize these programs’ success; and (d) anticipate and respond to upcoming or future events that may affect them in their pursuit of educational excellence. Ultimately, strategic planning uses a systems perspective to the organization and execution of the educational process emphasizing effective and efficient data-based planning and decisionmaking, personnel and resource development and management, fiscal and technological integrity, and school and community integration. While virtually every school and district is now mandated to have a School/District Improvement Plan, the “public” outcome of strategic planning, this does not mean that they have been trained in or have engaged in effective or comprehensive strategic planning.

Cook (1990) and Valentine (1991) provide two complementary perspectives as to how strategic planning should occur. Cook divides strategic planning into five phases: Phase I--

Preparing for Planning and Change; Phase II-- Developing the Goals and Outcomes of the

Strategic (or School Improvement) Plan; Phase III-- Outlining the Strategic Plan’s

Implementation Process; Phase IV-- Implementing and Monitoring the Plan; and Phase V--

Renewing the Plan.

During Phase I, the school or district engages in the following activities:

1. An External Environmental Scan and Analysis where (a) economic, demographic, social, political, and education trends are analyzed; (b) national, state, regional, and local patterns in the trend areas above are evaluated; (c) scenarios that predict future environmental events and their impact on the school are created; and (d) school-based responses to the most likely scenarios, within the resources and the school’s capabilities, are generated.


2. An Internal Organizational Scan and Analysis where the strengths (or assets), weaknesses (or limitations), resources (or opportunities), and barriers within the school are identified, guided by the components of an effective school described above (see again Figure 1).

3. An Analysis of Stakeholder Perceptions and Expectations, where the needs and goals of the staff and students are identified and analyzed, along with those of critical stakeholders (e.g., parents, businesses, others) in the community.

4. A Community Education Process that ties the entire process together (a) by helping all internal and external stakeholders understand the data that have been collected, the trends and scenarios identified, and how these data will be utilized during the next strategic planning phases, and (b) by involving these stakeholders as equal partners in the change process to come.

In Phase II, the foundation to the strategic (or school improvement) plan is drafted by taking the results of the external and internal scans and sequentially developing a vision statement, a mission statement, strategic goals and desired outcomes. Consistent with the previous section, the strategic plan should have prominent sections focusing on the each of the components of school effectiveness. That is, sections of the plan should describe the annual goals and outcomes for the school or district’s (a) strategic planning and organizational development processes; (b) early intervention, problem solving, teaming, consultation, and response to intervention processes; (c) effective school, schooling, and professional development processes;

(d) student-focused academic achievement, and curriculum and instruction processes; (e) student-focused behavioral outcome and positive behavioral support processes; and (f) parent and community training, support, and outreach processes. Beyond this, each section of the plan should have its own data management, evaluation, and accountability activities built in to determine the whether the specified goals and outcomes have been attained.


Once drafted, this foundation to the strategic plan is reviewed by members of the planning team, by critical client and stakeholder groups, and by others who might be either politically or functionally important to the implementation process. Ultimately, the feedback from this review process is synthesized and evaluated, and revised goals and outcomes are finalized. According to Cook (1990), when first engaging in the strategic planning process or when a strategic plan is being changed in comprehensive ways, the Phase II process may take a school or district up to 3 months. Even then, the strategic plan’s goals and outcomes still may be adapted in Phase III.

In Phase III, all of the strategic (or improvement) plan’s implementation steps and processes are written and formalized at the school and/or district levels. Thus, in each of the six components noted, the objectives, activities, timelines, resources, and evaluation tools and procedures needed to attain the previously identified goals and outcomes are specified. In addition, the strategic planning process now must be coordinated with the district’s budgeting cycle. More specifically, most districts finalize their budgets each new school year (typically beginning on July 1 st ), during the prior spring. This provides the district, and its schools, with operating funds to, for example, hire new staff, purchase new equipment and curricula, and initiate needed construction projects. Given this, most schools complete their strategic plans with budget requests by early February. Most districts present these plans and budgets to their school boards by March. And, most school boards approve these plans and pass their budgets by

May. Once these activities are completed, the district and its schools know what financial, personnel, and material resources will be available to support strategically planned activities.

At times, school districts write 3- to 5-year “Strategic Operation Plans” (SOPs) to guide the development of their annual district improvement plans. These strategic operation plans most often contain a series of operational goals and objectives for each of the district’s organizational

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 18 units or departments (e.g., Administration, Leadership, and Human Resources; Financial and

Legal; Transportation, Maintenance, and Food Services; Curriculum and Instruction; Personnel and Professional Development; Public Relations and Community and Family Outreach,

Accountability and Evaluation), along with a prioritization of these goals, and the activities, resources, and budget needed to accomplish these goals. These operational plans work symbiotically with the district and its schools’ annual school improvement planning process and eventual plans, providing structure and direction for their Phase III planning.

In Phase IV, the strategic (or school improvement) plan is implemented and evaluated formatively and summatively. While the SIP guides all school, staff, and student activities, it is supplemented—at the staff level—by a Professional Development Plan (PDP) or Individual

Performance Plan for every staff person in a school. The PDP documents each staff member’s professional goals, objectives, and responsibilities for the school year, and it identifies the outcomes and procedures needed to evaluate every staff member’s year-long performance and accomplishments. Significantly, PDPs are based on the activities outlined in the district’s strategic operation plan and the school’s individual strategic plan. In fact, PDP goals and outcomes directly assist the school and district to accomplish SIP goals and outcomes. Thus, an important interdependence exists across SOPs, SIPs, and PDPs, and across the entire strategic planning process.

Finally, after implementing a strategic (or school improvement) plan for almost a year, it is reviewed and renewed during Phase V. At this point, the school typically has accomplished a great deal, and yet it must determine if its strategic direction and activities are still valid. To do this, the strategic planning team should re-evaluate the school’s external and internal environmental conditions since the writing of the original plan, re-visit the mission statement and

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 19 strategic goals, review the district’s SOP, and re-focus the strategic plan as necessary, assessing the organization’s commitment, resources, and energies toward the next level of accomplishment.

Valentine (1991) organizes her strategic planning process into five levels: Level 1-- The Pre-

Planning Stage of the Planning Process; Level 2-- Re-Defining the Organization’s Direction;

Level 3-- Developing the Strategic Mind-Set; Level 4-- Implementing Goals, Objectives, and

Strategies; and Level 5-- Reassessing and Institutionalizing the Change Process (see Figure 2).

While Valentine’s strategic planning process appears more complex and comprehensive than

Cook’s (1990), hers is actually just a more descriptive expansion. Thus, it is instructive to review her process and compare it to Cook’s approach above. In the end, every facet of Valentine’s model has already been described. It does, however, provide a good summary to this section of the chapter.

[INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]

The Committee Structure of a School. The SIP, which operationally reflects the characteristics of an effective school (see discussions above), is best implemented through a school committee structure that maintains the same consistent organization. To this end, the diagram below presents a recommended “organizational map” for a school’s building-level committees. The suggested structure is a flexible blueprint that should be adapted to fit a school’s strategic needs, organizational realities (e.g., state statutes, school size, local politics), and desired outcomes. But, the premise behind this structure is that, just like a business, an effective school must have committees and people to take responsibility—in organized, planful,

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 20 and coordinated ways—for the goals, activities, and outcomes of its SIP using shared leadership approaches.

Figure 3. Blueprint and Recommendation of an Organizational Map of a School’s

Committee Structure

School Improvement Team

Curriculum & School Discipline/ Professional Development/

Instruction Committee Climate Team Teacher Support

Committee

SPRINT Team Parent Involvement/

(School Prevention, Review,

and Intervention Team)

Community Outreach

Committee

Briefly, the committee structure recommended above has six primary committees. The committee that coordinates and guides all of the strategic plan and implementation processes in a school is the School Improvement Team. This committee is made up of the chairs of all of the other school-wide committees and a representational sample of teachers, related service staff, support staff, school administrators, parent and/or community leaders, and sometimes students.

This committee is primarily responsible for overseeing the Strategic Planning and Organizational

Analysis and Development component and activities of the SIP, for most site-based management and related fiscal decisions, and for evaluating all school-level and student-specific outcomes. It

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 21 is significant to note that the School Improvement Team is the super-ordinate committee to which all other committees report. The remaining five committees include:

The Curriculum and Instruction Committee looks at the most effective ways to implement new and existing district- and building-level curricula into the classroom such that they are most effectively taught to all students. This committee is largely responsible for the school and SIP’s

Academic Instruction linked to Academic Assessment, Intervention, and Achievement component and activities.

The School Discipline/School Climate Committee is the building-level committee that oversees the implementation of the school’s positive behavioral support system consisting of the social skills, accountability system, special situation analyses, crisis prevention and management, and related parent and community outreach programs. Thus, this committee is largely responsible for the school and SIP’s Behavioral Instruction linked to Behavioral Assessment,

Intervention, and Self-Management component and activities.

The Professional Development/Effective Instruction/Teacher Mentoring Committee organizes and oversees the school’s professional development and peer-supervision activities to ensure that all teachers and staff are teaching and interacting with students at the highest levels of effectiveness and professionalism. This committee is largely responsible for the school and

SIP’s Effective School, Schooling, and Professional Development component and activities.

The SPRINT (School Prevention, Review, and Intervention Team) Committee (Knoff, 2005) is responsible for developing and implementing—especially in general education classrooms with the teachers teaching there—the data-based problem-solving and intervention process that addresses the academic and/or behavioral needs of students who are not responding to effective instruction. The SPRINT team is composed of the strongest academic and behavioral

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 22 intervention specialists in and available to the school, and it is also responsible for determining a student’s eligibility for more intensive special education services if strategic interventions, over time and consistent with IDEA, are not successful. Given this, this committee is largely responsible for the school and SIP’s Problem Solving, Teaming, and Consultation Processes component and activities, but this committee’s activities clearly overlap with other committees, especially those focused on the school’s academic and behavioral programming for all students.

Finally, the Parent Involvement/Community Outreach Committee is responsible for actively involving parents in school activities and in supporting the educational process for all students at home. It also helps to coordinate community resources such that needed and effective homeschool-community partnerships are created to address the needs of all students, parents, and others. Thus, this committee is largely responsible for the school and SIP’s Parent and

Community Training, Support, and Outreach component and activities.

Bonus Best Practices

Beyond the best practices already discussed, five practical “bonus best practices” are recommended to complement the broader, more systemic strategies above. These best practices emphasize the importance of effective team functioning, resource recognition, periodic reviews of consultation and intervention activities, and the need to transfer the “student lessons learned” in effective ways.

Choosing and Rotating Committee Members. In order to fully implement a “shared leadership model” of organizational development and school improvement, it is strongly recommended that every instructional staff member be on at least one school-level committee

(some staff, due to their leadership positions either at a grade level or of a committee, also may be on the School Improvement Team). If a grade level has, for example, four teachers, a sound

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 23 approach to committee membership would have one teacher on a separate committee (e.g., on the Curriculum and Instruction, School Discipline/School Climate, Professional

Development/Effective Instruction/Teacher Mentoring, and Parent Involvement/Community

Outreach Committee, respectfully). Beyond this, it is recommended that the teachers on each committee serve a three-year term (that may be renewed once), and that the committee terms be staggered so that only one-third of a committee rotates off a committee in any one year. All of this ensures that school-level committees have appropriate grade-level teacher representation

(related service and other non-instructional specialists are assigned to committees more in line with their skills and potential contribution to the committee), continuity, and yet, that their membership periodically changes so they don’t become “stale” or “institutionalized.”

Publishing a School Resource Directory. In order to facilitate problem-solving and formal and informal consultation for teachers who have students with academic or behavioral challenges, the development of a School Resource Directory is recommended. Developed after a school’s entire staff has completed a brief two-page questionnaire, this Directory identifies staff member’s formal degrees and areas of certification or specialization, formal areas of in-service training and professional development, academic and/or behavioral areas of expertise, and special skills or talents or hobbies. The front section of the Directory is organized by grade level and teacher, while the back section is organized across specific skill areas, listing all of the teachers who feel comfortable being formal or informal consultants to another colleague in each area.

Completing Report Card Scans. Given the primary focus on students’ academic and behavioral skills, mastery, and self-management, it is important to functionally track students’ progress over time. While this is best done by classroom teachers who continuously monitor the

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 24 progress of students using classroom- and curricularly-sensitive authentic measures, other evaluation “layers” help to confirm and extend teacher-generated data. One layer involves the academic, behavioral, and attendance data on students’ report cards.

It is recommended that schools’ SPRINT teams complete a “report card” scan, after each marking period, of every students’ academic grades, behavior ratings (if documented), and attendance. Usually done electronically (or by teacher report), students can be “red-flagged” if there are significant (downward) changes in grades or classroom behavior from one quarter to the next, and/or significant problems with attendance, including school tardiness or requests to visit the nurse’s office. By creating decision rules (e.g., a drop of three total grade blocks in more than one academic subject—say, three courses dropping from Bs to Cs—or a drop of two grade blocks in any one academic subject; being absent from 10% or more of the instructional days in the quarter), teachers and other professionals can be consulted regarding red-flagged students to determine the need for further problem solving, functional assessment, and interventions.

Conducting a Year-End Consultation Referral Audit. In order to analyze the referral patterns for early intervention services at any level of the SPRINT process (i.e., grade-level or buildinglevel SPRINT requests for consultation), it is essential that SPRINT teams conduct at least an annual Consultation Referral Audit. Typically done in April or May, this audit involves summarizing all of the SPRINT referrals for the past year across the following dimensions: (a) student age and grade; (b) time of year when referred; (c) specific presenting problem(s) (e.g., reading fluency, mathematical applications, ability to sustain academic attention and engagement); and (d) specific interventions identified, implemented, and successful. With this information, the SPRINT team can identify referral trends and patterns; “early warning”

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 25 indicators so that younger students, who may eventually experience similar concerns, can receive early, preventative interventions; and professional development needs so that teachers, who will likely need more intensive interventions for underachieving and challenging students, can be trained before actually needed these interventions—thus facilitating the consultation and intervention process. In this way, past referrals result in future effective and preventative practices, allowing students to receive strategic intervention services, earlier, more quickly, and more successfully, from more prepared general education teachers with or without the need for related service or other SPRINT-related consultations.

Identifying “Get-Go’ Students for the New Year. Too often, teachers and SPRINT teams or consultants spend a lot of time completing functional analyses of students experiencing academic or behavioral challenges and implementing successful strategic or intensive interventions only to have all of these processes discontinued with the end of the school year. That is, many schools do not strategically plan a transition process for student interventions from one school year to the next. Using the belief that “the new school year begins in April,” it is recommended that the

SPRINT team, with relevant classroom teachers, complete a review of all students who have received pre-referral or early intervention services, at any level of intensity, during April. Thus, the review should include all students on IEPs, 504, or state-required Academic Intervention (or

Behavioral) Plans. During this review, three groups of students are identified: (a) “Get-Go” students who need immediate academic or behavioral interventions on Day 1 of the new school year, (b) “At-Risk” students, who have enough intervention needs that their new teacher(s) need a systematic briefing from the previous year’s teacher(s) and consultant(s) before the next school year begins; and (c) “Check-In” students, who need someone from the SPRINT team to check in

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 26 with their teacher(s) approximately 2 to 4 weeks into the new school year. Medically fragile and students with attendance problems should also be “challenges” that the SPRINT team considers.

By completing this “Get-Go” process, the probability that the functional assessment, consultation, and intervention “lessons learned” will be effectively transferred from one school year to the next is increased. Moreover, this process may help determine how students will be functionally grouped the next year, and what teachers will have the greatest potential for success.

And, finally, this process can ensure that the “next year” teachers will receive the needed intervention information, training, and support before the new school year begins so that the services and strategies needed by the selected students are delivered in timely and effective ways.

Summary

This chapter has focused on the important processes and procedures that relate to school improvement and effectiveness as facilitated by strategic planning and organizational development strategies. Focusing on students’ academic and social-emotional progress and success, four fundamental questions—addressing academics and instruction, behavior and school climate, parent and community involvement, and planning and evaluation decisions, were presented as the core of any school’s continuous improvement journey. To further guide this journey, three major areas were detailed: (a) the components of an effective school; (b) how strategic planning fits into these components; and (c) how the school improvement process is organized through the committee structure of the school and the activities of school-level committees. The school or district School Improvement Plan (SIP) was identified as the public

“document of accountability” that synthesizes all of these planning and implementation processes. During this discussion, two complementary strategic planning models were presented by highlighting their most important elements across five sequential phases: Phase I--Creating a


Base for Planning and Change; Phase II--Developing the Strategic Plan; Phase III--Developing the Implementation Plan; Phase IV-- Implementing and Monitoring the Plan; and Phase V--

Renewing the Plan. The chapter concluded by briefly describing five “bonus best practices” related to choosing and rotating committee members, publishing a School Resource Directory, completing report card scans and year-end Consultation Referral Audits, and identifying “Get-

Go” students in May for the new school year.

Today’s children are coming to the schoolhouse door significantly at-risk for both educational and social failure. Schools and districts must use systematic and strategic planning and implementation processes so that they build the “infrastructures”—at the staff, school, system, and community levels—that help to coordinate resources, build capacity, support school-wide programs, and maximize the academic and social-emotional/behavioral success of all students.

With this success, current and future generations of students will more quickly and readily demonstrate the independent learning and behavioral self-management skills that they need—not just when they are in school, but when they return to their homes, when they enter the workforce, and when they progress beyond to lead their communities and our country.


Figure 2. Valentine’s Strategic Management and Planning Model

Adapted with permission from Valentine (1991).


References

Annie E. Casey Foundation. (1995). The path of most resistance: Reflections on lessons learned from New Futures. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Christenson, S.L., & Close-Conoley, J. C. (Eds.) (1992). Home-school collaboration:

Enhancing children's academic and social competence. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of

School Psychologists.

Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center. (2006). CSRQ Center Report on Elementary

School Comprehensive School Reform Models. Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research.

Cook, W. J. (1990). The planning discipline. Cambridge, MA: The Cambridge Management

Group.

Dunst, C. J., Trivette, C. M., & Johanson, C. (1994). Parent-professional collaboration and

partnerships. In C. Dunst., C. Trivette, & A. Deal (Eds.), Supporting and strengthening families (Volume 1): Methods, strategies, and practices (pp. 197-211). Cambridge, MA:

Brookline Books.

Kerr, M. M., & Nelson, C. M. (2002). Strategies for managing behavior problems in the classroom (4 th Edition). Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company.

Knoff, H. H. (2005). Building strong schools to strengthen student outcomes: The DVD Series.

Little Rock, AR: Arkansas Department of Education—Special Education Unit.

Knoff, H. M. (2001). The Stop & Think Social Skills Program (Preschool – Grade 1, Grades

2/3, Grades 4/5, Middle School 6-8). Longmont, CO: Sopris West.


Knoff, H. M., & Batsche, G. M. (1995). Project ACHIEVE: Analyzing a school reform process for at-risk and underachieving students. School Psychology Review, 24, 579–603.

Knoff, H. M., Finch, C., & Carlyon, W. (2004). Inside Project ACHIEVE: A comprehensive, research-proven whole school improvement process focused on student academic and behavioral outcomes. In K. Robinson (Ed.), Advances in school-based mental health: Best practices and program models (pp. 19-1 to 19-28). Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute,

Inc.

National Education Goals Panel. (1999). The National Education Goals report: Building a nation of learners. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.

Raffaele, L., & Knoff, H. M. (1999). Improving home-school collaboration with parents of children at-risk: Organizational principles, perspectives, and approaches. School

Psychology Review, 28, 448-466.

Stoner, G., Shinn, M. R., & Walker, H. M. (Eds.). (2002). Interventions for achievement and behavior problems-II. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

Valentine, E. P. (1991). Strategic management in education: A focus on strategic planning.

Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Annotated Bibliography

Blankstein, A. M. (2006). Failure is not an option: Six principles that guide student achievement in high performing schools. New York: Sage Publications.

Based on fifteen years of practical research on what is working in schools, this book emphasizes the importance of professional learning communities as the center of school reform.

In this context, six guiding principles are described for creating and sustaining a high performing

Strategic Planning, Organizational Development, and School Effectiveness Page 31 school: (a) a common mission, vision, values, and goals: (b) systems for prevention and intervention; (c) collaborative teaming for teaching and learning; (d) data-driven decisionmaking and continuous improvement; (d) active engagement from family and community; and

(f) building sustainable leadership capacity. The book provides a theory-into-practice perspective, and provides a number of case studies or vignette that help to concretize its points.

It also looks at ways that schools have been both successful and unsuccessful so that schools can avoid pitfalls while implementing successful strategies.

Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center. (2006). CSRQ Center Report on Elementary

School Comprehensive School Reform Models. Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research.

This updated guide reviews and evaluates 22 comprehensive school reform models relative to their quality and effectiveness. Providing snapshots of each approach’s implementation process, first-year adoption costs, and effects on student achievement, this guide also lists papers, articles, and books about each model and their documented effectiveness. While the guide does not endorse or discredit any of the approaches—trying, instead, to describe and objectively evaluate—this resource provides a good overview of many of the school reform approaches used nationwide with decision-making guidelines on how to evaluate school reform and improvement efforts.

Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work .

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.


An important work by an educator and researcher who began her work as a public school teacher and has been involved in the policy and practice of school reform for many years.

Darling-Hammond’s book describes ways to significantly improve not only individual schools but the overall system of education. Focusing especially on the needs and diversity of students, this book addresses such topics as how to structure “learner-centered” schools, to staff schools for teaching and learning, to reinforce teaching as a profession, and to respond to standards without losing the educational process.

Hirsch, E. D., Jr. (2006). The knowledge deficit: Closing the shocking education gap for

American children. Charlottesville, VA: The Core Knowledge Foundation.

Authored by the founder of the Core Knowledge, this book provides a roadmap toward closing the achievement gap in our country’s schools. Recognizing that many students, even those who have mastered reading skills during the early elementary school years, begin to slide after fourth grade and fail at more difficult comprehension tasks, this book advocates the use of core curricula that are explicitly outlined, focused on content and comprehension, and that provide students the foundational knowledge and context that they need to understand concepts, constructs, and areas requiring higher ordered thinking skills. This book is the culmination of

Hirsh’s many years implementing the school reform principles and practices of Core Knowledge, one of the long-recognized national school reform models that has been implemented in hundreds of schools across the country. It integrates the latest scientific thinking on neurological development and applies it to instruction that must meet state, national, and international standards. And, it takes a preschool through high school perspective that is specific, practical, and has already been “scaled up” and demonstrated to be successful.


Valentine, E. P. (1991). Strategic management in education: A focus on strategic planning.

Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

This “book” (which is actually sold in a three-ring binder) provides a comprehensive strategic management model that is designed to assist the reader in guiding a school district through the strategic planning process. Supported by case studies and citations from the management literature, the book has three parts: Strategic Management—Its Role in Education; Planning for

Strategic Change; and Creating Strategic Change Within the Organization. In addition, the book has over 30 step-by-step worksheets that operationalize the process and make the author’s approach an easy one for anyone who understands the interdependent components of the school system to implement. This is a useful book that can help a reader to more completely understand the inner workings of strategic planning.