MNO3320: Managing Change
Session:
Aug 2011
Time:
Monday, 9 am – 12 nn
Instructor:
E-mail:
Office:
Tel:
Associate Professor Audrey Chia
audreychia@nus.edu.sg
BIZ1, 8-47
6516-6441
Course Description
All of us have experienced change in our lives. Change is often regarded with mixed
feelings of excitement, fear and uncertainty. As a business graduate, there will be
instances in which you will be a participant and observer in organisational change. At
other times, you will have the opportunity and responsibility of managing planned
changes in organisations. This course aims to prepare you for such opportunities.
This course is organized around these major questions:
 Why is organisational change so difficult?
 How can I lead and manage change in organizations?
 What tools and processes can I use to manage change?
 When and how should these tools be used and what are the strengths and
drawbacks of each?
 Why do some change efforts fail? Why do some others succeed?
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, you should:
 Understand how planned change in organizations can be managed, and the
methods of achieving planned organisational change;
 Be able to critique cases of planned organisational change and proposals for
planned change in organizations; and
 Be able to make proposals for managing various kinds of planned changes in
organisations.
Your responsibilities

Each change incident can make you better able to meet the next one, if you learn
from it. Using the same principle, this course takes an experiential approach. In
terms of role and identity, you will have to go beyond that of student. You will
have to assume the role of a change agent and think and act accordingly.
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
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To learn the most from this course, you should:
o Be prepared for all classes, having completed the readings and
assignments.
o Be responsible for participating actively in class, whether in case
discussions, critiques and debates
o Be willing to question, think critically and learn from others.
Outside of classes, my main mode of communication with the class will be via
IVLE and e-mail. It will be your responsibility to check your NUS mailbox
regularly, and to also read the announcements, updates and other materials
uploaded to the IVLE.
Many of the sessions will include group exercises as part of the learning process.
As such, you have a responsibility to your group to be prepared for the exercise
and show up for the class to play your part.
Readings and other resources
The textbook for this course is: Spector, B. (2010) Implementing Change: Theory &
Practice. The text is concise. It contains many cases and examples and how-to advice. To
gain different perspectives on change, you will read academic articles from journals. The
readings are meant to provide you with theories of change, suggested approaches to
change, illustrative cases and experience-based reflections on change-related topics. The
articles are available on e-reserve in IVLE.
We will refer to this book for some of the sessions.
Academic honesty
Please acknowledge all references and sources that you use in your work. This is not just
good manners but also academic honesty.
Assessment (details on page 5)
Participation and attendance
Case analysis
Response paper
Project
20%
25%
25%
30%
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MNO3320: Schedule
Class
session
Topic
Read before class
(RR: Required readings)
1
Where are we today? Changes within and
outside the organization
RR:
Text: Ch. 1
a) Kotter
b) Bazerman & Watkins
2
Organisational culture: barrier to change
and target of change
RR:
Text: Ch. 7
a) Higgins & McAllaster
b) Graham
3
Resistance to change
Text: Ch. 3
RR:
a) Strebel
b) Kegan & Lahey
Leading change
Text: Ch. 2 & 8
RR:
a) Kim & Mauborgne
b) Hirschhorn
c) Ghosn
5
Process skills essential for change
An integrated approach to change
Text, Ch. 3 & 6
RR:
a) Huy
b) Tucker & Edmondson
6
Individual-level interventions for change
Text, Ch. 5
RR: Meyerson
7
Working within teams towards change
Text, Ch. 5 & 6
RR:
a) Ferris
b) Hinds & Mortensen
Working across groups for change
Text, Ch. 5 & 6
RR:
a) Polzer
b) Metiu, “Owning the
code”
LAB
4
LAB
LAB
8
3
9
Setting goals to achieve change
Text, Ch. 5 & 6
RR:
a) Schaffer & Thompson
Optional:
b) Shaw
c) Kerr & Landauer
10
Constant learning and adaptation;
an overview of organisational
transformation
Text, Ch. 8
RR:
a) Brown
b) Stewart & Raman
Optional: Goodman & Rousseau
11
Learning from one another: presentations
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Learning from one another: presentations
The class schedule may be amended when necessary, e.g., to take advantage of other
opportunities for learning.
Modes of Assessment
A. Participation and attendance
20%
You will be assessed, beginning from the second class session, on the quality of your
comments, questions and contributions to class discussions and learning.
B. Case analysis
25%
This is to be done individually, and on your own (without any help from others). The
deadline for the case is (To be determined). Do plan your time sensibly. You are free to
submit your analysis before the deadline and are encouraged to plan your work schedule
so that you will have enough time to devote to the case analysis. Submissions must be
done electronically on IVLE. Late submissions will be marked down substantially.
Please remember to type your name in your document and to name the document as:
(yourname)case.doc.
No case gives complete information. You may have to make certain reasonable
assumptions. State clearly what your assumptions are and be sure that you can defend
them. Do not make more assumptions than necessary. You may use the outline for
analysis provided in the text as a starting point for thinking about the case. Define the
problems at the macro and micro levels. Try to identify the causes of the situation. Which
systems are most affected? Which are least affected? Why? Suggest alternative courses of
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action. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Finally, what are your
recommendations? What results do you think your recommendations may produce?
This outline is only a guide for thinking as you read the case. It is not the list of case
questions, which will be assigned later. Your answer should directly address the
specific questions that will be assigned. In all your answers, be specific, refer to the facts
of the case and be sure that you can justify your conclusions. Your analysis should not
exceed 2000 words.
If you are not satisfied with your grade, you may ask for your analysis to be re-graded,
giving detailed and substantial justifications for your request. Bear in mind that if I accept
your request and your case is re-graded, it can be given the same grade, a higher grade or
a lower grade than originally assigned.
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C. Response paper
25%
This is to be done individually, on your own (i.e., without any help from others). The
response paper requires you to think in-depth about the assigned readings for this course,
and to write your cognitive and intellectual responses to ONE of the readings. The
purpose of the assignment is to facilitate, sharpen and clarify your thinking by organizing
and writing your thoughts. In the process, you will make your own judgments and be
more conscious of the basis for them.
Subject
Select any ONE of the following articles:
Hirschhorn, L., “Campaigning for Change” Harvard Business Review, Jul 2002: 98104. (Session 4)
OR
Tucker, A. & A. Edmondson, Why Hospitals Don't Learn from Failures:
Organizational and Psychological Dynamics that Inhibit System Change. California
Management Review, Winter 2003, 45(2):55-72. (Session 5)
OR
Debra E. Meyerson, “Radical Change, the Quiet Way” Harvard Business Review,
October 2001: 92-100. (session 6)
How should I write the response paper?
A response paper should describe your intellectual response to the paper. You should
give a short overview of the paper or chapter, and then go on to discuss its major points.
You may wish to use the following questions as a guide.
What are the aims of the paper? What questions does it set out to answer? Analyse the
arguments. How logical are they? How strong is the evidence for them? What
assumptions have been made? To what extent do you agree or disagree with the author’s
assertions? Why? Discuss the implications of the author’s arguments. How would you
improve the paper or chapter? Are there areas that should be further explored, addressed,
discussed in a more balanced way, clarified or qualified? How might other authors that
we have read respond to or criticize this paper? Close by summarizing your response to
the paper. What insights has it given you? In your arguments, refer to specific parts of the
paper that you are analyzing; and be sure that you can justify your conclusions.
Type your response paper using double spacing, one-inch margins and font size 12.
Check grammar and spelling. Make sure you acknowledge all sources if you cite any
other works. You may use any standard referencing and citation style: see
http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/lion/s/citation.html. Just be consistent – adopt one style and
use it throughout.
Another good writing reference is the Harvard Expository Writing Programme:
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http://writing.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do
Your response paper should not exceed 1500 words.
The deadline for each paper is 5 p.m., the day before the class session for which the
reading is scheduled. Submissions should be done electronically to the IVLE workbin.
Please remember to type your name in your document and to name the document as:
(yourname)response.doc.
D. Group Project and presentation
30%
In this assignment, you will experience doing independent research. At the same time,
you will come to see the complexities of managing change and hopefully gain some
insights into the difficulties that organisations and their employees face. Each group
should consist of four or five persons. Based on your project, you will write a case study
and make a presentation. Both are due on the last or second last class session, depending
on when your case has been scheduled for presentation. To write the case study, refer to
the directions given below. You are also encouraged to view projects done by earlier
semesters’ students; the projects have been posted on the IVLE.
Subject
You will do an in-depth case study of planned organisational change and present your
findings to the class. Read widely to identify possible cases for presentation. Make sure
that the case you have selected is substantial and interesting. Using the web, media,
books and journals, library and other resources, write the case. You may also conduct
fieldwork and interviews of the relevant organisation or individuals to collect data for the
case.
Project report (in the form of a case study)
You may use the following questions as a guide to writing the case report.





What is the company’s background? (Make this brief. Any other information that
is interesting but not directly useful to the case can be shown in an appendix).
What was the change about? Why did it take place? What did it aim to achieve?
How was it planned? What were the organisational systems involved? Who were
the main organisational members/units in this case?
Concentrate on analysing how the change was managed. What was done well and
what could be done better? How would you have gone about making the change?
What are the main learning points from this case?
This report should be submitted to me immediately after your presentation. The main text
should not exceed 2500 words. Aside from the main text, your report should also
include a complete list of references naming all the sources that you used. You may also
any other appendices you judge necessary. The reference list and appendices will not
count towards the length limit. You may use any standard referencing and citation style:
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see http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/lion/s/citation.html. Just be consistent – adopt one style and
use it throughout. Another good writing reference is the booklet, “Writing with Sources”
by Gordon Harvey of the Harvard Expository Writing Programme – go to
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/index.cgi?section=resources
and click on the link for “Writing with Sources”.
Type your case using double spacing, one-inch margins and font size 12. Check grammar
and spelling.
At the end of your report, please give a short description how each group member
contributed to the project. At the last class of the semester, you will be asked to do a peer
evaluation of the performance and contribution of all the members in your project group.
Presentation
Plan for a presentation that lasts 20 minutes. This will be followed by questions from the
class. Focus on the main points – you don’t have to repeat everything in the report. You
may use any format for the presentation: role play, debate, seminar, interaction with the
class, etc. Be as creative as you like.
Bring a copy of whatever you have read in preparation for this case, to class. You will
need it to answer questions and verify facts.
Checklist of items to submit
Please upload these to the the IVLE Project workbin by 11.59 p.m. the day of the last
class session:
 Soft copy of your report (including appendices, references)
 Soft copy of presentation materials (e.g., slides).
Peer review
At the end of the semester, you will be asked to do a peer review of members of your
project group. You will also review the other groups’ project presentations.
Enjoy working on your project and presentation!
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