Master BA: Change Management (RUG)
Summary Change & Human Factors (2016/2017)
Exam grade: 8.8
This summary includes:
- Sample exam questions (reading questions) pp.25-31
- Mock-exam 2014 (Questions + Answers) pp.32-36
- A summary of the lectures, including the lecture slides pp.2-30
- Summary of the following literature: pp.2-30
Balogun, J., Johnson, G. 2005. From intended strategies to unintended outcomes: the impact
of change recipient sensemaking. Organization Studies, 26(11): 1573‐1601
Battilana, J., Gilmartin, M., Sengul, M., Pache, A.C., Alexander, J.A. 2010. Leadership
competencies for implementing planned organizational change. Leadership Quarterly, 21,
422–438
Bruns, H.C. 2016. How do practices evolve? Practice change in cancer research. Working
paper, University of Groningen.
Cawsey, T.F., Deszca, G., Ingols, C. 2016. Becoming a master change agent. Chapter 8
from Organizational Change. An Action‐Oriented Toolkit. 3rd Edition. Sage, Los Angeles,
pp. 256‐296.
Cawsey, T.F., Deszca, G., Ingols, C. 2016. Managing recipients of change and influencing
internal stakeholders. Chapter 7 from Organizational Change. An Action‐Oriented Toolkit.
3rd Edition. Sage, Los Angeles, pp. 215‐255.
Ford, J.D., Ford, L.W., D’Amelio A. 2008. Resistance to Change: the rest of the story.
Academy of Management Review, 33: 362‐377.
Higgs, M., Rowland, D. 2011. What does it take to implement change successfully? A study
of the behaviors of successful change leaders. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science,
47(3), 309‐335.
Huy, Q.N., Corley, K.G., Kraatz, M.S. 2014. From support to mutiny: shifting legitimacy
judgments and emotional reactions impacting the implementation of radical change. Academy
of Management Journal, 57(6), 1650‐1680.
Sonenshein, S. 2010. We’re changing‐or are we? Untangling the role of progressive,
regressive, and stability narratives during strategic change implementation. Academy of
Management Journal, 53(3): 477‐512.
Smith, A.C.T., Graetz, F.M. 2011. The psychological philosophy: changing minds. Chapter
7 from Philosophies of Organizational change, Edward Elgar Publishing, Northhampton, pp.
105‐122.
Thomas, R., Hardy, C. 2011. Reframing resistance to organizational change. Scandinavian
Journal of Management, 27(3), 322‐331.
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,Change & Human Factors
Battilana et al. (2010)
- Aims to bridge leadership and organizational change literatures
- Focuses on planned organizational change only!
- Three change activities:
- Communicating the need for change:
Make the case for change
Sharing the vision of the need for change
- Mobilizing others to support the change:
To gain co-workers’ support for and acceptance of the enactment of
new work routines
Redesigning existing organizational processes and systems in order to
push all organization members to adopt the change
- Evaluating the change implementation:
To monitor and assess the impact of implementation efforts
To institutionalize changes
- The three different change activities by the change manager involved in planned
organizational change varies with their mix of leadership competencies (orientation)
- Two leadership competencies (orientation), their effectiveness at:
- Task-oriented behaviors
Important for:
Achieving organizational goals
Developing change initiatives
These skills are related to:
Organizational structure
Organizational design
Organizational control
Establishing routines to attain organizational goals and
objectives
- Person-oriented behaviors
These interpersonal skills are critical to:
Planned organizational change implementation
(because they enable leaders to motivate and direct
followers).
These skills include behaviors that:
Promote collaborative interaction among organization members
Establish a supportive social climate
Promote management practices that ensure equitable treatment
of organization members
- Supported hypotheses:
- 1a. Leaders who are more effective at person-oriented behaviors are more
likely than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with
communicating the need for change.
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, Leaders skilled at interpersonal interaction have a consideration for
others what makes them likely to anticipate the emotional reactions of
those involved in the change process and to take the required steps to
attend to those reactions.
- 2b. Leaders who are more effective at task-oriented behaviors are more likely
than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with mobilizing
organization members.
Task-oriented leaders focus on structure, systems, and procedures, and
thus are more likely to be aware of the need to put in place systems that
facilitate people’s rallying behind new objectives.
Redesigning existing organizational processes and systems to facilitate
coalition building requires task-oriented skills.
- 3b. Leaders who are more effective at task-oriented behaviors are more likely
than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with evaluating change
project implementation.
Task-oriented leaders tend naturally to focus on tasks that must be
performed to achieve the targeted performance improvements.
Task-oriented leaders have an attention to structure and performance
objectives that attunes them to the attainment of these objectives.
Task-oriented leaders are aware of the need to analyze goals and
achievements, as well as comfortable with the need to refine processes
following evaluation.
- Unsupported hypotheses:
- 1b. Leaders who are more effective at task-oriented behaviors are less likely
than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with communicating the
need for change.
- 2a. Leaders who are more effective at person-oriented behaviors are more
likely than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with mobilizing
organization members.
- 3a. Leaders who are more effective at person-oriented behaviors are less likely
than other leaders to focus on the activities associated with evaluating change
project implementation.
- Managerial implication: maybe a team-based approach that takes account of
managers’ competencies related to leading change efforts might be a good strategy.
- In the absence of leaders who are effective at both task-oriented and person-
oriented behaviors, employing multiple change leaders with complementary
competencies might be an effective way to ensure that all aspects of the
implementation process are addressed.
- However, such team-based approach might be complicated to implement not
only because of the challenges associated with team leadership, but also
because of the non-linear nature of the change process.
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,Higgs & Rowland (2011)
- Conclusions previous, 2005, study:
- Changes tended to fail in most context when the approaches tended to be
programmatic and rooted in a viewpoint that saw change initiatives as linear,
sequential, and consequently, predictable.
- Changes tended to be successful across most contexts when approaches
recognized change as a complex responsive process and embedded this
recognition within the overall change process.
- Five leadership competencies associated with successful change implementation:
1. Creating the case for change:
Effectively engaging others in recognizing the business need for
change.
2. Creating structural change:
Ensuring that the change is based on depth of understanding of the
issues and supported with a consistent set of tools and processes.
3. Engaging others in the whole change process and building commitment
4. Implementing and sustaining changes:
Developing effective plans and ensuring good monitoring and review
practices are developed.
5. Facilitating and developing capability:
Ensuring that people are challenged to find their own answers and that
they are supported in doing this.
- Three broad sets of leadership behavior:
- Framing change (change-centric behavior)
Establishing starting points for change:
Designing and managing the journey.
Communicating guiding principles in the organization.
- Creating capacity (recipient-centric behavior)
Creating individual and organizational capabilities and communication
and making connections.
- Shaping behavior (leader-centric behavior)
The communication and actions of leaders related directly to the
change:
Making others accountable.
Thinking about change.
Using and individual focus.
The individual leader tends to be the focus of the action.
- Shaping behavior is linked to a linear approach to change (less effective);
framing and creating are linked to recognition that change is complex (better).
- Conclusions:
- Leader-centric behaviors (shaping) have an adverse impact on change
implementation.
- Behaviors that are more facilitating and engaging are positively related to
change success.
- Shaping behaviors have a less negative impact when combined with
facilitating and engaging behaviors.
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, - Leaders who experience the highest level of success deployed all four of the
behavior sets (framing + creating = Framcap) and minimal presence of
leader-centric behaviors (shaping).
- New behavior sets:
- Attractor: Leaders pull people toward what the organization is trying to do;
towards its purpose (not to themselves).
Establishes an emotional connection to the change
- Edge and Tension: the leader tests and challenges the current organization to
deliver the change.
Tells it as it is.
Creates discomfort by challenging paradigms and disrupting habitual
ways of doing things.
Amplifies the disturbance generated by the change process by helping
people see the repeating and unhelpful patterns of behavior in the
culture while at the same time staying firm to keep the change process
on course.
- Container: Leader holds and channels energy. Creates a clear framework for
people to work within.
Sets and contracts boundaries, clear expectations, and hard rules so that
people know what to operate on (performance expectations) and how
they need to operate (values and behaviors)
Provides calm, confident, and affirming signals that allow people to
find positive meaning and sense in an anxious situation.
- Transforming Space: Leader provides the emotional, temporal, and physical
space to enable people to think and act differently.
Understands what is happening in the moment and breaks established
patterns and structures in ways that create movement in the ‘here and
now’.
- Shaping: leader-centric change leadership, the individual leader tends to be the
focus of the action
Controlling what gets done
Expressing own views and beliefs about the change
Using own experience of change to shape implementation
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, - Change approaches
- Directive (linear/standardized): Change that is driven, controlled, managed,
and initiated from the top. It operates on the basis of a simple theory of change
or a few rules of thumb, together with clear recipes and tightly controlled
communication. There is little or no involvement in the change planning.
- Self-assembly (linear/distributed): Direction is tightly set at the top, however
accountability for change implementation rests with local managers. Little
involvement in the overall change discussions.
- Master (complex/standardized): The overall direction is set at the top of the
organization, but it is open to discussion with, and input from others.
- Emergent (complex/distributed): The senior leadership establishes a broad
sense of direction and a few ‘hard rules’. The leadership role focuses on
helping others in the process of sensemaking and improvisation.
- Approaches of change that operate within a framework that posits change as a
complex phenomenon (i.e. Master and Emergent) are more successful than
approaches that adopt a more linear and sequential viewpoint (i.e. Directive
and Self-assembly)
- Note, a number of the (change) stories did contain a notable component of Shaping
behavior. This may indicate that a degree of leadership direction could be necessary
for the successful implementation of change.
- Change approaches differ from the leadership behaviors in that the change approaches
represent the broader context and how you set up the change organization-wise.
Shaping, creating and framing are about the leader.
- Criticism: they assume a homogeneous workforce (that all have the same thoughts,
thus e.g. motivation about the change)
- Lecturers did not find evidence for the five behavior sets (attractor, edge & tension,
container, transforming space, shaping), however they did find evidence for the three
behavior sets shaping, creating and framing.
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