110901.theories of org.change.course manual

Theories of Organizational Change. Course Manual 1/23

COURSE MANUAL

THEORIES OF ORGANIZATIONAL

CHANGE

Course year 2011-2012

Semester 1.1

September 1, 2011UPDATE

Program: University of Groningen MScBA/Change Management & MScHRM

Course code: EBM013A05

Lecturers:

Dr. J.F.J. Vos (coordinator)

Dr. B.J.M. Emans


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Contact information

2. Course overview: philosophy, model, and learning outcomes

3. Course information: practicalities

4. Literature and contents

5. Requirements (exam and assignments)

6. How to handle the literature for the Assignments 1 and 2

7. Overview of literature

Appendix: Assessment Form for assignment 2, also to be used for assignment 3


1. CONTACT INFORMATION

In case there are problems, questions, or remarks, please contact:

Staff (contact preferably by mail)

dr. Janita Vos (coordinator)Faculty of Economics and BusinessE-mail: [email protected]: 050-3637161/4111Room number: Duisenberg Building 0423Secretary Janita Vos: Karin van Brummelen ([email protected], 050-3634111)N.B. For making an appointment with Janita Vos, please contact Karin van Brummelen, for other course-matters and inquiries, please contact the course’s secretariat (see below).

dr. Ben EmansFaculty of Economics and BusinessE-mail: [email protected]: 050-3637845/4288Room number: Duisenberg Building 0350Secretary Ben Emans: see below the Course’s secretariat

Course’s secretariat

The office of the department HRM/OB takes care of the secretarial matters related to the course.Tineke Teuben and Hilde Meijer E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]: 050 363 4288Room number: Duisenberg Building 0343

Post address

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics & Business; dep. HRM/OBP.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen

Website and e-mail

Under http://nestor.rug.nl the course has a website which is open for all participants. All relevant information can be found there.Communication about unforeseen events is mailed to the participants at their [email protected] e-mail address as it is attached to their name in the list of participants. Apart from that, messages are placed on the announcement page of the site.

mailto:[email protected]






2. COURSE OVERVIEW: PHILOSOPHY, MODEL, AND LEARNING

OUTCOMES

Course philosophy and model

The entrance level of the course participants is such that they are all familiar with the most important theories and practices of organizational change. This means that as a participant you know about the variety of strategies that can be enacted in order to bring about change, the different types and contents of organizational change that can be distinguished, the phenomenon of resistance to change that is part and parcel of most change projects, and the roles available for change agents.

Elaborating on this prior knowledge, the course takes a contingency approach in order to make sense of the whole of intermingled processes that tend to engulf organizations once they are involved in a certain change project. You are trained to apply this approach and learn, as a consequence, to analyze processes of organizational change and to translate the outcomes of such analysis into change management practices. Rather than learning about ready-made change programmes, we focus on how to develop and fine-tune those programmes themselves, taking all kinds of circumstances into account. A key concept in the contingency approach is change strategy, which is defined as a coherent whole of measures, activities and interventions that are carried out in order to bring about an intended organizational change. The latter is the effect, or more precisely stated, the ultimate effect of a change strategy. Effect thus shows up as a second key concept in the contingency approach. The strategy-effect connection can be said to constitute the backbone of it, but for making change processes really analyzable, it needs to be complemented with two other elements, referred to as moderators and mediators respectively.

Whether a change process induced by a change strategy does, or does not, lead to the intended organizational change depends on numerous conditions and circumstances. As an over-arching designation of those conditions and circumstances the term moderator is used (they ‘moderate’ the strategy-effect connection). Moderator is thus the third key concept in the course’s contingency approach. Three types of moderators are distinguished. One type, technically denoted as the change context, relates to characteristics of the organization involved, such as its culture, or its size, its primary processes, or the environment it finds itself in. The second type, denoted as the change content, relates to the change goals that are pursued. Examples are cultural renewal, the introduction of new ICT systems, or the merger of two organizations. The third type, finally, denoted as change process, relates to additional measures and interventions that are carried out as a supplement of the strategy chosen. A top-down change strategy can, for instance, sometimes fruitfully be enriched by the execution of some bottom-up interventions. For change strategies to be effective, a well-planned treatment of the involved context, content, and process moderators is needed. That, in a nutshell, is the contingency view underlying this course. Participants learn to identify the moderators that need to be taken into account for playing the role of change agent professionally, once a specific change strategy is chosen. There is, however, one more element in the model that should not be overlooked in analyses of change strategies.


The realization of intended change (labeled ‘effect’ in the contingency approach) is the ultimate outcome a chosen change strategy, rather than a direct outcome of it. Stated otherwise, the impact of a change strategy on organizational change is most often mediated by a number of intervening outcomes that together shape the strategy-effect causality. Examples are the employee commitment and satisfaction resulting from a participative change strategy and that may give rise, eventually, to a workforce that wholeheartedly realizes the intended organizational change. Without an explicit account of the intervening outcomes involved, an exposé of strategy effects cannot make much sense and for that reason they are included in the contingency approach. The technical term mediators is used for denoting them. Mediators constitute the direct effects of a change strategy that together bring about the ultimate effect of intended organizational change. They serve as the intermediate links in the causal chain that connects strategy with effect.

FIGURE 1. The SMME-Model: a contingency approach of change management

The entire set of concepts included in the contingency approach is depicted in Figure 1. With its acronym SMME it points to the four key elements: Strategy, Moderators, Mediators, and (ultimate) Effect.

In a series of tutorials a number of contingencies are discussed together with the practical dilemmas they lead to. The course literature, which outlines strategy, moderator and mediator concepts, serves as the starting point for each tutorial. As a part of the assignments to be performed, additional literature has to be searched by the students themselves.


Learning goals

The foregoing explanation has resulted into four more specific learning goals. Upon completion of the course the student is able to:1. Explain the key concepts in the field of organizational change in terms of change

strategies, change contingencies and change outcomes. 2. Analyze processes of organizational change.3. Translate the analysis of change processes into change management practices.4. Write and critically review a scientific paper about a well-focused change management

related subject matter.

In the remainder of this course manual we explain how we have operationalized the course philosophy and learning goals into the key elements of this course.


3. COURSE INFORMATION: PRACTICALITIES

Schedule and locations

In the first two course weeks, we start with plenary 3-hours sessions for all participants together. After this, in the weeks 3-7, there is a 1,5-hours tutorial for four equally sized separate subgroups of participants. In week 8, we conclude again with a plenary 3-hours session. The exam, at the end of block 1.1, also serves as the deadline for submitting a number of course assignments. In the same way, the resit exam serves also as the deadline for resubmitting initially dis-approved assignments. The dates, times and places of the sessions and the exams have been put together in Table 1.

NOTE: please look carefully in the faculty's lecture & exam schedule for being sure about times and locations, as no rights derive from the information presented in Table 1, see: http://www.rug.nl/feb/informatievoor/studenten/roosters/index

TABLE 1Course Schedule

Week Day Activity Room1 (36) Mond Sept 5, 2011 Plenary session 11.00 - 14.00 5433.00052 (37) Mond Sept 12, 2012 Plenary session 11.00 - 14.00 5433.00053 (38) Tues Sept 20, 2011 subgroup 1 (Emans) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0107

subgroup 2 (Emans) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0107subgroup 3 (Vos) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0128subgroup 4 (Vos) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0128

4 (39) Tues Sept 27, 2011 subgroup 1 (Emans) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0107subgroup 2 (Emans) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0107subgroup 3 (Vos) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0128subgroup 4 (Vos) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0128

5 (40) Tues Oct. 4, 2011 subgroup 1 (Emans) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0107subgroup 2 (Emans) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0107subgroup 3 (Vos) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0128subgroup 4 (Vos) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0128

6 (41) Tues Oct 11, 2011 subgroup 1 (Emans) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0107subgroup 2 (Emans) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0107subgroup 3 (Vos) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0128subgroup 4 (Vos) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0128

7 (42) Tues Oct 18, 2011 subgroup 1 (Emans) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0107subgroup 2 (Emans) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0107subgroup 3 (Vos) 09.00 - 10.30 5419.0128subgroup 4 (Vos) 11.00 - 12.30 5419.0128

8 (43) Mond Oct 24, 2011 Plenary session 11.00 - 14.00 5433.000510 (45) Mond Nov 7, 2011 Written exam 14.00 – 17.00

Exam hall 02Submitting assignments

21 (03) Tues Jan 24, 2011 Written re-exam 14.00 – 17.00Exam hall 02

Submitting (repaired) assignments

http://www.rug.nl/feb/informatievoor/studenten/roosters/index


Schedule, topics and preparation

Table 2 lists the teaching sessions’ contents as well as the preparatory tasks that need to be done individually before attending those sessions. Figure 2 depicts the practical set-up of the course.

The contents of the plenary sessions in the weeks 1 and 2 are introductory ones.The contents of each of the tutorials in the weeks 3 to 7 relate to one specific change

strategy. That strategy, which is outlined in a course publication to be read beforehand (see section 3 on literature and contents), is analyzed in terms of strategies, moderators and mediators (the SMME-model, see section 2 on the course philosophy). In each of the four subgroups, two or three teams of 2 (3 incidentally) members, so-called assignment-groups, present to that end a filled-out SMME-model. The assignment groups extract such model from the publication concerned and make a one-slide picture. These models are commented on by the teacher and discussed in the class.

As an extra, a discussion of one or two exemplary exam questions is scheduled in each of the five tutorials.

The concluding plenary session in week 8 combines retrospecting the course’s learning processes and prospecting the exam to be done by the participants.

TABLE 2Course sessions’ contents

Week Topic Preparatory tasks (for details see section 4 and section 7 of this manual)

Division of papers for exam preparation (in the tutorial weeks)

1 (36) Course introduction.Forming of the four

subgroups, and subdividing them in approx. ten assignment groups.

Read course manual very carefully.

Begin reading the papers in literature category 1.

2 (37) Contingency perspective on change management.

Introducing the change strategies.

Finish reading literature category 1.

Carefully read two papers: Weick & Quinn (category 1) and Kotter (category 2)

3 (38) Tutorial 1Change strategy

according to Kotter

Read the Kotter paper on why change efforts fail.

Answer Nestor questions etc.

Kotter (2007/1995)Beer & Nohria (2000)Kotter & Schlesinger

(2008/1979)4 (39) Tutorial 2

Planned change strategy (based on XYZ-case)

Read the Burnes paper on XYZ-case

Answer questions provided on Nestor and read the course literature concerned.

Burnes (2004)Szabla (2007)Gilley et al. (2008)

5 (40) Tutorial 3Participative change

strategy (based on

Read the Bruch & Sattelberger paper on the Lufthansa case.


Bruch & Sattelberger (2001)

Jones et al. (2005)


Lufthansa-case) Self et al. (2007)

6 (41) Tutorial 4The Time Pacing

strategy

Read the Eisenhardt & Brown paper on time pacing.


Eisenhardt & Brown (1998)

Ford et al. (2008)Rafferty & Simons

(2006)

7 (42) Tutorial 5The DICE strategy

Read Sirkin et al.’s paper on the DICE approach.


Sirkin et al. (2005)Weick & Quinn (1999)Lines (2007)

8 (43) Conclusion no specific preparations needed

Attendance rules

The subgroup sessions in the weeks 3-7 are obligatory; in case of emergency only one time may be missed; assignment 2 (see below) is enlarged then.Enlargements are always additive to the current assignments and can only to be done after the course, that is, when both the exam and the assignments have been passed.

FIGURE 2Practical set-up of the course


4. LITERATURE AND CONTENTS

The course literature, to be read by all participants, consists of four categories of downloadable academic publications. Together, the publications constitute the exam material. Simultaneously they serve as input for the course assignments. The categories’ contents are explained below. Section 7 of this course manual provides the full details of these articles.

TEXTBOX 1Assembling the course’s material

Category 1: Contingency models of change management effectiveness

Each publication in this category provides an explanatory model of the effectiveness of a number of distinct change strategies, including direct effects of the strategies which eventually account for their ultimate effectiveness, and also including conditions that are helpful or even necessary for bringing about that effectiveness. Due to these contents, the presented models can be called contingency models, as they specify under what conditions change strategies may be effective, rather than claiming their unconditional effectiveness. The papers thus can be analyzed in terms of the SMME-model outlined in the course philosophy, with its focus on strategies, mediators, moderators and effects. That is not to say, however, that those elements are all explicitly pointed at in each paper. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are just below the paper’s surface, but quite often an exercise of creative reconstruction is needed to spot them well. Most often it is only in an implicit way that the authors reveal their contingency views

Category 2: Change Strategies

Each of the five publications in this category elaborates one specific change strategy; these publications refer to the strategy box in the SMME-model. Taken together, the papers offer an overview of strategies at the disposal of change managers. The five papers form the course’s key literature, as each of the presented strategies will be analyzed during a course tutorial meeting. That is, the presented strategies will be thoroughly investigated regarding the moderators and mediators involved. Two course assignments are explicitly set up to that end (see section 5 on assignments for details). At each tutorial, two, possibly three groups of 2 (3 incidentally) students, the assignment-groups, present a one-slide visualization of the theoretical message they have derived from the publication concerned, making use of the SMME-format. This is assignment 1. Elaborating on this message, each assignment group writes subsequently a paper on a change management related issue. This is assignment 2.

For fruitfully following the course and playing a positive role as course participant one has to download and neatly print the papers before the first course week. It is strongly advised to assemble the publications in a self-made, easy-to-handle booklet, preferably together with this Course Manual.


Category 3: Effectiveness dimensions

The ultimate criterion of change strategy effectiveness is the degree of realization of the intended organizational changes. For discussing change strategies, however, this criterion is an impractical one. Quite often, it is difficult to define intended changes unequivocally. As far as they are, they tend to be affected furthermore by factors outside the the realm of change management which together obscure the causal link with the change strategy involved. A practical proxy of effectiveness can be found in the behavior and attitude of the involved organization members. Resistance to change, change compliance and change readiness are among the dimensions that are used for operationalizing this proxy and that are dealt with in the publications in this category. The publications within this category refer to both the ‘mediators box’ and the ‘effect box’ as displayed in the SMME-model.

Category 4: Moderators of change effectiveness

There is no such a thing as an exhaustive list of moderators (the conditions that are helpful or even necessary for bringing about impact of change strategies, see Figure 1). A sample of the moderators that may play a role can be derived from the discussions of contingency models (in the literature in category 1) and change strategies (in category 2). The literature in the fourth category elaborates on these discussions. It enlarges the sample of moderators by highlighting factors related to cultural and structural attributes of the organization.


5. REQUIREMENTS: EXAM AND ASSIGNMENTS

For getting the course credits the participants need to accomplish an exam and three assignments.

Exam

The course concludes with a written exam (see Table 1) about the course literature. The exam relates to the complete course literature set, that is, the publications in the four categories discussed before. The course focuses on investigating change theories. This implies that all theories or theoretical models elaborated and discussed in the various publications have to be understood and known, including the theoretical implications or open-ended questions put forward in a publication’s final section. Some of the publications present a qualitative or quantitative empirical study in addition to a theoretical exposé. As regards the contents of these publications the course participants are expected to be familiar with the theories that are discussed (as is the case with the other publications), the main empirical outcomes of the presented study, and the research strategy that was used for conducting the study. One has to be prepared, therefore, for exam questions about the nature of empirical facts that were found and of the research strategies that were used for finding them.

For the publications in category 2 (the change strategies) different exam rules apply because some of the details presented in them, which are important for the assignments they are linked to, do not constitute fundamentally useful knowledge. For each of these publications, the list below specifies the contents that form part of the exam material:

Kotter (2007/1995): Make sure you know the contents of Kotter’s eight approaches and the order

prescribed by Kotter for applying them. This is, by the way, first year BscBA-stuff. Make sure you can explain what reasons underly Kotter’s claim that a strict order has

to be applied to in practice. Why does, for instance, number 3 have to precede number 4?

Burnes (2004): Make sure you know the meaning of ‘culture excellence approach’, ‘incremental

model of change’, ‘punctuated equilibrium model of change’, and ‘continuous transformation model of change’ (pp. 887-890) and how these change models relate to each other and to Lewin’s original planned change model.

Make sure you know what the interventions by the newly appointed general manager preceding the transition were about (pp. 892-894).

Make sure you know what the five steps of the transition process were about (pp. 895-896).

Bruch & Sattelberger (2001): Make sure you know what the four phases of the change process were about (pp. 349-

353). Make sure you know the contents of section ‘Human resource management as catalyst

for sustained renewal’ (pp. 356-360).Eisenhardt & Brown (1998):

Make sure you know and understand the concepts ‘time pacing’ and ‘event pacing’. Make sure you know the three time-pacing basics outlined in the paper.


Make sure you can explain and elaborate the sentence ‘a critical dimension of time pacing is setting the right rythms for change’

Sirkin, Keenan & Jackson (2005): Make sure you know and understand the four pivotal change factors highlighted by the

authors Make sure you understand the methodology of the research that gave rise to the four-

factor-model.

During the course, in each week (from week 3 onwards) a few exemplary exam questions relating to a part of the course’s literature will be put on Nestor. These questions will help preparing for the exam and we expect that they are considered thoroughly. These questions may form part of the exam.

The course’s assignments (1-3)

There are three interrelated assignments, all fulfilled by assignment groups (groups of 2 or, incidentally, 3 participants, see section 3 on course practicalities). These assignments are: 1) constructing a contingency model, 2) writing a paper and, 3) reviewing a draft paper of another assignment group.

Assignment 1: Construction of a contingency model

In the first course week four subgroups, both consisting of approx. 10-12 assignment groups (depending on the number of course participants), will be established. In each of the weeks 3-7, two to three of the assignment groups of each subgroup prepare a one-slide visualization of a fully elaborated SMME model. The model, entirely compiled by the group itself, reflects the theoretical lessons that according to the group can be extracted from the publication that is discussed at the tutorial. The one-slide visualization must consist of the connected boxes of the SMME-model (see Figure 1) that have been filled with relevant contents. Furthermore, the slide must contain a reference to the publication that the SMME-model is extracted from, a title for the model, date of presentation, and names of the authors.In order to enable the subgroup teacher to prepare the session, the assignment groups send their one-slide visualization in powerpoint format to the teacher’s email address. This has to be done not later than 24 hours before the tutorial’s start.At each tutorial the SMME models and their visualizations that are available are shown to the audience, explained by their authors, commented on by the subgroup’s teacher, and discussed by the class. The primary aim of the tutorial sessions is to familiarize those attending them with the theory of change management including the links with change practice. For that reason it is crucial that everyone reads the section 2 publications beforehand.

Assignment 2: Paper

For assignment 2 the assignment groups write a paper of 2000-2500 words (no more). These papers are entitled something like 'XXX and organizational change, some contingencies’, or ‘The effectiveness of XXX, a contingency view’. For XXX, then, a specific change strategy, or a component of such a strategy, is substituted. See textbox 2 for more elaborated exemplary titles (from papers written in the previous years). The change strategy put forward by the assignment group in its one-slide visualization of their contingency model (assignment 1) serves as a starting point for the paper to be written. That change strategy, or (preferably) one specific aspect of it, is elaborated.


As is reflected by the exemplary titles, the paper discusses a number of conditions (moderators, as they are labeled in the SMME model), that impact in an either positive or negative way on the effectiveness of a specific change strategy. The paper’s focus thus is an explanation of the extent to which the specific change strategy under study is effective. In accordance with the contingency format underlying the course as a whole (see Figure 1), the paper highlights one or several conditions that affect the effectiveness. That format has to be strictly applied in the paper.

TEXTBOX 2Some exemplary paper titles

The paper has to elaborate on the strategy under study, including the intervention types it consists of, the direct effects it is supposed to produce (mediators) and moderating conditions that apply to them (moderators). The publication in which the strategy is unfolded is selectively summarized to that end. The contingency model that can be derived from its contents is made explicit (most often it is only in an implicit way that the authors reveal their contingency views). Once this has been presented, the paper discusses successively:

additional insights, derived from at least six relevant literature sources; utilizing bibliographical databases such as Web of Science, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, EconLit, and PsycINFO; one has, to that end, to look for pertinent academic journal papers, book chapters or monographs containing empirical results or theoretical clarifications; part of the additional insights may root in the course literature (categories 1, 3 and 4, see course literature section)

additional illustrations of elements of the model, derived from real life cases, either found in the literature, or empirically based, for instance by means of interviews.

conclusions

For each of the five category 2 publications that serve as the point of departure for the assignments 1 and 2, section 6 of this manual provides hints for handling it. In all cases a convenient way to set up the paper is to first introduce the subject matter, that is, the specific change strategy that is going to be discussed as regards its effectiveness and more specifically the conditions that are said to be conducive or obstructive to that effectiveness. Contents derived from the pertinent course publication are presented, then, as a first overview of what is known about those conditions. So far, all papers related to a specific category 2 publication

‘National cultural differences in using reward systems to initiate change’ (on a paper about a change strategy based on rewards, with national culture being discussed as a moderator)

‘The participative change approach and the effectiveness of a merger; the impact of trust’ (on a paper about a participative change strategy, with trust being discussed as a moderator while focussing on a specific type of organizational change: merger)

‘Downsizing requires a top-down approach’ (on a paper about a non-participatieve change strategy, introducing a specific change type, downsizing, as a moderator.


may be similar. Thereafter, though, the specific issue addressed in the paper is introduced as the paper’s focus: a particular element in the set of contingency factors (moderators) and outcomes (mediating and ultimate effects). The introduction section of the paper, composed this way, is followed by a methodological section: a short note about the set up of the approach that underlies the paper. In that section the selection of literature and other sources is explained. What follows, then, is the body of the paper: the exposition of insights derived from successive sources which results in a couple of conclusions. Quite often, those conclusions can be framed as an addition and/or amendment and/or specification of the contingency model presented in the introduction section.

Assignment 3: Peer review

A draft version of the paper (assignment 2), before it is submitted to the course’s teachers, has to be reviewed by another assignment group in the same subgroup. The “who-is-going-to-review-who” issue is something to be sorted by the participants themselves. One restriction applies: non-reciprocity. This means that you are not supposed to review a paper written by the reviewer(s) of your own paper. The review, first, consists of grades given to the paper according to the assessment form (this form is attached to this document as an appendix; you also can find it separately on the Nestor site), followed by a written text which explains the assessments. This text does not surpass the number of 400 words. Preferably it contains suggestions for improvement.The teachers assess whether you have fulfilled this job (i.e. as a reviewer) in a serious way and provided the other group with constructive feedback.

Procedural matters

How to submit assignment 2 and 3 and some textual instructions

The assignments 2 and 3 result in written texts. In both cases the deadline for submitting is the date of the written exam (see before in Table 1).The texts have to be provided both in print and electronically. The electronic draft will be scanned for detecting plagiarism. For that reason, one should refrain from any type of write-protection (read-only restriction), when sending it. For sending electronic versions a facility is installed at the website of the course. Do not use the teachers’ e-mail addresses for that purpose.

Printed versions can be delivered at the course’s secretariat, or, preferably, handed in at the exam.

In this course (and not only there) written texts, including digital attachments of e-mail messages, have to be submitted in such a way that, at the readers’ very first sight, it is clear

what it is about (title), what it is (explicatory characterizations, such as assignment type and assignment

number) when it was sent (date) for whom it was made (addressee) who made it (sender, together with relevant sender information such as addresses

and phone numbers)For finding out how this has to be accomplished in the case of the assignments, see below in Textbox 4 the standard front page for the paper and the peer review. For a final completeness


check, help yourself by using the acronym DATES (stands for Date, Addressee, Title, Explication, Sender).

TEXTBOX 3Two additional notes concerning paper submission

TEXTBOX 4Format front page of the paper (fictitious contents, condensed lay-out)

In this course (and again: not only in this one) each text has to be furthermore submitted in such a way that it is entirely understandable for ordinary readers, including those who are ignorant of the course-background and specific literature. This most of all has consequences for introductory sections, where an overall set-up is outlined. One has to refrain, for instance, from references to things like ‘this assignment’, or ‘the category 2 publication’ or ‘the course’ because references like that make no sense in the case of ordinary readers. Make sure that the entire text is comprehensible for, so to speak, a friend interested in change management somewhere in the world.

The paper, simply stapled (please refrain from expensive and space consuming luxury), has to be submitted following the 'style guide for authors' of the Academy of Management Journal. This guide can be found in any volume of AMJ, as well as at its website http://journals.aomonline.org/amj/. It sets rules for the design of front page, summary, endnotes, tables, figures, section headings, page numbering, references, citations and other formal aspects of the text. Texts that are not set up in accordance with the AMJ-rules will not be assessed.

Note 1: when submitting your assignments 2 and 3, do not add the review of your own paper, made by colleague students (just to prevent that review from being submitted twice).Note 2: submit your assignments 2 and 3 as two physically separate documents, do not piece them together.

THE KNOWLEDGE-DIRECTED CONSULTANCY APPROACH:DOES IT REALLY FIT IN WITH ANY TYPE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

MICHAEL N. BEER*Student number 2263021

P.O. Box 800, 9700 AZ Groningen, The Netherlandsphone: +31 6 28 99 82 60

e-mail: [email protected] 2, individual paper final draft [or: provisional draft]Date of submitting: November 4, 2011 [or something else]University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and BusinessCourse ‘Theories of Organizational Change’, 2011/2012Teacher: XXX [name of subgroup supervising teacher to be filled in here] * The author gratefully acknowledges Nitin Nohria’s excellent comments on a former draft of this paper


The front page, according to the AMJ-rules, should show the paper’s title along with the author’s (your) name, address, phone number and e-mail address. In addition to that relevant course information should be included such as course label, author’s sub-subgroup number and date of submitting. This results in the front page format depicted in Textbox 4 (this is just a fictitious example, line spacing still to be added).The final draft, and nothing else, of the paper has to be submitted before or at the exam.

As mentioned, a first, provisional draft of it has to be submitted earlier to another course writing group who then will have to review it (see assignment 3). The review is supposed to offer input for writing the final draft.

There is no fixed deadline for submitting the first draft of the paper. Author(s) and reviewer(s) together have to come to an agreement on this matter, taking into account the time needed for reviewing and rewriting.

Final grade

Regarding the paper assignment, the teachers follow the same assessment criteria as the ones used in the peer review (see Appendix), with quality of the contingency analysis and interestingness of the conclusion being the most important ones.Table 3 gives an overview of the assignments and explains how the final grade for this course is calculated.

TABLE 3Calculation of the final grade

Elements for assessment % of final grade:Assignment 1 Contingency model (in assignment group) 5 %Assignment 2 Paper (in assignment group) 40 %Assignment 3 Peer review (in assignment group) 5 %Exam (individually) 50 %Total 100 %

Note: for assignment 2 (paper) and the exam, a minimum grade of 5.5 has to be achieved. If necessary (only) these elements can be repaired.


6. HOW TO HANDLE THE LITERATURE FOR THE ASSIGNMENTS 1 AND 2

This section specifies how to handle each of the publications in category 2 for the oral presentation (assignment 1) and the paper to be written (assignment 2).

Kotter, J.P. 2007 (1995). Leading Change. Why Transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 85: 96-103.

Kotter’s publication can be read as a description of eight separate change management actions (kind of mini-strategies) embedded in a theory which claims that each of those actions has to be performed for change effectiveness to come about, and in addition to that this has to be done in a strict order. It is a very clear theory that does not need much elaboration.For discussing it in the assignments 1 and 2 the course participants are invited to select one of the eight actions and to develop a change theory regarding the effects of that specific action, including the mediating and moderating factors involved. Two moderators derive directly from Kotter’s theory. Say, you select action number 5 for your assignment, then the preceding enactment of numbers 1 – 4 constitutes a first moderator (according to Kotter) while as regards the realization of the ultimate change effectiveness a consequential enactment of numbers 6 – 8 constitutes a second moderator (again according to Kotter). Apart from these two moderators, though, other moderators have to be included in the theory. Three steps have to be taken.First, the essence of selected change action has to be clarified. Note that this can only partly be derived from the publication. Additional information can be found in Kotter’s book, entitled Leading Change, which appeared almost simultaneously with this article. You are invited, however, to do more than just copying Kotter’s ideas. Other literature sources may be used to come up with a well delineated appraoch.Second, the types of outcomes of the selected and elaborated action have to be specified resulting in a list of mediating and ultimate effects. The course literature in the category ‘effectiveness dimensions’ may be helpful to that end.Third, and most importantly, moderating factors have to be incorporated in the theory. An exhaustive list of moderators won’t be attainable. The challenge is to highlight a couple of critical factors, which may relate to the change process, the change context or the change content (see course literature in categories 1, about contingency models, and 4, about moderators).

Burnes, B., 2004. Emergent change and planned change – competitors or allies? The case of XYZ construction. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24: 886-902.

The publication describes the history of the succesful transition of a construction engineering company from a function-based to a team-based structure (pp. 894-897). The transition, which took about a year and a half only, was realized through a mainly planned change strategy. The publication thus can be read as a description and an analysis of a highly planned change approach. As such, it has to be discussed in the course (the assignments 1 and 2). The chronology provided by the publication has to be transposed into a theory of planned change effectiveness. Three steps have to be taken.First, the repertory of planned change strategies that was used has to be distilled from the depicted change history. Elements of that managerial repertory have to be defined and listed, thus giving concrete shape to the philosophy of planned change. To that end the essence of the


five steps mentioned in the text (p. 895) has to be articulated (just quoting the five step descriptions is too poor: redefine them in your own way so that their essence is brought to light).Second, the types of outcomes of the planned change strategy that was used have to be distilled from the depicted change history. A list of mediating and ultimate effects has to result, not in terms of historical facts but in terms of effect-types.Third, and most importantly, moderating factors have to be distilled from the depicted change process. The publication clearly is a success story, as it highlights causal links between planned change and beneficial outcomes. The question to be answered is: what conditions made this success possible? In the first and second step the involved causalities have been outlined. Step three provides the finishing touch by incorporating the causalities into a contingency model. It is obvious that moderating factors can be found in the events preceding the transition (described at pp. 891-894). These have to be specified therefore. But there may be other moderators, as the author explicitly suggests in his concluding section. Try to spot them.

Bruch, H. & Sattelberger, T. 2001. The turnaround at Lufthansa: learning from the change process. Journal of Change Management, 1: 344-363.

This publication describes the history of the fundamental change of airline company Lufthansa in the period 1992-1996. It includes both top-down and participative change strategies. The authors claim that the participative strategies were the main ones (‘soft facts are the pivotal point’). The publication thus can be read as a description and an analysis of a highly participative change approach. As such, it has to be discussed in the course (the assignments 1 and 3). The chronology provided in the publication has to be transposed into a theory of participative change effectiveness. Three steps have to be taken.First, the repertory of participative interventions and tools that was used has to be distilled from the depicted change history. Elements of that managerial repertory need to be defined and listed, thus giving concrete shape to the philosophy of participative change.Second, the types of outcomes of the participative change strategies that were used have to be distilled from the depicted change history. A list of mediating and ultimate effects has to result, not in terms of historical facts but in terms of effect-types.Third, and most importantly, moderating factors have to be distilled from the depicted change process. The paper clearly is a success story, as it highlights causal links between participative change and beneficial outcomes. The question to be answered then is: what conditions made the success possible? In the first and second step the involved causalities have been outlined. Step three provides the finishing touch by incorporating the causalities into a contingency model. It is likely that the enactment of additional change interventions and tools (the top-down ones) are among the positive moderators. These have to be specified therefore. But there may be other moderators, that are perhaps less related to the orchestrated change process.

Eisenhardt, K.M. & Brown, S.L. 1998. Time pacing: competing in markets that won’t stand still. Harvard Business Review, March-April: 59-69.

“In today’s organizations change is the only constant”. This truism is protocollarized in the change strategy outlined in this publication: time pacing. Time pacing applies to a variety of change content types, such as product renewing, entering new markets and merging. Basically


it consists of the strict standardization of two change elements: rythm and transition (see the publication).The authors are clear in their explanation of the time pacing phenomenon and is effects, but rather sketchy in its elaboration thereof. That is, it does not specifically denote conditions that are needed for realizing time pacing successes. In the discussions devoted to it in the course (the assignments 1 and 2) this gap has to be filled. Three steps have to be taken.First, the essence of the time pacing approach needs to be clarified: what does ‘the strict standardisation of rythm and transition’ mean? Answers to this question can be rather straightforwardly derived from the paper.Second, the types of outcomes of time pacing needs to be specified resulting in a list of mediating and ultimate effects. Partly, this can be distilled from the publication but additional intellectual efforts are needed to come up with a more or less exhaustive list. Course literature in the category ‘effectiveness dimensions’ may be helpful to that end as may be section ‘Evolving from present to future’ of the authors’ additional research paper (see additional literature: Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997). Third, and most importantly, moderating factors have to be incorporated in the model of time pacing outcomes that resulted from steps 1 and 2. This model thus has to be incorporated into a contingency model in order to answer the question: what conditions make time pacing success possible? An exhaustive list of moderators won’t be attainable. The challenge is to highlight a couple of critical factors, which may relate to the change process, the change context or the change content (see course literature in categories 1, about contingency models, and 4, about moderators).

Sirkin, H.L., Keenan, P., & Jackson, A. 2005. The hard side of change management. Harvard Business Review, October: 109-118.

Rather than describing a comprehensive change strategy, the authors highlight four factors that together are claimed to be pivotal for change effectiveness to come about. A little bit enigmatically the factors are labeled ‘duration’, ‘integrity’, ‘commitment’ and ‘effort’. The question to be dealt with in the assignments 1 and 2 is: what is the theory underlying this claim. That is, mediators, ultimate effects, and moderators have to be specified. Three steps have to be taken.First, the essence of the four factors has to be clarified. It is suggested to replace their labels by more comprehensible ones to that end. This can be straightforwardly derived from the paper, but additional insights can be worthwhile, especially from project management literature.Second, the types of outcomes of the application of the four factors combined have to be specified resulting in a list of mediating and ultimate effects. The course literature from the category ‘effectiveness dimensions’ may be helpful to that end.Third, and most importantly, moderating factors have to be incorporated in the theory. An exhaustive list of moderators won’t be attainable. The challenge is to highlight a couple of critical factors. Note that in the paper itself the ‘soft elements of change management’ are referred to as necessary additional factors, that is, as moderators. That is, however, part of the story only. Think of moderators related to the change context and the change content (see course literature in categories 1, about contingency models, and 4, about moderators).


7. OVERVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This section provides an overview of the course’s literature, categorized along the four categories. After the details of each publication a database is mentioned from which this publication can be downloaded. Sometimes it happens that a particular database is not accessible for a period of time; mostly you can then download the concerning article via a different database (or try again later). In case you are not yet well accustomed to searching in literature databases, we strongly advise to follow a course at the university library on this matter.

In the categories 1, 2, and 4, the publications are ordered alphabetically. In category 2, the publications are ordered along the tutorials in which the publications are discussed.

At the end of this section, four additional publications are specified. These articles are to be considered recommended literature. These publications further elaborate on some key notions from the course’s literature and can therefore be used for the paper assignment or they may be helpful to achieve a fuller comprehension of the notions expounded in course’s literature (the categories 1-4 publications). These additional four publications are NOT material for the exam.

Category 1: Contingency models of change management effectiveness

Beer, M. & Nohria, N. 2000. Cracking the code of change. Harvard Business Review, 78:133-141. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Kotter J.P. & Schlesinger, L.A. 2008/1979. Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review, 86:130-139. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Weick, K.E. & Quinn, R.E. 1999. Organizational change and development. Annual Reviews Psychology, 50: 361-386. (downloadable via Web of Science or Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection)

Category 2: Change Strategies

Kotter, J.P. 2007/1995. Leading Change. Why Transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 85:96-103. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Burnes, B. 2004. Emergent change and planned change – competitors or allies? The case of XYZ construction. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24: 886-902. (downloadable via Web of Science or Emerald)

Bruch, H. & Sattelberger, T. 2001. The turnaround at Lufthansa: learning from the change process. Journal of Change Management, 1: 344-363. (Business Source Premier)

Eisenhardt, K.M. & Brown, S.L. 1998. Time pacing: competing in markets that won’t stand still. Harvard Business Review, 76: 59-69. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Sirkin, H.L., Keenan, P., & Jackson, A. 2005. The hard side of change management. Harvard Business Review, 84:109-118. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

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Category 3: Effectiveness dimensions

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. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Jones, R.A., Jimmieson, N.L. & Griffiths A. 2005. The impact of organizational culture and reshaping capabilities on change implementation success: the mediating role of readiness for change. Journal of Management Studies. 42: 361-386. (downloadable via Business Source Premier)

Rafferty A.E. & Simons R.H., 2006. An examination of the antecedents of readiness for fine-tuning and corportate transformation changes. Journal of Business and Psychology. 20:325-350. (downloadable via Web of Science)

Szabla D.B. 2007. A multidimensional view of resistance to organizational change: exploring cognitive, emotional, and intentional responses to planned change across perceived change leadership strategies. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 18:525-558. (downloadable via Business Source Premier)

Category 4: Moderators of change effectiveness

Gilley, A., Dixon, P. & Gilley, J.W. 2008. Characteristics of leadership effectiveness: implementing change and driving innovation in organizations. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 19: 153-169. (downloadable via Business Source Premier)

Lines, R. 2007. Using power to install strategy: the relationships between expert power, position power, influence tactics and implementation success. Journal of Change Management, 7: 143-170. (downloadable via Business Source Premier)

Self, D.R., Armenakis, A.A., & Schraeder, M., 2007. Organziational change content, process, and context: A simultaneous analysis of employee reactions. Journal of Change Management. 7:211-229. (downloadable via Business Source Premier).

Five additional publications (is not Exam material!)

Brown, S.L. & Eisenhardt, K.M. 1997. The art of continuous change: Linking complexity theory and time-paced evolution in relentlessly shifting organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 1-34. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier)

Burnes, B. 2004. Kurt Lewin and the planned approach to change: a re-appraisal. Journal of Management Studies, 41: 978-1002. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier).

Orlikowski, W.J. 1996. Improvising organizational transformation over time: a situated change perspective. Information Systems Research, 7: 63-92. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier).

Van de Ven, A.H. & Sun, K. 2011. Breakdowns in implementing models of organization change. Academy of Management Perspectives. 25: 58-74. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier).

Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M. & Obstfeld, D. 2005. Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16: 409-421. (downloadable via Web of Science or Business Source Premier).


APPENDIX. Assessment form for assignment 2 (paper) and to be used for assignment 3ASSESSMENT FORM

Theories of Organizational Change, 2011-2012

Student 1 :Number :

Student 2 :Number :

Student 3:Number:

Grade : …………… Date : ………….………..Assessor(s) Name(s)…………………Assessor(s) Stud. Nr(s)…………………

Elements of the paper Criteria Assessment

Introduction / Starting point / Methodological Note

a) There is a clear, precise and concise ‘summary’ of (at least) one of the change strategies.

b) It is clearly explicated how this sets the focus of the paper.

c) The paper’s focus is expressed in a clearly formulated research objective and research question, and if necessary including a coherent set of sub-questions.

d) The (methodological) setup of the paper is clearly explained.Contingency analysis a) Discusses in a clear, concise and correct way a (number of

contingency) factor(s) in relation to the change strategy chosen.

b) Discusses in a clear, concise and grounded way how these contingency factors might affect the effectiveness of the change strategy.

Case example a) The case discussed fits the paper’s objective and/or analysis.

b) The role of the case within the paper is clearly explicated.

Conclusion (and discussion)

a) Interestingness (in relation to the contingency analysis): does it shed new light on change theory, on change practice.

b) Relevance of conclusions: conclusions are related to objective and research question(s).

c) Grounded conclusions: conclusions are based on literature analysis and case example exposed.

Quality of reporting, usage of literature and formal aspects

a) Clarity of expression (fluency of written style) and composition of the text as a whole.

b) There is an adequate abstract covering the entire paper.

c) Correct and consistent way of using the AMJ style guide (incl. citating and referencing).

d) Selected literature is relevant: it fits the paper’s objective and analysis.

e) The amount of literature is sufficient.

f) There is an adequate front page.

g) Length, language errors, typo’s.

--: very poorly done- : poorly done± : just acceptable+ : well done++ : very well done

110901.theories of org.change.course manual

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