Change Management

---

1. Introduction

• Change Processes: The actions that can assist in organisational transition;
  • what is the role of change processes in e-business?
  • How should new processes be introduced?
  • What are the critical levers for accomplishing the change?
• Change Participants: groups and individuals who should be identified for specific action;
  • who will be affected by change and in what degree?
  • How will groups and individuals respond?
  • How can they be made ready?
• Change Projects: characteristics and requirements of an IS project that should be identified for specific action;
  • what defines a project?
  • What are the critical features within a project?
  • How are requirements to be prioritised?
  • How should resources be allocated to ensure success?

2. What is CHANGE MANAGEMENT

2.1 Resistance to Change

The culture of an organisation is likely to affect how members respond to a proposed IS and the degree of commitment that they show to it once it is implemented.

People whose power in the organisation is threatened by a new system will resist it.

Some existing structures will be more likely than others to encourage people to promote and support a new system.

2.2 The Participants

Various models exist for assessing the role of individuals within a 'system', such as an IS, and within organisations in general.

Implicit in creation of new IS, particularly in the kinds of cases we are considering here (for example: e-business where relationships within firms and between firms change radically), is that job roles change.

This is risky for the individuals concerned and for the organisation if this is not acted on reacted to.

Important research findings in behavioural and industrial psychology can be applied in a change management context to ensure that the needs and goals of participants are acknowledged. Boddy et al (2001) describe the Job Enrichment Model developed by Hackman and Oldman in the 1980's and this model can be considered as a 'job satisfaction' theory.

2.3 Job Enrichment Model

The Job Enrichment Model presents five key job characteristics that have been discovered to be important in the pursuit and achievement of job satisfaction:

• Skill Variety: the extent to which a job makes use of a range of skills and experience
• Task Identity: whether a job involves a relatively complete and whole operation
• Task Significance: how much the job matters to others, or to the wider society
• Autonomy: how much freedom a person has in deciding how to do their work
• Feedback: the extent to which a person receives feedback on performance

Applying the Job Enrichment Model to IS Opportunities is shown in Table 12:

Two main goals of change management as an aspect of strategy implementation:

• How to effect internal change so that the required outward behaviour of the organisation can be achieved
• How to effect internal change so that the long-term benefits outweigh the costs and disruption caused by change

3. Change Management Processes

3.1 Getting Started: Forcefield Analysis

According to Johnson and Scholes (2002) a Forcefield Analysis provides an initial view of change problems that need to be tackled, by identifying forces for and against change.

The following questions can be asked:

• what aspects of the current organisation and its culture might aid change in the desired direction, and how might these be reinforced?
• what aspects of the current organisation and its culture would block such change, and how can these be overcome?
• what needs to be introduced or developed to aid change?

An important point to note about Forcefield Analysis is that its focus is on institutional, group and individual attitudes that might impact on the progress of integrating new technology rather than on any technical difficulties that might be envisaged.  An example of such an analysis is shown in Figure 20:

3.2 Change Styles

According to Johnson and Scholes (2002), change styles - the styles of managing change that might be used by change agents, for example:

• Education & Communication: the explanation of the reasons for and means of strategic change
• Collaboration or Participation: the involvement of those who will be affected by strategic change in the identification of strategic issues, the setting of the strategic agenda, the strategic decision making process and/or the planning of strategic change
• Intervention: the co-ordination of and authority over processes of change by a change agent who nonetheless delegates elements of that change process
• Direction: the use of personal managerial authority to establish a clear future strategy and how change will occur
• Coercion: the imposition of change or the issuing of edicts about change

3.3 Stakeholder Analysis

A full stakeholder analysis, then, would involve the following necessary steps:

• identify stakeholders, pressure groups, interested parties
• assess their commitment
• assess their power to help and hinder change
• assess their interests, what they think and will do about change
• manage relations with them - to gain support, or contain opposition

3.4 Change Management - The Project

Identifying project characteristics is an important part of an IS implementation strategy.

Table 13 presents a framework for assessing the level of risk existing for an IS project by considering seven key features:

The change management team should consider how well the various issues have been catered for and their likely impact in a particular change situation. Each one of the seven identified factors is rated on a scale of 1 (low risk) to 5 (high risk) in order to obtain on overall risk level. A project with a high overall score would be taking place in a volatile environment with extra resources required to ensure successful project completion and long-term integration of the changes into the organisation.

The change management considerations in a project are:

• Identify significant change
• Identify solution type
• The probability of changing goals
• Senior management attitude
• Needs or impacts on outsiders
• Needs or impacts internal changes
• Resistance issues

---

Reference(s)
	Book		Boddy, D. (2004) Managing Projects: Building and Leading the Team. 2nd Edition. Pearson Education: United Kingdom (UK), England, Essex, Harlow. [ISBN: 9780273651284]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3W7jRyp].
	Book		Chaffey, D. & Wood, S. (2004) Business Information Management: Improving Performance Using Information Systems. Financial Times Prentice Hall: United Kingdom (UK), England, Essex, Harlow. [ISBN: 9780273686552]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3yZ6vdF].
	Journal		Henderson, J. C. & Venkatraman, H. (1993) Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations. IBM Systems Journal, Volume: 32, Issue: 1, Page(s): 472-484. [doi: 10.1147/sj.382.0472]. [Available on: IEEE: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5387398].
	Book		Johnson, G., Scholes, K. & Whittington, R. (2007) Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text & Cases with Companion Website Student Access Card: Text and Cases. 8th Edition. Financial Times Prentice Hall: United Kingdom (UK), England, Essex, Harlow. [ISBN: 9780273711926]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3f7sg4u].
	Book		Laudon, K. C. & Laudon, J. P. (2007) Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm. 10th Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall: United States of America (USA), New Jersey (NJ), Bergen, Upper Saddle River. [ISBN: 9780132415798]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3UhgqDH].
	Book		Pearlson, K. E. & Saunders, C. S. (2004) Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach. 5th Edition. John Wiley & Sons: United States of America (USA), New York (NY). [ISBN: 9781118281734]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3TMqOTZ].
	Book		Robson, W. (1997) Strategic Management and Information Systems: An Integrated Approach. 2nd Edition. Pitman: United Kingdom (UK), England, London. [ISBN: 9780273615910]. [Available on: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3EZNmvZ].

---

Reference (or cite) Article
	Kahlon, R. S. (2013) Change Management [Online]. dkode: United Kingdom, England, London. [Published on: 2013-01-24]. [Article ID: RSK666-0000072]. [Available on: dkode | Ravi - https://ravi.dkode.co/2013/01/change-management.html].

---