Managing Deviant Behavior and Resistance to Change - Case Study Example

Organisational Development and Change: A case Study of Dryburgh Footwear Name: University: Course Title: Instructor: Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents i List of Figures i 1.0 Introduction 1 2.0 Background Information 1 3.0 The Development/Change Plan and Process 2 3.1 Problem Diagnosis 2 3.2 Approaching the Change Task 4 3.3 Planned Change Process 6 3.3.1 Stage of Unfreeze 6 3.3.2 Stage of Change 6 3.3.3 Stage of Refreeze 9 3.4 Handling of Communication 10 3.5 Evaluating change Effort and Learn from Unanticipated Outcomes 11 4.0 Conclusion 11 List of Figures Figure 1: Conceptualisation of organisational problem at Dryburgh Footwear 3 Figure 2: Marvin Weibord’s organisational change 4 Figure 3: Kotter's eight-step change management model 8 Figure 4: Framework on the Planned Change 8 Figure 5: Model of Positive Employees and Positive Organizational Change 10 1.0 Introduction The current business environment is highly competitive and highly dynamic. This implies that management has to constantly realign their internal strategies so as to enhance their competitiveness and success so as to allow the stay afloat. On the contrary an organisation that is not able to adopt and adopt to change is likely to grow to extinction. However, implementing change is not an easy process since people are not sure what stake is in for them and the consequences. Dryburgh Footwear used to be one of the dominant footwear firms. However, as result of sticking to old methodologies and systems (failure to embrace change) drove them to loss making outfit because of high level of absenteeism and turnover. The aim of this paper is to develop a plan for organisational development and change using the case study of Dryburgh Footwear as outlined by Deery (1995). 2.0 Background Information Getting information on mission, vision and organisational structure that is up to date about Dryburgh Footwear proved challenging. Therefore, to develop background information, the paper relies on the information provided by Deery (1995). Dryburgh Footwear a family owned business established in early 1950s under the context of high tariff formulated to protect domestic Australian industries was acquired by Imperial Enterprise in 1971 to constitute one of the seven operating business units of this multinational British Company. While the firm experienced some strenuous years in 1975-76 and 1981-82, the firm had a modest return on investment. However, the slump came in 1986 with the scaling down the tariff allowing imports to flood Australian market and making it difficult for the local firm to invest in new technologies because of reduced sales and profits. The firm strategy exhibited by the firm was to be a market follower where they imitated expensive European models by reproducing a cheaper version (Deery, 1995, p.244). This shows lack of authenticity. The method of production was simple and not up to date. In this regard and owing to their bonus scheme, employees were not assigned one workstation leading reduced productivity. This coupled with the unwillingness of management to embrace new management systems, the two lead to high employee absenteeism and turnover (Deery, 1995, p.245). 3.0 The Development/Change Plan and Process 3.1 Problem Diagnosis The greatest organisational problem bewildering Dryburgh Footwear leading to reduced competitiveness is the low morale among employees. The rationale for this argument is anchored on the fact that the firm is experiencing high number of employee turnover and absenteeism as a symptom (Deery, 1995, p.242-245). Since morale is measured through expectations, most employees interviewed presented a grim picture of how the organisation was meeting the monetary and psychosocial needs (Deery, 1995, p.248-249). To qualify this statement, Income Data Service (2005 cited in McLean, 2007, p.393) postulates that high level of employee absence can be an indication of low morale among employees. Indeed, there are various pointers towards the low morale. For instance the first cluster relates to the authoritative leadership style which has killed willingness for the employees to contribute new ideas since the general manager would stifle such attempts. Additionally, the employment relations and reward & performance management adopted by the firm is contributing to the same since the reward does not address team work (Deery, 1995, p.244-245). Hence, all these causes can be summarised as being caused by poor or out of context management, leadership styles and human resource practices. The second cluster of causes relates to the production system. In certain circumstance the firm has a facet of outdated production system that does not contribute towards efficiency, but towards low morale. The next is the bias application of the new production system known as Just-in-Time production (JIT). While this is a noble programme, how it has been implemented has resulted into a divided workforce with those not working under JIT seeing themselves as being discriminated at therefore, making them be absent and voluntarily leave the employment thus pointing towards low morale among employees as the most pressing organisational problem facing Dryburgh Footwear (Deery, 1995, p.244-246). These causes can be summarised as outdated production system and poor implementation of new production system. Figure 1: Conceptualisation of organisational problem at Dryburgh Footwear Source: Author, 2013 3.2 Approaching the Change Task As already established in the diagnosis stage, the organisational problem that should be addresses is the low morale among employees which leads to high turnover of employees. To address this problem, the prudent approach is to address the causes and not symptom identified in figure 1 above. The approach I intend to give is anchored on organisational change as envisioned by Marvin Weibord’s (1976) Model which is grounded on six variables. These are purposes, structure, rewards, helpful mechanisms, relationships, and leadership (Palmer, Dunford & Akin 2009). Figure 2: Marvin Weibord’s organisational change Source: Weibord 1976 In the first step I will establish the kind of business the firm is in. secondly, I will try to determine how the firm allocates work to various department and employees. Thirdly, I will aim at establishing how the employees are rewarded based on how work is divided. In the fourth cycle, I will asses if there are any helpful mechanism that aid in coordinating technologies such as JIT. The fifth is how the firm is managing relationship among employees and between employees and management through various human resource practices and human relations approaches. Lastly, I will outline the adequacy or inadequacy of leadership in coordinating all the five functions named earlier. 3.3 Planned Change Process 3.3.1 Stage of Unfreeze To implement the above proposal I will follow a three step of implementing change proposed by Lewin. These include unfreezing stage, stage of change and stage of refreeze. Unfreezing stage entails setting the agenda and showing the urgency for the need for organisational change so as to keep the organisation afloat. This will involve shaking people out of the comfort zone be it from management or employees. For managers the option would be to adopt more friendly approaches to management while for employees it would be to adapt to new trends in production and adhere to guidelines for improved pay. This is greatly linked with the diagnosis stage and approach to the change task. 3.3.2 Stage of Change The change process to be employed would be a gradual planned change so as to reduce fatigue associated with change and psychological resistance to change (Eisenbach, Watson and Pillai, 1999, p.81). Organisational culture change and transformational leadership as the main grounding premise for driving change will allow for creation of new ways of operation and instil high levels of motivation leading to high morale and thus, reduced employee turnover. The frameworks of organisational change that will inform the whole process include the model proposed by Rowe et al. (1994) which analyses culture in terms of risk taking and being responsive to change. The second one is based on flexibility and team work as postulated by Hellriegel et al. (2004). The third is the model developed by Harrison and Stokes (1992). This analyses culture in terms of power relations and bureaucracy. Under culture change, one aspect of culture to be changed is the production approaches at the company. As seen in figure 1, the production approach is outdated or where modernised it was implemented wrongly. In the new culture change I will initiate new production process having in mind that this is capital invest that its return might not be realised presently, but would lead to increase in production possibility and thus a comparative advantage. Under this approach, JIT would be introduced in all aspects of operation. The other way of improving on morale by addressing the causes so as to reduce absenteeism and turn over under organisational culture change is through leadership and effective followership. This will entail not only addressing economic needs of employees, but also their psychosocial need through a relationship based approach/ interpersonal skills so as to align their output with organisational goals and not through stick and carrot as envisioned in Taylor’s approach to management thereby leading to motivation and team work and thus, enhanced productivity (Bolden et al, 2003, p.12-13; Pindur, Rogers and Kim, 1995, p.65). Hence this addresses problems of autocratic leadership. To address problem of poor leadership I will intent to employ other approaches such capacity building; team building. Equally to address poor human resource practices, I intend to implement pluralist industrial relation for enhanced bargain and performance & total reward management. To attain the above desires, 2-6 steps in Kotter’s eight-step change management model comes into play. In first instance I will ensure there is powerful change group that can guide change especially among the top level management. This is followed by establishing avision for change which is to increase employees; morale by motivating the them so as to reduce absenteeism and turnover. The third role would be to constantly communicate this vision followed by capacity development to empower staff so as to reduce resistance. Lastly, I will aim at ensuring there are short term wins by showing the staff and management the beauty of this change so that they can support the whole process to be consolidated in all organisational process. Figure 3: Kotter's eight-step change management model Source: Kotter, 1995 Figure 4: Framework on the Planned Change Source: Author 2013 3.3.3 Stage of Refreeze This is the stage where the organisation will take a new shape. In the process, business operations, processes as well as rules are revised; some lines of products are dropped while others are introduced; new equipments replace old ones; and adjustments are performed on the workforce depending on both the external and internal conditions (Agboola and Salawu, 2011). For instance, the firm will holistically employ JIT, reward will be not only be based on individual output, but also team work so as to encourage synergy. Innovative ideas are to be rewarded. The new managers or those to be retained have to adopt transformational leadership and effective followership as the theme of management as means of motivating employees so to increase morale and reduce absenteeism. The ultimate end is to embed the whole process into the organisational culture. 3.4 Handling of Communication Communication is an integral feature in reducing change failures. In order to create readiness and implement the interventions identified above, I will rely on two principles of communication. The first is the target group-specific communication and situation oriented communication (Wagner, 2006, p.45-46). Under the first principle, I will assess the group needs so as to tailor communication needs according to “their tolerance for change, degree of agreement with change initiative, need for communication and preferred communication activities for receiving the information” (Wagner, 2006, p.45). For situation- oriented communication the realisation would be on the fact that communication needs are anchored on situations (Wagner, 2006, p.46). Figure 5 below represents a model of the association existing between positive employees and positive change in the organization that communication can help attain. Figure 5: Model of Positive Employees and Positive Organizational Change Source: Avey, Wersing and Luthans, 2008. From the above, the handling of communication would seek to attain two objectives. the first is to change employee attitude and secondly to change employee behaviours. In handling the communication and readiness the aim would be to communicate positive emotion among employees and management. This will empower me to enhance employee attitude towards the organisation by reducing cynicism while encouraging engagement. This in turn will help in improving motivation and reduced turnovber. Equally a positive changes employee behaviour to the positive side. This is critical in building organisational citizenship while reducing deviance. Once the two are established, they will be integral in enhancing employee productivity and thus, the required change that will lead to organisational success. 3.5 Evaluating change Effort and Learn from Unanticipated Outcomes Change effort can either be successful or lead to failure. The realisation that most change process do not lead to success prompts for ways of evaluating the change process (Eisenbach, Watson and Pillai, 1999). The ultimate measurement of change success is the brand equity in terms of brand recognition. If the sales improve leading to improved profitability then there is enough belief that the change had a real impact. Other measurable deliverables are reduced employee turnover and improved employment relation between management between employees and management. 4.0 Conclusion The ultimate focus of this paper of this paper was to develop a plan for organisational development and change using the case study of Dryburgh Footwear as outlined by Deery . the paper was divided into two main section. The first section outlined the background information about the company. The second section analysed five important aspects. These include problem diagnosis, approaching the task, planning for change, managing communication and evaluating the impact/ success of the change change. References Agboola, A. A. and Salawu, R. O. (2011). Managing Deviant Behavior and Resistance to Change. International Journal of Business and Management, 6(1), 235-242. Avey, J. B., Wernsing, T. R. & Luthans, F. (2008). Can Positive Employees Help Positive Organizational Change? Impact of Psychological Capital and Emotions on Relevant Attitudes and Behaviours. The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 44(1), 48–70. Bolden, R., Gosling, J., Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. (2003). A review of leadership theory and competency frameworks. Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter. Deery, S .J. (1995). Absenteeism and employee turnover: Dryburgh Footware Company, in Organisational change strategies: Case studies of human resource and industrial relations issues, ed.M. Patrickson, V. Bamber, & G.J. Bamber, Longman, Melbourne, Chapter 21, pp. 240-250. Eisenbach, R. Watson, K. and Pillai, R. (1999). Transformational leadership in the context of organisational change. Journal of Organisational Change Management, 12(2), 80-88. Harrison, R., and Stokes, H. (1992). Diagnosing Organisational Culture. New York: Pfeiffer and Company. Hellriegel, D., Jackson, S.E., Slocum, J., Staude, G., Amos, T., Klopper, H.B., Louw, L., and Oosthuizen, T. 2004. Management (2nd South African ed). Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa. Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67. McLean, A. D. B. (2007). The management of absence: why it matters: An analysis of absence management issues, with a case study based in a UK academic library. Library Management, 29(4/5), 392- 413. Palmer, I., Dunford, R. & Akin, G. (2009). Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach, McCraw-Hill/Irwin, New York. Pindur, W., Rogers, S. E. and Kim, P. S. (1995). The history of management: a global perspective. Journal of Management History,1 (1), 59-77. Rowe, A.J., Mason, R.O., Dickel, K.E., Mann, R.B., and Mockler, R.J. (1994). Strategic Management: A methodological approach (4th ed). New York: Addison-Wesley. Wagner, E. (2006). Effective communication during planned change: an evaluation from the recipients' perspective (Doctoral dissertation, Oxford Brookes University). Weisbord, M. R. (1976). Organizational Diagnosis: Six Places to Look for Trouble with or Without a Theory. Group and Organization Studies, vol.1, pp.430-47. Read More