Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore how to manage the potential challenges organizations may face in the consolidation phase, and in order to achieve this, potential challenges need to be identified. Methodology: The research has been performed through an abductive case study method to the subject of change management. The empirical data was gathered from semistructured interviews conducted at an international company, Company X, primarily from the electronic commerce department. The authors used a thematic analysis inspired by Boyatzis (1998) when analyzing the data. Research Limitation: Due to the limited amount of time, the research is limited to only embrace the consolidation phase of an organizational change process. The case study includes 10 interviews from one organization, which will limit the research. The authors apply anonymity due to the company's desire; however, it is also done in order to protect the respondents from any possible harm that might derive from this study (Waldorf,2006). Theoretical Perspective: Literature covering different but highly related areas of change management, and its relation to the consolidation phase constitutes the theoretical foundation of the thesis. Results: The authors identified four potential challenges when consolidating change; communication, prioritize consolidation, policies and employee involvement. Conclusion: In order for organizations to successfully manage the four identified challenges they have to increase the flow of communication, prioritize the consolidation phase, and thereby also allocate resources, which enables the employees to consolidate changes, set up clear policies for the consolidation phase and involve the employees within all levels, in order to increase the employee motivation.

Organisational change, particularly turnaround strategies have always been perceived differently, and received with mixed feelings by employees. The primary aim of this research was to explore the perceptions of SABC employees about the organisation’s turnaround strategy. The study employed a qualitative research design and conducted semi-structured interviews with ten employees and four key informants from the SABC’s radio-park in Auckland Park. A thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data that was received from the participants. Employees’ perceptions that emerged from a thematic content analysis of the study were, a need to balance organisation’s needs with the needs of all employees, employees’ concerns about their job security, relationships and communication gaps between management and general employees and employees’ different and vague understanding of the turnaround strategy. The main findings of this study were, SABC employees understood and perceived the turnaround strategy to be a cost cutting mechanism by the organisation to reduce its operational costs, the participants also indicated that they did not participate in any decision making regarding the turnaround strategy. The main conclusion drawn from the study is that the SABC should have allowed its employees to fully participate in the entire process of the turnaround strategy and use the strategy as a learning opportunity for its employees.

Rising global competition, the influence of advances in information technology and the financial status of companies are some of the imperatives that force organisations to restructure. In South Africa, the situation is even more compelling, with the recent economic situation of the country that requires companies to implement certain restructuring programmes designed to encourage sustainability organisation. These changes, however, do affect organisations and employees. It becomes critical that organisations implement it carefully, if they are to survive. This research has attempted to explore the relationship between organisational restructuring and the organisational culture at MES. A qualitative research approach was used for this study; a non-probability sampling namely purposive sampling was used for the purpose of this study. The main findings have presented that the organisational restructuring processes at MES have influenced positive organisational culture within the organisa-tion. Communication, interactions and relationships have increased amongst the employees since the organisational restructuring at MES. The research study hopes to influence the policy making processes regarding change and restructuring within MES. The study would contribute towards Occupational Social Work literature on organisational restructuring, organisational culture and Change Management.

Oft wird bei der Digitalisierung und Automatisierung von Arbeitsprozessen übersehen, dass dadurch für die Organisation gravierende Veränderungen angestoßen werden. Dieser Beitrag zeigt auf, dass solche Veränderungen zu einer Inkongruenz zwischen dem "was eine Organisation tut" (Praxis), "was sie kann" (Wissen) und "wer sie ist" (Identität) führen können. Um Veränderungen erfolgreich umzusetzen, müssen diese Inkongruenzen überwunden werden. Wenn Manager sich dessen bewusst sind, können viele Probleme wie z. B. der Zusammenbruch bestehender Routinen, Wissenslücken oder der Abgang von wichtigen Mitarbeitern vorhergesehen und gelöst werden.

The study examines the importance of competitive advantage and change in a dynamic environment. The purpose of the study is to explore how AAI could remain relevant and competitive in the market and examines how regularly changing its approaches to programme delivery could be used to meet needs of the community. The study also focused on the impact of AAI’s pace of change and how the pace impacted on the organization’s effectiveness and quality of programmed delivery. AAI relied on its past successful programmes to address the need of communities in many new countries. However, previously successful programmes did not prove popular when rolled in new markets. AAI programmes are suffering substantial withdrawals from beneficiaries. Beneficiaries are withdrawing from AAI programmes, complaining that the programme delivery approaches were not competitive and innovative. Many new organizations being formed are competing not just for beneficiary markets, but for financial resources (funding), skills and new ideas of delivering programmes. Traditional government type donors are being overtaken by a new crop of donors that is in favour of funding competitive and innovative organizations. Traditional aid organizations are losing market share to smaller agencies. The organizational structure of AAI appears not to support effective and efficient delivery of programmes. With no senior manager at the helm of the department, coordinating activities, sustaining competitive advantage and managing change within the programme department remained a challenge for the organization. A frastruated staff compliments exacerbated the situation. Employee turnover at the key and tactical levels resulted in the department operating without adequate staff and key personnel. This made coordination and cooperation amongst units very difficult. Various programme units operated in silos and mixed messages were sent to community resulting in the community being unhappy with AAI. Community felt that AAI did not consult with them when deciding on how to meet their needs. Community members felt that AAI was taking unilateral decisions and did not care about their feedback and the quality of the programmes delivered. This study further examines how AAI has suffered due to its inability to respond to the needs of community and its failure to adapt to the changing business environment. It reveals how innovation and adaptability is critical for retaining competitive advantage. It reveals how capabilities once built can be eroded by competition through copying. It concludes by revealing the importance of dynamic capabilities in sustaining competitive advantage as well as the need to change in response to the market. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

Organizational change is undeniably difficult, and change efforts often fail to overcome the status quo processes and routines. By threatening these structures, change becomes an existential danger to organizations, who often respond with significant resistance. Organizations will look to their experiences with past change efforts to inform future changes, limiting the ability of change actors who seek to implement change beyond this narrow scope. The “Heart Failure Lite” model was a change effort that exceeded the scope of previous changes at an organization with deeply embedded routines and processes. This model threatened the traditional revenue streams that had benefited the organization for years. The resistance exhibited by the organization when presented with the change was consistent with the underlying theory. Although change failure is common, proactive efforts on the part of change actors can help break down the organizational barriers. Conceptual models like PARiHS can be utilized to identify the evidence supporting the change, the contextual environment in which the change will be introduced, and the facilitation efforts needed to guide the project to a successful conclusion. The “Heart Failure Lite” team failed to survey the organizational landscape and tailor the project accordingly. Therefore, the change effort failed. Shifting clinical practices toward a population health model presents a unique opportunity for healthcare organizations. A concerted effort from all stakeholders to find common ground will allow change agents to overcome the traditional barriers, and will help organizations to truly transform the delivery of healthcare services.

Outcomes focused education is an educational reform movement that has influenced many countries, including Australia, in recent years. In this study the case of one primary school in Western Australia is examined. The study explores how this single school has implemented an outcomes approach within the context of large-scale jurisdictional change. The research design utilises the qualitative approaches of ethnography and phenomenology to develop a layered case study with the basic unit of analysis being the school site. A number of richly informative case studies, from within this single site, have been developed drawing on data from a broad range of stakeholders including teachers, students, parents and the school’s principal. Departmental and school based documents have also been utilised to inform and guide the development of each case study. Emergent themes with respect to the implementation of educational change have been identified and the implications of these are discussed. At the time of the study the school site was only in its fifth year of operation, and a variety of key factors were identified as having a significant impact on the level of success achieved in implementation. The change management model as used by the school is identified and described, and several critical areas of weakness are revealed. As a result, the study raises critical questions about the effectiveness of the model used by the school and therefore questions the potential for this model to be used successfully in other schools implementing similar pedagogical change.

<p>It seems commonly accepted that today’s competitive environment with changing customer values, the need to introduce products faster, and financial expectations of stockholders demand a change in the old way of doing things.</p><p>In 2003 Dyno Nobel merged with an American company, Ensign Bickford, which had developed very promising results over the last few years. The Ensign Bickford Company had recently received the Szhingo Prize for their excellent implementation of Lean Production (Toyota Production System). It was now decided to implement “Lean” in all of the new Dyno Nobel.</p><p>LEAN is about creating more value for customers by eliminating activities that are considered waste. This implies that any activity that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating customer value is a target for elimination.</p><p>It’s often said that Lean is more a philosophy than it is a system. We need to change the way we think. It’s to continuously improve the way we operate. An endless fight against waste.</p><p>The problem here is how to transform the European part of Dyno Nobel into becoming a “Lean Enterprise”. The objective of this thesis is to develop a change plan (method or model), which can be used as a basis when managing the Lean implementation in this part of Dyno Nobel (in all practical respects we’re actually talking about the Scandinavian part of the company).</p><p>From all available literature, input from other sources as well as advises given by other professionals a transformation or implementation plan (model) has been created. Then some of the theories from the plan have been tested in real life at some pilot areas of the organisation.</p><p>In this study, besides the theories and philosophies around Lean and the Toyota production system itself, the core of the Plan developed has been created around the methodology as outlined by J.P. Kotter in his book "Leading Change" and by the systematic approach to a problem as described by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and the continuous improvement spiral, the PDCA wheel. Dr. Deming's approach is actually said to be the catalyst for the development of the Toyota production system in the first place. The hole spirit of Lean circles around continuous improvements, never to relax and be satisfied, to always strive for improvements and to do so by the “Plan – Do – Check – Act” approach described by Dr. Deming.</p><p>The cases studied here can all be seen as preliminary studies in implementing different parts of the Lean Philosophy in practise. Through Value Stream Mapping of all the major value streams at the company, the cases to study, or rather the cases to start with, where selected.</p><p>Based on the results and the experience gained from those pilot areas the plan have been evaluated and or adjusted. The strategy chosen here was to conduct a survey in literature and mixed also with input from visiting other companies that have conducted similar changes and then create a first version of the Plan. To improve the Plan and to verify the methods some in-house case studies have been conducted.</p><p>A qualitative research approach has been utilised for this study, researching the implications of transforming an organisation to become Lean, in other words to make individuals change behaviour in their interaction with others.</p><p>The essential idea here is that the researcher goes "into the field" to observe the phenomenon in its natural state or in situ. As such, it is most related to the method of participant observations.</p><p>Based on the experiences gained from the cases run, combined with input from literature, the outcome of this study is a plan for how to manage the transformation of a specific company to become a Lean Enterprise that might also be of interest to others considering similar changes in other companies. However, as outlined by the author, an organisation’s culture is unique and the world of commerce is constantly changing, as the circumstances of today may not be relevant in a week or few months time. As a consequence, this plan should not be considered to generally be valid for other companies.</p><p>In short, the conclusion is that change is possible. You need a simple understandable plan, the company top management to lead the way and constant focus.</p>

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2009.

It seems commonly accepted that today’s competitive environment with changing customer values, the need to introduce products faster, and financial expectations of stockholders demand a change in the old way of doing things. In 2003 Dyno Nobel merged with an American company, Ensign Bickford, which had developed very promising results over the last few years. The Ensign Bickford Company had recently received the Szhingo Prize for their excellent implementation of Lean Production (Toyota Production System). It was now decided to implement “Lean” in all of the new Dyno Nobel. LEAN is about creating more value for customers by eliminating activities that are considered waste. This implies that any activity that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating customer value is a target for elimination. It’s often said that Lean is more a philosophy than it is a system. We need to change the way we think. It’s to continuously improve the way we operate. An endless fight against waste. The problem here is how to transform the European part of Dyno Nobel into becoming a “Lean Enterprise”. The objective of this thesis is to develop a change plan (method or model), which can be used as a basis when managing the Lean implementation in this part of Dyno Nobel (in all practical respects we’re actually talking about the Scandinavian part of the company). From all available literature, input from other sources as well as advises given by other professionals a transformation or implementation plan (model) has been created. Then some of the theories from the plan have been tested in real life at some pilot areas of the organisation. In this study, besides the theories and philosophies around Lean and the Toyota production system itself, the core of the Plan developed has been created around the methodology as outlined by J.P. Kotter in his book "Leading Change" and by the systematic approach to a problem as described by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and the continuous improvement spiral, the PDCA wheel. Dr. Deming's approach is actually said to be the catalyst for the development of the Toyota production system in the first place. The hole spirit of Lean circles around continuous improvements, never to relax and be satisfied, to always strive for improvements and to do so by the “Plan – Do – Check – Act” approach described by Dr. Deming. The cases studied here can all be seen as preliminary studies in implementing different parts of the Lean Philosophy in practise. Through Value Stream Mapping of all the major value streams at the company, the cases to study, or rather the cases to start with, where selected. Based on the results and the experience gained from those pilot areas the plan have been evaluated and or adjusted. The strategy chosen here was to conduct a survey in literature and mixed also with input from visiting other companies that have conducted similar changes and then create a first version of the Plan. To improve the Plan and to verify the methods some in-house case studies have been conducted. A qualitative research approach has been utilised for this study, researching the implications of transforming an organisation to become Lean, in other words to make individuals change behaviour in their interaction with others. The essential idea here is that the researcher goes "into the field" to observe the phenomenon in its natural state or in situ. As such, it is most related to the method of participant observations. Based on the experiences gained from the cases run, combined with input from literature, the outcome of this study is a plan for how to manage the transformation of a specific company to become a Lean Enterprise that might also be of interest to others considering similar changes in other companies. However, as outlined by the author, an organisation’s culture is unique and the world of commerce is constantly changing, as the circumstances of today may not be relevant in a week or few months time. As a consequence, this plan should not be considered to generally be valid for other companies. In short, the conclusion is that change is possible. You need a simple understandable plan, the company top management to lead the way and constant focus.