The strategy and change management fields have developed new perspectives in recent years. Studies show that a high percentage of strategic change efforts fail and it was argued that one problem was the unsuccessful communication of the vision and strategy to employees. This exploratory research studied the use of graphic facilitative methods within the context of an organisation's strategic change process. Phase one of the explorative study was carried out using the combination of interview data, workshops and literature to identify emerging themes and to develop a conceptual model. Phase two of the study was again exploratory but more focused on the themes that had emerged from the preliminary study. Data was collected through interviews, observational methods, survey and a more focused literature review. Through the combined findings of the preliminary and focused study and from the literature, the author established an understanding and theory of how the methods contribute to improved strategy communication. The research has re-enforced the view in literature that the strategy communication process will be more successful by ensuring the strategy is driven by the right people and the strategy development is realistic. The use of graphics, metaphors, stories and dialogue, in combination, can help to improve the strategy communication process by conveying a clear strategic message, by facilitating an interactive strategy communication process, by encouraging communication in an open and safe environment, and because they are new, innovative and different.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, 2008. / Strategic change within an organisation is inevitable. Due to the competitive global landscape, organisations have to continuously adapt their strategies to remain in the market. Strategy change is most often met with resistance, and more so when the change involves downsizing. The effects of downsizing on employee morale, performance and commitment have been studied by numerous authors and a number of models for strategy change implementation consequently suggested. However, South Africa is faced with very particular challenges when dealing with change, including a high level of unemployment, fierce resistance to change in the form of collective action such as strikes, stay-aways or go-slows, political and social transformation happening simultaneously, global competition and the conflict between social and free markets within an emerging economy. Irrespective of the vast amount of international literature available on change management, there is a distinct lack of literature investigating the impact of strategy change in an emerging economy and a knowledge gap in terms of applying existing change theories in non-Western environments. This study was aimed at determining the impact of strategy change, particularly downsizing, on employee morale, performance and commitment at a global South-African based Telecommunication Company. The objectives of the study was to determine whether employees in South Africa are negatively affected by downsizing, and provide useful information to strategic managers in terms of implementation of strategy change in a South African environment. To determine the impact of downsizing as a strategy change, a questionnaire was designed based on the literature review to ascertain responses to three sections of questions, respectively measuring morale, performance and commitment. A sample of the target population was chosen based on their position/ employment type i.e. management, supervisor or general staff. The results of the empirical study revealed some very interesting points. Although all respondents demonstrated optimism in terms of their morale, performance and commitment, it was found that comparatively, managers are more negatively impacted during times of downsizing. The Telecommunication Company’s structured nature, advances in political and social reform, and solid Training and Development policy shielded the employees from the full negative impacts of downsizing because of their positive core self evaluation. The substantial amount of neutral responses (especially under management) indicated that not all respondents revealed their true feelings, a common characteristic amongst collective people. It also surfaced that even though the majority of responses indicated positive morale and performance, most respondents were considering positions outside the organisation. Based on the literature review and results from the empirical investigation, a model was proposed to assist strategic managers in South Africa with change implementation.

Abstract Bachelor Thesis 15hp, Business Program, School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University, Controller, 2FE20E, VT 2018 Title: Implementing a Strategic Change - A Case Study on Visma Spcs Authors: Philip Bergsteinsson, Christoffer Walfridson, Filip Öggesjö Examiner: Elin Funck Tutor: Anders Jerreling Background and problem: Strategy work is a process consisting of two parts, formulation and execution. Companies that execute a strategy change are facing major challenges. Business strategy studies have shown that companies do not achieve their full potential and that there are a number of difficulties in strategy execution. Purpose: The purpose of the essay is to test the model of strategy execution that Kaplan and Norton have created and how it’s followed in an active strategy change. The essay will provide insight into the pitfalls and obstacles of the strategy implementation. Method: The study that has been conducted is a case study of a qualitative nature. The empirical material has been collected by means of semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: Visma Spcs is in the middle of the Vision 2020 process, a strategy change started in 2016. During these years, they have been working hard to formulate, implement, communicate, and get employees to understand Vision 2020 in order for the entire organization to work towards the common goals. The study highlights a number of problems Visma Spcs has with the strategy change, some are part of communication and knowledge about the strategy others are how to work with the process. Kaplan and Norton have created a process in six steps for strategy implementation, a process that, according to the purpose of the paper, is tested in this study. There have been identified some similarities with Visma Spcs strategy implementation and the theory, but also a number of deviations. The main points of the paper's conclusion are that Visma Spcs needs to work more with communication and feedback around Vision 2020. / Sammanfattning Kandidatuppsats 15 HP, Civilekonomprogrammet, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitetet, Controller, 2FE24E, VT 2018 Titel: Att genomföra en strategiförändring - En fallstudie på Visma Spcs Författare: Philip Bergsteinsson, Christoffer Walfridson, Filip Öggesjö Examinator: Elin Funck Handledare: Anders Jerreling Bakgrund och problem: Strategiarbete är en process som består av två delar, formulering och genomförande. Företag som genomför en strategiförändring står inför stora utmaningar. Studier inom företagsstrategi har visat att företag inte uppnår sin fulla potential och att det finns en rad hinder och svårigheter vid strategigenomförande. Syfte: Uppsatsens syfte är att testa den modell för strategigenomförande som Kaplan och Norton har skapat samt hur den efterföljs i en aktiv strategiförändring. Uppsatsen ska vidare bidra med insikt i strategigenomförandets fallgropar och hinder. Metod: Studien som genomförts är en fallstudie av kvalitativ karaktär. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Slutsats: Visma Spcs är mitt uppe i processen Vision 2020, en strategiförändring som tog fart 2016. De har under dessa åren arbetat flitigt med att formulera, implementera, kommunicera och få medarbetare att förstå Vision 2020 för att hela organisationen ska arbeta mot de gemensamma målen. Studien visar och belyser ett antal problem Visma Spcs har med strategiförändringen, några är en del av kommunikation och kännedom kring strategin andra är hur man arbetat med processen. Kaplan och Norton har skapat en process i sex steg för strategigenomförande, en process som enligt uppsatsens syfte testas i den här studien. Det har identifierats en del likheter med Visma Spcs strategigenomförande och teorin men även en hel del avvikelser. De viktigaste punkterna i uppsatsens slutsats är att Visma Spcs behöver arbeta mer med kommunikation och återkoppling kring Vision 2020.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, 2008. / Strategic change within an organisation is inevitable. Due to the competitive global landscape, organisations have to continuously adapt their strategies to remain in the market. Strategy change is most often met with resistance, and more so when the change involves downsizing. The effects of downsizing on employee morale, performance and commitment have been studied by numerous authors and a number of models for strategy change implementation consequently suggested. However, South Africa is faced with very particular challenges when dealing with change, including a high level of unemployment, fierce resistance to change in the form of collective action such as strikes, stay-aways or go-slows, political and social transformation happening simultaneously, global competition and the conflict between social and free markets within an emerging economy. Irrespective of the vast amount of international literature available on change management, there is a distinct lack of literature investigating the impact of strategy change in an emerging economy and a knowledge gap in terms of applying existing change theories in non-Western environments. This study was aimed at determining the impact of strategy change, particularly downsizing, on employee morale, performance and commitment at a global South-African based Telecommunication Company. The objectives of the study was to determine whether employees in South Africa are negatively affected by downsizing, and provide useful information to strategic managers in terms of implementation of strategy change in a South African environment. To determine the impact of downsizing as a strategy change, a questionnaire was designed based on the literature review to ascertain responses to three sections of questions, respectively measuring morale, performance and commitment. A sample of the target population was chosen based on their position/ employment type i.e. management, supervisor or general staff. The results of the empirical study revealed some very interesting points. Although all respondents demonstrated optimism in terms of their morale, performance and commitment, it was found that comparatively, managers are more negatively impacted during times of downsizing. The Telecommunication Company’s structured nature, advances in political and social reform, and solid Training and Development policy shielded the employees from the full negative impacts of downsizing because of their positive core self evaluation. The substantial amount of neutral responses (especially under management) indicated that not all respondents revealed their true feelings, a common characteristic amongst collective people. It also surfaced that even though the majority of responses indicated positive morale and performance, most respondents were considering positions outside the organisation. Based on the literature review and results from the empirical investigation, a model was proposed to assist strategic managers in South Africa with change implementation.

Übung beeinflusst nicht nur wie sondern auch welche Information verarbeitet wird. Die bisherige Forschung zur Informationsreduktion (Haider & Frensch, 1996) hat die Wichtigkeit des letzteren Aspektes für den kognitiven Fertigkeitserwerb herausgearbeitet. Informationsreduktion tritt in Situationen auf, in denen Aufgaben sowohl relevante als auch irrelevante Information enthalten. Informationsreduktion stellt einen Strategiewechsel dar, bei dem ein Übergang von einer Strategie, die das Prozessieren aller Elemente einer Aufgabe beinhaltet, hin zu einer Strategie, bei der nur die relevanten Elemente prozessiert werden, stattfindet. Einerseits wurde in vielen Kontexten (z.B. Psychologie der Mensch-Maschine Interaktion, Pädagogische-, und Sport-Psychologie) beobachtet, dass Menschen dazu neigen, irrelevante Information nach mehrfacher Darbietung zu ignorieren. Andererseits ist sowohl hinsichtlich der theoretischen Auseinandersetzung mit Strategiewechsel im kognitiven Fertigkeitserwerb, als auch aus praktischer Sicht nicht genügend geklärt, wie Informationsreduktion stattfindet und welche Faktoren fördernd bzw. hemmend wirken. In der hier zusammengefassten Forschung, hatten Probandinnen und Probanden die Aufgabe zu prüfen, ob alphanumerische Zeichenketten dem Alphabet folgen oder nicht. Die Zeichenketten bestanden aus zwei Teilen. Einer der beiden Teile war immer korrekt und daher letztlich irrelevant. Da verschiedene Zeichenketten unterschiedlich oft pro Übungsblock präsentiert wurden, konnte ermittelt werden, ob Informationsreduktion Item-spezifisch oder Item-generell stattfindet. Die Frage ist also, ob die Versuchspersonen den irrelevanten Teil für jede Zeichenkette einzeln zu ignorieren lernen, oder aber die Fertigkeit zum Ignorieren des irrelevanten Teiles auf einmal für alle Zeichenketten erwerben. Letzteres traf zu, Informationsreduktion fand Item-generell statt. Die Befunde sind inkonsistent mit der Annahme dass Strategiewechsel im Allgemeinen und Informationsreduktion im Besonderen, ausschließlich durch Item-spezifische, datengetriebene Lernprozesse erklärbar sind und willkürliche Entscheidungen beim Strategiewechsel folglich keine Rolle spielen. Statt dessen deuten die Daten (Reaktionszeiten, Fixationen, Transfer-Fehler) darauf hin, dass Strategiewechsel top-down moduliert sind. / Practice not only affects how but also which information is processed. Past research on Information Reduction (Haider & Frensch, 1996) has underscored the importance of the latter aspect for cognitive skill acquisition. Information Reduction applies in situations in which tasks contain both relevant and irrelevant information, and denotes a change from a strategy involving processing all elements of a task to a processing-relevant-elements-only strategy. On the one hand, it has been repeatedly observed in a broad range of contexts (e.g., human-machine interaction, educational and sports psychology) that people tend to ignore irrelevant information after repeated exposure. On the other hand, both from the perspective of theories on skill acquisition and for practical concerns, it is not sufficiently understood how Information Reduction takes place and which factors foster or impede it. In the research presented here, participants had the task to verify whether or not alphanumeric strings followed the alphabetical order. These strings were a compound of two parts, one of which was always correct and thus effectively irrelevant. As the different strings were repeated at different rates per practice block, it could be tested whether people learn to ignore irrelevant aspects of a task string by string or rather once and for all strings. Information Reduction was item-general rather than item-specific. The data are inconsistent with the view that strategy change in general, and Information Reduction in particular, is exclusively based on item-specific data-driven learning processes, bare of the involvement of a voluntary decision. Rather, RTs, fixations, and transfer errors indicated that strategy change entails top-down modulation.

Background: Understanding the process of strategy change offers a unique insight into the functioning of an enterprise. While well-researched in the context of Western private firms, this process has attracted relatively little attention in state-owned Chinese enterprises. A research on this topic is particularly pertinent today, when many Chinese state-owned enterprises have attracted attention of international investors and the Covid-19 pandemic situation has created unprecedented challenges for daily operations of enterprises.  Purpose: In order to understand the process strategy change, this research has focused on the elements of the strategy change process and the role of institutional pressures in it on an example of China Eastern airline: a state-owned listed enterprise in China.  Method: This is a qualitative case study based on 7 semi-structured interviews with the employees of China Eastern Airlines. A thematic analysis is used for analyzation of the primary data. Findings/Conclusion: This research has confirmed the presence of concurrent processes of planned and emergent strategy change processes and the impactful role of normative and coercive pressures in the processes of change. Several deviations from the previous theories of strategy change were detected and attributed to the differences in national and organizational culture. The findings of this research confirm the general similarity of the process of strategy change during and outside crisis and highlight the potential cultural differences in strategy change in Western and Chinese firm.

A recurring theme in the cognitive development literature is the notion that people restructure their task knowledge as they develop increasingly sophisticated strategies. A large body of empirical literature spanning several domains suggests that in some cases, the process of knowledge restructuring is best characterized by a process of sequentially replacing old strategies with newer ones. In other cases, restructuring appears to be better characterized as a process involving changes in the way partial knowledge elements are selectively applied to a task. Critically, the former, but not the latter position, suggests that it may be quite difficult for people to revert to using an old strategy after restructuring has already occurred. The three experiments reported herein suggest that knowledge restructuring observed in experimental settings is aptly characterized by a process of strategy retention. Specifically, people are shown to readily revert to using an old categorization strategy even after demonstrably having restructured their knowledge, suggesting that knowledge is best conceptualized as having a heterogeneous structure. Formal modeling further supports this interpretation of the empirical results, and highlights the important role of selective attention in determining the manifest response strategy. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of an overarching mixture-of-experts framework of knowledge representation.

Abstrakt Bakgrund: Bilindustrin står i dagsläget mitt i en omstrukturering av marknaden, där ansvar för produktion av detaljer förflyttas från biltillverkarna till underleverantörerna. Med denna omstrukturering följer högre krav på kvalitetsnivå och kostnadspress som underleverantörerna måste förhålla sig till. Fallföretaget (Företag X) gjorde cirka 2015 en strategiförändring från att enbart tillverka detaljer till reservdelsmarknaden (eftermarknad) till att även producera till nybilsmarknaden (serieproduktion) där målet var att skapa tillväxt och lönsamhet. Efter strategiförändringen har Företag X vuxit snabbt, men samtidigt har lönsamheten sjunkit till att 2018 vara obefintlig. Affärerna som upphandlas uppvisar positiva marginaler, vilket skapar förvirring i företaget om orsakerna bakom de finansiella prestationerna. Någonstans i deras processer sker något som styrningen inte fångar eller förvarnar om.   Syfte: Syftet med studien är att kartlägga strategiförändringen, implementeringen och Företag X:s styrning för att skapa en ökad förståelse för hur styrning kan stödja en strategiförändring från eftermarknad till att även inkludera serieproduktion. Vidare skall studien bidra med rekommendationer för kritiska egenskaper i styrningen som behöver fokuseras på i samband med en strategiförändring. Ett bidrag skapas även genom att avbilda den resa Företag X har genomgått och vilka utmaningar den har bidragit med.   Metod: Studien grundas i en fallstudie på Företag X, där en växling mellan referensramen och den empiriska insamlingen har nyttjats för att möjliggöra en justering av referensramen för att matcha studiens riktning. Genom att använda metoderna kunde vi uppfylla syftet med studien och därmed skapa ett relevant, teoretiskt bidrag till forskningen.   Resultat: Företag X:s styrning fångar inte beslutsrelevant information och därmed skapas en problematik i företaget. De måste förtydliga styrningen utefter de rekommendationer som delges. Vidare är de kritiska egenskaperna som behöver fokuseras på i styrningen: stödjande, signalerande, diagnostiserande, säkerställande, informationsspridande och motivationsskapare. / Abstract Background: The automobile industry is currently experiencing a reconstructuring of the market, where the responsibility of detail production is transferred between the car manufacturers to their subcontractors. The transference of responsibility also includes an increase in demand from the car manufacturers to the subcontractors to deliver higher quality products at a low cost. The case company (Company X) changed their strategy 2015 to include new car manufacturing in their already existing spare-part production with the intention to create growth and profitability. After the strategic change Company X has grown rapidly, but at the same time profitability has decreased and 2018 the profitability was non-existent. The business agreements show positive margins, which creates confusion in the company about is causing the decrease in financial performance. Somewhere in their processes something is happening that the management control systems aren’t capturing or warn about.        Purpose: The purpose of the study is to map the strategy change, implementation and Company X's management control to create an increased understanding of how management control can support a strategy change from only producing spare-parts to also include manufacturing of new cars. Furthermore, the study will contribute with recommendations for critical features of management control that needs to be focused upon during strategic change. A contribution is also created by depicting the journey that Company X has undergone and what challenges it has contributed with.   Method: The study is based on a case study of Company X, where an iteration between the reference frame and the empirical collection took place to enable an adjustment of the reference frame to match the direction of the study. By utilizing the methods, we were able to fulfill the purpose of the study and thereby create a relevant, theoretical contribution to the research.   Conclusion: Company X's management control does not capture decision-relevant information and thus problems are created within the organization. They ought to change their management control in accordance to the recommendations. Furthermore, the critical features that need to be focused on are: supportive, signaling, diagnosing, securing, information spreading and motivation creator.