Change cannot be avoided in any organization. In the current organizational setting, influenced by the rapidly changing technology, the need to manage change has been even more pressing than before. Although organizations set to manage change in order to realize positive results, there has been indications in many organizations that the attempt to introduce change has not been successful in many attempts. Although many frameworks have been put forward to guide change implementation, they have ended up confusing organizational managers and change leaders, leading to undesirable results in the cases of change management (Austine & Clastine, 2008). Similarly, organizational dynamics, or rather organizational behavior patterns have been playing the center stage in influencing the implementation of change in an organization (Todmen, 2005). With such facts, it is evidently clear that one cannot ignore organizational dynamics if they have to implement change successfully in an organization. For a successful introduction of change in an organization, one ought to consider organizational dynamics fully, and not the aspects as separate parts of an organization (Department of Speech Communication., 2004; Roxana & Virgil, 2012). For example, one cannot ignore the leadership aspect of organizational dynamics and concentrate on an aspect like culture alone. Such will be a path towards the failure of change implementation.

In the light of organizational dynamics, this essay analyzes the statement: “changing an organization is as messy as it is exhilarating, as frustrating as it is satisfying, as muddling-through and creative a process as a rational one.” To critically analyze this statement, the paper uses ABC Travel Agency to portray how the organization handled change in relation to market expansion and operational changes. Organizational culture is one of the aspects of organizational dynamics that influences organizational change (Loy-Chin, 2003; Tsai, 2011). In lieu of this, the essay looks at the organizational culture of ABC Travel Agency, and how it affected the implementation of change in relation to market expansion and operational changes, determining whether the change was messy, exhilarating, satisfying, frustrating, muddling-through or creative.

History of the ABC Travel Agency and the Expansion Change Strategy

The ABC Travel Agency started its operations in California, in the United States of America. It had flights to Europe and a few Asian countries. The company had its employees drawn mainly from the countries it operated. Five years ago, ABC Travel Agency decided to expand its services to Africa, and to introduce some operational changes geared towards improved performance of the organization. The plan was drawn, and the ABC Travel Agency started flights in a few West African Countries. After two years of flights in a few of Western African countries, which was to act as pilot projects, the ABC travel Agency did an evaluation and found that it was performing poorly in the African countries in which it had ventured. In addition, the proposed operational changes had not augured well with the employees, and the results were not impressing. The results of the evaluation showed that the company had failed to maximize the utilization of the opportunity it had in the African countries. The organization’s management highly suspected the influence of organizational culture in this failure since they had affected the Agency’s employee base by incorporating many Africans to reflect multi-diversity in preparations for launching flights in Africa. As a measure of strategic planning and change management, the management of the company decided to conduct the Integrated Cultural Framework (ICF) survey (Malinger, Goodwin & O’Hara, 2009; Lucas & Kline, 2008) to determine the influence of culture in the implementation of the said change in their organization. The ICF results were as follows:

a)      The results showed that the employees of the ABC Travel Agency had little ability in terms of skills of proposing and implementing change in the organization. Todmen (2005) advocates strong skills coupled with organizational knowledge in communication proposed change to the employees.

b)      The ICF results indicated a high degree of lack of involvement of employees in decision-making and lack of collectivism in handling the challenges facing the organization. This, according to the report, was very influencing, especially to the employees of African origin, who had a strong cultural background of collectivism and teamwork. A good way of handling them would have been a way that would bring them together, according to the report (Martisons, Davison &Martisons, 2002). Similarly, the results showed that the employees had low levels of trust on the management team, since a big gap existed between the management and the employees.

c)      In terms of strategic planning and orientation of time, the ICF results indicated that the company seemed to be failing in terms of future planning.

d)     Lastly, the report showed some element of ambiguity in the organization, coupled with a lack of smooth flow of communication of ideas and feedbacks. This had the effect of killing the atmosphere of innovation in the organization.

e)      In regard to assessing organizational change, the employees indicated that the management of the organization did little to assess the influence of the subcultures of the organization on the proposed changes. O’Donelle and Boyle (2008) and Grimm and Lee (2005) advise that, for change implementation to be effective, the management of the organization has to frequently assess the likely effect of subcultures on the change, and arrange to deal with any anticipated frictional eventualities.

f)       In terms of power-coercive strategy, the ICF results indicated that the leaders of the proposed change in the ABC Agency did not utilize their power effectively to influence the planned change in the organization.

As a result of the above indicators of change failure in the organization, the management of ABC Travel Agency came up with a strategic plan to ensure that they overturn the change to achieve positive results. The following are the elements of the strategic plan:

a)      The organizational management established a change management group that met as frequently as weekly to address all issues related to change in the organization. Among other things, the group was tasked with ensuring that all the employees developed unique abilities to feel free to propose changes in the organization.

b)      In order to ensure effective team-work, the management of the organization came up with a proposal to encourage the voice of all the stakeholders in the organization, and to promote their participation in decision-making in the organization. This was geared to ensuring that the organizational stakeholders had an opportunity to influence policy and procedures (Banish & Nawaz, 2003; Mochal, 2003). The management also introduced electronic comment boxes to enable the employees an avenue to comment on the policies and procedures that the management was adopting.

c)      The management came up with a strategic plan, updated the mission and vision of the organization in order to reflect the future, and characterize adoption of change in the current world. This enabled the employees to identify with the organization and develop a sense of ownership for the organization (House et al., n. d; Smollan, 2009).

d)     In order to enhance a smooth flow of operations in the organization, the management came up with an employee manual that contained the procedures of the company, as well as its operations. Through the manual, the employees could trace even the anticipated changes and the areas of change, and could easily participate in the change process (Justina, 2012; Michalak, 2010).

e)      In order to counter the negative effects of new employees in the organization’s culture, the management reviewed the hiring and selection process in order to focus on the employees’ ability to participate in a team, as well as their skills and knowledge.

After implementing the strategic plan, the management did an evaluation and found that they had made tremendous progress in change implementation in the organization. They realized that expansion into other African countries and changes in the operations of the company were not as challenging was before. An element of smooth flow was evident, which led to positive results after implementation of change.

Case Analysis:

The case presented above regards the effect that culture, as an aspect of organizational dynamics that influence organizational change, has on implementation of change in an organization. Scientific studies show that organizational culture, which is a major aspect of the dynamics of an organization that affects the implementation of change, affects change greatly (O’Donell & Boyle, 2008; Janicijevic, 2012; Banish & Nawaz, 2003). As seen from the case study, the introduction of change in an organization can bring, either negative or positive consequences. According to Porter (1980), change in an organization should start with the analysis of the environment within which the organization operates. While drawing the corporate strategy for change, the management of an organization should consider the internal environment of an organization, whose major aspect is culture. The ABC Travel Agency failed for the first time because the management did not consider the effect of culture on the change they had planned to implement. In regard to organizational culture and change, Mochal (2003) observes that changing culture affects the organizational structure, corporate strategy, and hence, the whole organization. Thus, drawing a corporate strategy without considering organizational culture may mean the first steps of failure of the corporate strategy. Similarly, a corporate strategy that considers the organizational culture is deemed to succeed (Mishra & Denison, 2008). This is because the consideration of organizational culture will affect the corporate strategy in a positive manner. For example, in the case of the ABC Travel Agency discussed above, the organization recorded positive improvement when the management of the organization considered the organizational culture while drawing the change strategy.

Corporate strategy for change also incorporates the change designers strategists in an organization. In other words, people must be involved in the process of change, since they are the elements of the subcultures that make the overall culture of the organization (Banish & Nawaz, 2003; Rose, 2009). In the first evaluation of the ABC Travel Agency change process and results, it was noted that the organization performed poorly in its changes in operations and market expansion. The results of the evaluation showed that the incorporation of new employees, disrupting the existing culture of the organization had a great impact in this failure. The Ageny’s management ignored the effect that the disruption of culture could have with the changes proposed. The result of such was a huge failure of the organization in implementing the planned changes. When a review of the results indicated that the management should consider the subcultures of the organization and this was done, the results were positive. This indicates that collectivism is important in the management of change in an organization. As seen from the case study, penetrating the African market was hard without first incorporating the African subculture into the culture of the organization.

When drawing an organizational change strategy, it is important to consider the culture of the organization in order to realize success. According to Janicijevic (2012), the three elements of organizational change strategies re linked to organizational culture as follows. The rational, empirical strategy is founded on the basis of the rationality of the people in the organization and the organization itself (Heidrik, 2002). The assumption here is that the people forming the organization are ration beings, and that they are guided by self interest. In this regard, an organization is seen to be a rational means that has the sole purpose of achieving the mutual interest of the stakeholders of the organization. In regard to this, it is evident that an organizational strategy must convince all the people that their interests will be met by the planned changes. Failure to involve people denies them the opportunity to know how the planned changes will cater for their interests, thus they are likely to reject the change. This is what happened in the first attempt by the ABC Travel Agency. The management did not involve the stakeholders, thus they lacked the opportunity to convince them that the change will be beneficial to them, and in what ways it would be beneficial. However, in the second attempt, the management came up with rapid measures to involve the views of the employees alongside other stakeholders in decision-making and strategizing towards change. In this round, the organization recorded tremendous gains from the changes they made. Such facts point to the unique role that culture plays in the management of organizational change.

The power coercive strategy of introducing change assumes that people are political beings, and that they assert power (Janicijevic, 2012, p. 31; Alas & Vado, n. d). In this strategy, an organization is seen as a political entity, where power has a role to play. In this regard, man submits to the will of the more powerful. The strategy depends on the right to impose, and assumes that the less powerful would obey all orders from the more powerful without questioning (Ashkanasy, Wilderom, & Peterson, 2011). Considering the case of the ABC Travel Agency, the leadership failed to assume the power and influence the people to accept and participate in the implementation of the change. This was a bad organizational culture, and it led to the failure of the planned change.

The normative-reductive strategy of change management assumes that an organization is a social system that is built of values, beliefs, attitudes, norms and shared assumptions. The strategy sees people in the organization as social beings who sets the organization rules ad shapes reality (Janicijevic, 2012, p. 31). The socially construct the reality that determines the individual and collective action in the organization (Mishra & Denison, 1995). To introduce a change, thus, an organization must work towards the construction of a desired social reality. The proposed change should be seen by the members to positively affect their beliefs, values, attitudes and shared assumptions. Ignoring such a social structure is tantamount to inviting failure in implementing any planned change. In the case discussed above about the ABC corporation, the management did not consider the organization as a social system in the first attempt to implement change. Instead, the organization just went about introducing the change, leading to a big failure. However, after evaluation, the management considered the social beliefs and attitudes of the members. When they implemented changes with such considerations, they recorded a huge positive results in the organization.

In accordance with the management of people in organizations, Rashid, Sambasivan and Rahman (2004, p. 163) argue that; although people are the most important element in managing change, they are also, the most difficult element in implementing change. since the human part of the organization involves preferences, attitudes and values, managing people in the process of introducing and implementing change is a hurdle. Additionally, attitudes make people fear to take risks, and, therefore, may not support the change. For the people to be lured to accept the change, thus, the change strategy should strongly identify with their attitudes and beliefs as to change their thinking. When ABC Travel Agency management failed to consider this in their first attempt to expand their market and introduce operational changes, they failed terribly. However, when they took into consideration the attitudes of the people, they succeeded in implementing the change.

In the Kotter’s eight-step model of change, most of the issues he has addressed are concerned with organizational culture and people management (Mind Tools, 2014; Kotter, 1996; Harrison, n. d). For example, in the first step, Kotter talks of creating urgency for change. The aspect of creating urgency deals with making people see the need for the change. If the organizational culture is one that is resistant to change, the change managers cannot succeed to introduce the change. However, in an organization that a culture of change has been created, it will be easier for the managers to convince the employees and other stakeholders that the proposed change is necessary (Hyatt, 2004). In step four, where Kotter talks communicating the organizational vision, the elements of the communication involve showing people how the proposed change will benefit them. This is an aspect of organizational culture. In the last step, Kotter (1996), talks of anchoring the introduced changes into the corporate culture. According to Kotter, anchoring the changes in the organization’s corporate culture leads to adoption of the changes in the organization (Lorenzi & Riley, 2000; Ferlic, 2008). The changes, thus are owned by the stakeholders, and become part of the organization. The managers in the case of the ABC Travel Agency failed to incorporate such measures in their first attempt, thus failed to introduce the change successfully. It was evident that they succeeded when they considered the role of organizational culture in their second attempt.

Conclusion:

In sum, this essay has attempted to evaluate culture as an aspect of organizational dynamics that influences the management and leadership of strategic change in organizations. The essay has used a hypothetical case organization, the ABC Travel Agency, to confirm that culture is a very crucial aspect in the management of change. In the ABC Travel Agency, change failed when, in their first attempt, the management failed to incorporate the cultural aspect in the change strategy. However, the organization recorded tremendous success in their second attempt when they incorporated organizational culture in their change strategy. Literature agrees with the outcome of the case study. It is, thus, true that; change can be as messy as it is exhilarating, as frustrating as it is satisfying, as muddling-through and creative a process as a rational one. An organization’s management should consider the organizational culture when drawing the change strategy for the organization.

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