MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES (A STUDY OF SELECTED PUBLIC SECTORS IN ENUGU STATE)

ABSTRACT

In every organization change occurred to be a encounter as they operates in a dynamic environment. And the ability of the organization to manage these change indicate its agility, resistance to survive and attain their objectives. Thus this study major thrust objectives includes: to determine the nature and nurture of management of change in public sector, to ascertain the challenges and problems, to evaluate the adequacy of management of change through appropriate strategies in relation to the organization effectiveness etc.

Again, several research questions and hypotheses were formulated to guide the work. As a survey research, questionnaire was administered to the respondents that enable the researcher to draw data for valid conclusion.

Then  percentage  table  and  chi-square  statistical  analysis  were  used  in presentation and test of hypotheses. Therefore, at the end the main conclusion on drawn are, that the organization studied have experienced change over the years, and the challenges and problems the organization faced in management of  change  through  appropriate  strategies  are  numerous  (i.e.  environmental workforce commitment, leadership style, gap identification and solution etc. Though the suggestions or recommendations includes to build up potential change agents who can effortlessly or painstaking show agility and resistance to adapt the change. And there should be need to develop employees talent, competencies and skills in consonance to the trend of dynamic nature of the organization (environment) in order to survive.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In a workplace or organization change occurs rapidly and often, in many businesses due to the dynamic nature of the environment which poses several challenges to organization effectiveness and performance. This change may take place in order to respond to a new opportunity or to avoid a threat to the company. Regardless of the reason, change can be difficult for all involved, i.e. managers and employees face new challenges with change and managers must learn to ease the difficulty of the transition, one of the major issues associated with managing change is reactive versus proactive responses to change. This systematic change approach have its peculiarities which invades the existing state, culture and other variables in an organization.

Warrilow (2010) stated that in the current economic climate, all organizations are experiencing the impacts of change and many could now benefit  from   the  practical  knowledge  of  how  to   manage  change.  He emphasized that at root change management is about process and people. But even process is just about people doing stuff.. so ultimately it is all about people and processes that work for people. Therefore, any organizational initiative that creates change or has a significant change element to it has a

70% chance of not achieving what was originally envisaged. The main three

(3) reasons for failure include:

a)    Gap  –  The  gap  between  the  strategic  vision  and  a  successful programme implementation and the lack of a practical change management model and tools to bridge that gap.

b) Resistance – The hidden and built in resistance to change of organizational cultures and the lack of processes and change management methodologies to address this.

c)    Impact – The failure to take full account of the impact of the changes on those people who are most affected by them.

Warrilow (2010) disclosed that there are 3 keys to realizing the benefits of change viz: –

i)    Leadership: The critical importance of the emotional dimension of   leaderships   plays   a   long   role.   We   speak   of   change management  but  in  truth  change  has  to  be  led  as  well  as managed. This is especially true if it is a step change that need to be handled as a separate initiative outside of the constraints of business as usual. The style of leadership that is needed  is a leadership that connects with people and that directly addresses what is important to them.

ii)  Management Process: The necessity for the holistic approach of a      programme   management   based   on   change   process   is paramount. The management aspect of how to manage change needs to be much boarder based that a typical project led/task

oriented approach to address the human factors and deals directly with the commonest causes of failure.

iii) Actionable steps: Knowing how to translate vision and strategy into actionable steps. At the micro level, day to day operational level of change management need to show people the specifics of what is required of them and to assist them especially during the early stages.

Thus change management principles at all times involve and agree support from people within system (system = environment, process, culture, relationships behaviour etc whether personal or organizational)

Kotter (1996) describe a helpful model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people response and approach to change in which people see, feel and then change. And the Kotter’s eight step change model can be summarized as

–   Increase urgency: Inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant

–   Build the guiding team: Get the right people in place with the right emotion commitment and the right mix of skills and levels

–   Get the vision right: Get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy,  focus on emotional and  creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.

–   Communicate  for  buy-in:  Involve  as  many  people  as  possible, communicate  the  essentials,  simply  and  to  appeal  and  respond  to people’s needs. De-cutter communications make technology work for you rather than against.

–   Empower action: Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders, reward and recognize progress and achievements.

–   Create short term wins: Set aims that are easy to achieve in bite size, chunks. Manageable numbers of initiatives, finish current stages before starting new ones.

–   Don’t  let  up”:  Foster  and  encourage  determination  and  persistence, ongoing   change   encourage   ongoing   progress   reporting,   highlight achieved and future milestones.

–   Make change stick: – Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion new change leaders. Weave change into culture.

Apart from the model approach of control, change management strategy are build   under   some   fundamental   elements   which   include,   “situational awareness”  (understand  the  change  and  who  is  impacted),  “supporting structures  (team   and   sponsor  structures)  and   “Strategy   analysis   (risks, resistance and special tactics). These factors notwithstanding there are reasons why organization need a change management strategy. A “one –size – fits –

all” approach is not effective for change management, but some embodying reasons comprises of

–  Acquiring a company of near equal size

–  Getting suppliers to use a new web-based form and process

–  Relocating office spaces within an existing building

–  Implementing an enterprise resource planning solution

–  Reorienting around processed instead of functions

–  Releasing a new product.

Orlikowski and Hofman (1996) arguing on the need for a change stood on the view that old practices must be obliterated and new processes designed from scratch to fully leverage new technologies and business realities, in practice, few managers have the luxury of re-designing their processes or organizations from “clean sheet of paper: people, equipment and business knowledge cannot be so easily scrapped. Furthermore organization change almost inevitability becomes a learning process in which unanticipated obstacles and opportunities emerge.

Crowston and Malone (1988) and Barua, Lee and Whinston (1995) are of the view that the difficulties many organizations have had  with change management depends in large part on an inadequate recognition of interdependencies   among   technology,   practice   and   strategy.   However, beneficial a new machine incentive system product line, decision making structure or reporting system may appear in isolation, the acid test is how it

interacts as it must with numerous other aspects of the organization. Recognizing the critical role that interdependence play in affecting outcomes leads to new analysis and theory. Thus, managers must plan a strategy that takes into account and coordinates the interactions among all the components of a business system.

Rockart and Short (1991) stated that interactions can create a virtuous cycle  of  positive  feedback  which  amplify  even  small  steps  in  the  right direction. Because new organizational paradigms eliminate tune, space, and inventory buffers as operations becomes more tightly coupled, ignoring such interdependencies becoming increasingly risky.

McCann (2004) in a collaborative attempt stated that the study of organizational effectiveness has dramatically evolved  with the  adoption of general systems theory concepts and changes in the complexity and pace of change  of  organizational  environments.  He  reiterates  that  there  are  two critically important emerging qualities or dimensions effectiveness organizational agility and organizational residency”. Organizational effectiveness has  always measured  how successfully  organizations achieve their missions through their core strategies.

Basically, this study intend to assess the management of change through the application of appropriate strategies, as effort to underscore the transformation and changes the public sector in Enugu State encounter. An excellent example of this strategy in action albeit on an accelerated basis, is

provided by the way in which Rupert Murdoch handled the printers of fleet street. He quietly, set about binding an entirely new operation in wapping some distance away. When it was ready to be occupied and made operational, he reinformed the employees in the old operation that he had some bad news and some good news. The bad news was that the existing operation was being shut  down “Everyone  was being  fired”.  The  good  ness  was that  the  new operation had jobs for all of them but on very different terms, that there are also elements of the “Empirical Rational and power –coercive strategies at play  here,  here  serves  to  make  the  point  that  successful  change  efforts inevitably involve some mix of these basic change strategies a point that is elaborated on below.

i)    Empirical-Rational Strategy: Here people are rational and will follow their self interest once it is revealed to them change is based on the communication of information and the proffering of incentives.

ii)  Normative-Reductive Strategy: Here people are social beings and will adhere to cultural norms and values. Change is based on redefining and reinterpreting existing norms and values, and developing commitments to new ones.

iii)  Power- Coercive Strategy: People are basically compliant and will generally do what they are told or can be made to do. Change is based on the exercise of authority and the imposition of sanctions

iv) Environmental   –   Adaptive   Strategy:   People   oppose   loss   and disruption but they adapt readily to new circumstances. Change is based on building a new organization and gradually transferring people from the old one to the new one. (Bennis, Benne and Chin 1969).

However, it is on the direction of these strategies this work will x-ray the challenges model and  theories factor and  responsibilities organization  will adapt to harness its effectiveness and maximum performance.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The phobia many organization faces in lieu of new change or embracing new innovation, change, new technologies, equipment and transformation is gradually increasing at an alarming rate. There is no facts and rule about this, hence the dynamism of an environment system, process, policies, culture and technologies. The resistance employees and employers posed to change atime revolves  around  the  cost  training/recruiting,  lack  of  competencies,  fear of failure, lay-off or down sizing at the short run period and poor redesigning ability. But for organization to achieve its effectiveness they should embrace new invention  adapt to  appropriate  strategies, control  its environment and technologies maintain good number of adaptive workforce, remain proactive and have agile/resilient managers.

Therefore, in the face of changing policies, environment structure or organizational  design  it  only  demand  proactive  manager  to  adjust  their

operation in order to remain in business or it face the disastrous consequence. And the framework of threat, challenges in economic social and political arena cannot be overlooked because the culture and the sub cultural climate militates to the growth and performance of organization. Also the ill-felt global perception, attitudinal and behavioural change out work its own problem to change in this sense appropriate strategies and action oriented task ought to be done to retain and sustain our sectors or organization today.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The following will serve as an objective that guides the study.

1)  To determine the nature and nurture of management of change in public sector.

2)  To  ascertain  the  challenges and  problems  organization  encounter  in change management strategy adoption.

3)  To evaluate the adequacy of management of change through appropriate strategies in relation to the organization effectiveness.

4)  To investigate how process management can help organization achieve effective business change.

5)  To identify the effects of culture, environment and technologies in the adoption of management of change management in public sector.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The study have the following research questions as guide.

1) What is the  nature and  nurture of management of change in public sector?

2) What are the challenges and problems organization encounter in change management strategy adoption?

3) Is there any adequacy of management of change through appropriate strategies in relation to the organization effectiveness?

4) Do process management help organization achieve effective business change?

5) Do culture environment and technologies have effects in the adoption of management of change in public sector?

1.5    HYPOTHESES FORMULATION

The formulated null hypotheses serves as guide to prove the significant of the study.

H01: The nature and nurture of management of change has no significance in pubic sector.

H02: There are no challenges and problems organization encounter in change management strategy adoption.

H03: There is no adequacy in the management of change through appropriate strategies in relation to the organization effectiveness.

H04: Process management cannot help organization achieve effective business change

H05: The culture environment and technologies has no effect in the adoption of change management in public sector.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study are of immense benefit to the following group of people.

First, the management and employee of the public sector were the key benefactor in this work, because its ideas, outcome and facts will automatically change their orientation as it concern change. And the available strategy to adjust to the new innovation in other to remain employable productive and effective.

Also the policy maker will find some interesting strategies and technologies that are  to be inclusive in  subsequently review of the policy framework of the change management mechanism.

Further, the work will serve as reference point and guide to any subsequent research work by students and academia.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The  study  scope  geographically  concentrate  within  the  Enugu  State public sector (with particular interest to PHCN and Ministry of Health Enugu State. While on the conceptual scope focus on the management of change through the  application of appropriate strategies. And  the level rage areas should include models, phases, matrix, process, organizational effectiveness and others.

1.8  LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

There is no work or study without constraint because once the activities took place within human environment. The researcher encountered difficulties in several areas like:

Information gathering: This deals with the aspect of respondents data and source. Thus this activities posed difficulties in locating the respondents and site for material gathering.

Time  Constraint:  In  the  process  of  the  above  information  gathering,  the researcher time is shared among his other engagement, family and work. Finance  Constraint:  The  engine  of  speed  and  possibility  of  the  work  is determined by the financial capabilities and availability.

1.9 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

Management: Akpala (1990) defines management as the process of doing things in an organization. This process is the combination and utilization of organizational resources towards the achievement of the common organization objectives.

Change  management  strategy:  is  defines  as  the  approaches  needed  to manage, change given the unique situation of the project or initiative.

Strategy: Whittington (1996) defines it as the determination of the basic long term goals and objectives of an enterprise and the adoption of the courses of action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out those goals.

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