1. Write a report (1000 words) in response to the following tasks:
a. Drawing on between two and four ideas / theories / models / frameworks which you have studied over the last 5 weeks give an account of the process by which your understanding about change has now evolved. What is the difference which these ideas have made?
Over the last five weeks of study my understanding of change and in particular why it is initiated within organisations, has developed significantly. The theories/ models within the course reader have enabled me to link the changes being implemented within my own organisation.
At a strategic level of Bombardier the drivers for change are affected by The Far Environment. By reading through the various case studies in relation to the PESTLE acronym I was able to articulate this with my own workplace, and how our strategic key business objectives are greatly influenced by this.
These business objectives are then disseminated to The Internal Environment and this is where the change has been initiated.
The type of change that was initiated within Bombardier was that of a discontinuous change (Grundy 1993, cited in Price 2009, p14) this was due to 9/11 and the threat of emerging economies within the marketplace. In TMA 01 my belief was that new change was being initiated before previous changes had been fully embedded, resulting in a confused workforce. It has now become apparent to me that this was a necessity due to the external marketplace so the emphasis was on speed.
The change within my organisation has now evolved to that of continuous transformation (Burnes 2004, cited in Price 2009, p15). This challenges the status quo of the way we conduct our business (takes us outside our comfort zone) and sets out to promote a continuous improvement ethos throughout the entire workforce.
Reading Beer and Nohria (2000) allowed me to put into context the similarities of changes that were initiated within Bombardier. I will first look...