7012EHR Organisational Change

Examination conditions

This is a take-home exam. Your responses to one case study question and two essay questions should be recorded onto a word document and submitted to the final submission point on Blackboard after checking the document in SafeAssign on the 7012EHR course website.

Instructions to students

This exam includes two parts. Part A is a case study question worth a total of 20 marks. In Part A, I will present a case study that describes an organisational change setting. You will be asked to answer four questions on this case study. Each case study question is worth five marks each. Part B includes two essay questions worth 15 marks each. You should answer all questions from Part A and Part B of the exam.

It is expected that your response to Part A should be between 2 to 3 pages in length (single-spaced). It is expected that your response to each question in Part B should be around 1 to 2 pages in length (single-spaced). There is no need to provide an introduction or conclusion when answering any of the questions and in fact you should not do so. You should draw on journal articles and lecture materials that we reviewed in 7012EHR when answering the questions. You need to ensure that you reference any academic material that you refer to appropriately using the APA 6^th edition referencing style. There are three pages in this take home exam.

Part A

Case Study Question

Bill Bordia is the HR Director at Dixie Weaving Inc, which is a fabric weaving company based in the South East of the United States of America. This organisation has facilities throughout the country. Bill is concerned about the turnover rate of factory staff (approximately 40% of their factory staff leave each year) at their Piedmont plant. This unacceptably high rate of turnover has caused Bill to contact a University Professor and her team for help. Bill has worked with this small team before and has had good success in implementing a range of small-scale change projects with this team.

The Organisation

The Piedmont plant employees 1500 non-union employees in a 24-hour operation running two, 12-hour shifts seven days a week. There are two major manufacturing processes – winding and weaving – in this plant. The winding department is responsible for creating the nylon yarn that is used in the weaving process. The weaving department creates the fabric that is used in the commercial products produced by Dixie Weaving Inc. The Piedmont plant is dependent on Chattanooga plant for raw materials, while several other plants are dependent on the Piedmont plant for materials.

The Problem as Described by Management

The Piedmont plant manager, Michelle Barsade, tells the consulting team that the current rate of turnover in the factory workforce is unsustainable and needs to be decreased quickly before it further decreases the plant’s competitive position. Michelle has revealed in private discussions with the University Professor that she is concerned that without rapid intervention, the organisation will not survive another six months.

The consulting team interviewed the HR Director of Dixie Weaving Inc. The HR Director – Bill Bordia - expressed his frustration with HR’s ability to attract and retain qualified workers. Bill states that “our biggest problem is that we are getting close to exhausting our local labour pool. We simply don’t have the people to run this company as it needs to be run to make a profit”.

The Floor Supervisor at the Piedmont plant, Noelle Jones, also identifies problems that are stopping the plant from running in a competitive fashion. She suggests that factory staff can’t meet their department quotas as it takes new people a while to learn how to do a new job quickly and safely. Further investigation by the consulting team reveals that there are a lot of rules that new workers need to learn to keep everyone safe. The Floor Supervisor, Noelle, notes that many staff, especially on the night shift, don’t speak English well as it is their second (or in some cases even their third language). This makes it difficult to communicate easily with all staff on the factory floor and Noelle is worried that safety may be compromised as a result. The Training Manager says that all staff go through a 12-week training course before they go onto the factory floor.

The Issues as Described by Employees

Several interviews have been conducted with employees working on the factory floor. These interviews have suggested that some employees are interested in seeing some changes to the organisation. For example, one employee stated that he would “love to see work processes made simpler so that new staff can better integrate into the existing work teams”. However, the consulting team noted that other employees seem less positive about the idea of making changes to the way things are done. One employee who had been at the organisation for around 10 years stated that “I like the way things we do things now. I don’t think there is a need to see any major changes. I definitely don’t think that major changes will be accepted by most people in the factory!”.

Other Observations

After touring the Piedmont plant, the external consulting team notes that the factory is hot and there are no air conditioning units. In addition, the team note that the plant is very large and busy and during their brief tour they observe a couple of “near misses” with large forklifts almost running into employees on the floor.

Case Study Questions

1. Conduct a “force field” analysis of the forces constraining and supporting change in Dixie Weaving Inc. That is, list and discuss in detail the forces that would be likely to constrain or reduce the likelihood of change in Dixie Weaving Inc. Similarly, list and discuss the forces that would support the likelihood of change in Dixie Weaving Inc. Identify specific strategies discussed in 7012EHR that you would use to reduce the constraining forces and strategies that you would use to build on the supporting forces in Dixie Weaving Inc.
2. Consider employees’ attitudes to change in this organisation. Building on the initial diagnostic information provided in the case study, discuss two specific change attitudes considered in 7012EHR that you see evidence of in this organisation. Define these change attitudes and provide an analysis of the existing levels of these change attitudes in this organisation. Identify specific strategies that could be implemented to improve or build on these change attitudes in this organisation.
3. Dunphy and Stace (1988) developed a contingency model of change leadership. Using the information provided in the above case study, apply Dunphy and Stace’s (1988) model to identify which type of change leadership would be appropriate given the organisational context and conditions. Provide arguments based on your analysis of the context of this organisation to identify which type of change leadership would be appropriate.
4. The external consulting team have begun to discuss amongst themselves how they are going to ensure any changes that they introduce into this organisation “stick” (i.e., are institutionalised). Define what the institutionalisation of change refers to based on material discussed in 7012EHR. Discuss how Cummings and Worley’s (2009) model of change institutionalisation could be applied to inform decision-making about how to make change “stick” in this organisational setting.

Part B

Question 1

Organisational capabilities are often forgotten during organisational change processes. Define organisational capabilities and discuss two alternative models of organisational capabilities. Identify three ways in which understanding organisational capabilities can help us better implement and manage organisational change.

Question 2

Integrated strategic change is an important type of large-scale, transformational change that occurs in organisations. Define what integrated strategic change refers to and discuss the steps typically used when implementing integrated strategic change. Outline what Amis, Slack, and Hinings’ (2004) paper tells us about how to implement integrated strategic change.

End of Examination Materials.