Change: An investigation into the implications of change at Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd

By

Faisal Chunara

Royal Mail and Post Office LTD; Change

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Purpose3

Aims and objectives4

Research question5

Justification6

Limitation6

Methodology6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

Section I - Change Management and Resistance to Change8

Section II: Change Management and its implications from a multi-disciplinary perspective19

Section III24

References27

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

The subject of change has sustained the interests of academics, authors, researchers and practitioners over the past 60 years, and continues to dominate organisational behaviour and management literature (Burnes, 2004, 976; Dent and Goldberg, 1999, 25; Hall, 1987, 65; Huczyniski and Buchanan, 2010, 98; Kotter, 2007, 96; Kotter and Schlesinger, 2008, 106; Krantz, 1999, 44; Mintzberg, 2003, 87; Mullins, 2010, 54; Rollinson, 2008, 34; Thompson and Martin, 2010, 76).

Its significance has largely been attributed to the need for organisations to constantly change and adapt to their increasingly turbulent and changing environments often surfaced from fierce competition. Fierce competition or rather increased competition, follows a cumulative and chain reaction to sweeping advances in information, technology and globalisation, giving impetus for rising affluent economies (China and India), and diverging polarisation between life and death expectancy, and to greater amounts of variety and choice.

This forms the backdrop of the management mantra mentioned above, and has been echoed by the likes of Peters (1987) and Kanter (1995) who identified the need for organisations to incorporate radical changes to their current systems in order for their very survival; and Drucker (1993) concurs, and articulated that 'every organisation must prepare to abandon what it does.'

On the other hand, other researchers proclaim that the subject of the constant need for change has been overhyped (Mintzberg, 1994, 84). Guy and Mintzberg (2003:79) contend that “the obsession with the dramatically new can blind mangers to the varied, integrated nature of change and the predominance of continuity that forms its backdrop”.

However, the differing views on change may be relevant according to whether the change is cumulative and gradual or sudden and radical. There is likely to be an element of adaptability in the former but this may not be so in the latter. For example, organisations that failed to change and adapt to the radical transformations that have taken place across multiple industries, such as Woolworths in 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk, 2009), that the former argument may take precedence.

Similarly, in a non-commercial sector the change to pensions and pay has caused thousands of university lectures in the UK to go on strike (http://www.guardian.co.uk, 2011). As such, change may be deemed to be inescapable in contemporary society, where, for example, giant leaps in Nano technologies, economic destabilisation, geopolitics, demanding consumers, and shorter product life cycles, dictate and shape the modern day organisation; the need to constantly change, and often make radical changes, is ever more prevalent.

Additionally, the interest in researching the subject of change management can be attributed to the differing perspectives held amongst researchers within the subject. Many researchers identify that effective change management involves managing resistance to change, with some identifying resistance at the individual ...