{"id":45641,"date":"2021-08-26T07:19:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T07:19:36","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2021-08-26T07:19:36","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T07:19:36","slug":"change-rosabeth-moss-kanter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ukessays.com\/essays\/management\/change-rosabeth-moss-kanter.php","title":{"rendered":"Change Management According to Rosabeth Moss Kanter"},"content":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION<\/h2>\n

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the professor in business at Harvard Business School, where she holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship. She is known for her classic 1977 study of Tokenism. As a business leader and expert on strategy and leadership for change, she was nominated as the top ten on the list of the \u201c50 most influential business thinkers in the world\u201d, and she is on the list of the \u201c100 most important women in America\u201d and the \u201c50 most powerful women in the world\u201d. Her main concepts include changing organisations, bureaucracy and characteristics of resistance to change. (drfd.hbs.edu, 2007)<\/p>\n

In 1989, she argues that: \u201ctoday\u2019s corporate elephants must learn how to dance as nimbly and speedily as mice<\/em>\u201c. (Burnes, 2004) In other words, she points out that big organisations should change and change quickly to meet the changing environment. This report is going to analyse the key drivers for this statement and find out the reason behind change. This report contains three sections. Section 1 will give definitions to change management and the importance of change. Section 2 is discussions, which is divided into two sub-categories, first part is concerned with the models of change management, and part 2 goes on to show examples of how big organisations keep up with change and the possibilities of failure. This section contains examples of big organisations successfully changed to meet their goals and objectives, while some other organisations stay the same and fail to maintain their strong market position. Section 3 is conclusions.<\/p>\n

CHANGE MANAGEMENT<\/h2>\n
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\u201cToday\u2019s corporate elephants must learn how to dance as nimbly and speedily as mice if they are to survive in our increasingly competitive and rapidly changing world\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Burnes, 2004)<\/p>\n

According to Paton & McCalman (2004), managing change is about evaluating, planning, implementing, operational, tactical and strategic changes. As Siegal et al (1996) points out that rapid change is a pervasive part of our lives as human beings; it is no surprise that change is also a fact of life within human systems. Recent developments in the global economy have catapulted this fact to the forefront of management concerns as well. Therefore, even though Professor Kanter\u2019s statement was mentioned about 18 years ago, it is still valued today.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Kanter (1989) mentioned that in order for organisations to change, it requires faster action, more flexibility and closer partnerships with employees and customers than typical in the traditional corporate bureaucracy. To quote from her, \u201cCorporate giants, in short, must learn how to dance\u201d. Therefore, the \u201ccorporate elephants<\/em>\u201d represents big companies while \u201cmice<\/em>\u201c, on the other hand, represents small firms. To summarise her statement above, we could conclude that small firms are more flexible in changing compare with big organisations, because big organisations have more management levels and more bureaucracy; therefore, corporate giants should adapt this ability to change and change quickly. More over, the most important reason for organisations to change, is to keep pace with the ever changing business environment and give a good company image to the public that they are keep up dating themselves and stay competitive.<\/p>\n

DISCUSSION<\/h2>\n
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\u201cTo cope with a changing world, an entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing. It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Beitler, 2006)<\/p>\n

Corporate elephants with change<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marks and Spencer is a well known British retailer, which was founded in 1884. It is one of the most iconic and widely recognised chain stores in the UK and it is the largest clothing retailer in the country. (wikipedia, 2007) Marks & Spencer is one of the typical examples for change management, and as Rippin (2005) proposed in her research that \u201cwhen, in Autumn 2003 I needed a case study on organisational change, without too much deliberation I chose Marks and Spencer<\/em>\u201c. This corporate giant has developed through its golden years, the crisis, its change in leadership and its recent change management attempts in its response to its changing environment. (Rippin, 2005)<\/p>\n

Kurt Lewin\u2019s model of change<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early 20th Century, psychologist Kurt Lewin identified three stages of change that has come to be known as the unfreezing-change-refreeze model. (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006) The graph below shows more detail about this model:<\/p>\n

Unfreeze<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the first stage of this model that to make system receptive to change. (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006) People feel comfortable and safe about the current situation and it is hard for them to change. It takes long time to unfreeze the environment and the first thing to do at this stage is to make people aware of the change and let them know the reason and needs for change. Moreover, organisations should involve employees in the decision making process by asking them how would they feel about a certain matter and what do they thing is necessary to change.<\/p>\n

In 1998, Marks and Spencer became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over \u00a31 billion and this is the peak time in the company\u2019s history. (marksandspencer, 2007) Few years later, it plunged into a crisis which lasted for around several years. The problems Marks and Spencer faced were:<\/p>\n