Impact of Organizational Change on Strategy and Operations

This article discusses the impact of organizational change on an organization's strategy and operations. It explores the drivers of change, such as internal and external factors, and the barriers that may arise. The case study of Tesco and Sports Direct is used to illustrate the effects of change on their operations and strategies. The article also evaluates the influences that drivers of change have on organizational behavior and discusses how barriers to change influence leadership decision-making.

Students’ Last Name1
Management
By (Name)
Course
Professor
University
Date

Students’ Last Name2
Introduction
Organizational change refers to the process in which a company or a firm changes its
strategies, structures, technologies, operational methods or organizational culture to impact
change in the organization and effects of the changes in the company. Organizational change
happens when a company is forced to adapt itself to the changing conditions in the environment.
It is prerequisite for the company’s survival. The ultimate goal is to change the entire culture that
is prone to changes. There several factors that drive the organization to change. The drivers of
change include both internal and external factors. However, for an organization to effectively
implement change, it should have effective leadership that will support the change to reduce the
resistance that may develop due to fear or lack of enough information concerning the change.
Most organization believe that change will impact the organization positively to the organization.
Despite this, barriers will always arise. Some of the barriers to change include fear of the
unknown, ineffective leadership, and poor communication;
LO1: Compare Ways in Which Change Impacts on an Organization’s Strategy and
Operations
P1
Tesco and sports directs have experienced operational changes since their formation.
Tesco is among the leading retailers in the United Kingdom industry. Moreover, it is one of the
well-developed and largest food retailers in the world. The store was formed by jack Brixton in
1919. It started as a grocery store. In the 1930s the store experienced a tremendous rise. The
company developed to selling non-food products such as electrical good and clothing. From a
grocery, a grocery store Tesco has expanded into a wide variety of retail in the business market.
The company also started offering a range of services such as travel agency, insurance, financial,

Students’ Last Name3
and Telcom services. The company advanced its operations to petrol retailing through Tesco
express fascia. On the other hand, sports internal plc started as a single outlet store in 1982 in
London. The store was founded by a 16-year-old drop out mike Ashley. The company is the
leading sporting goods retailer in Britain. The company deals in leisure clothing, footwear,
equipment’s, and retail sports. Later on, the company developed into a wholesale distribution
firm dealing with the sale of sports and licensing activities. The two companies have undergone a
tremendous change in its operation and strategy starting from the products and services offered
and the mode of operation.
M1
The drivers of change for Tesco comprise of both internal and external drivers. Internal
drivers refer to those behaviors that come from within the organization. They create the need for
structural rearrangement of an organization (Lozano, 2015, pp.32). However, external drivers
originate from outside the organization which also creates the need for internal changes. The first
driver of change for Tesco is growing customer base. The growing customer base has been a
major factor contributing to the success of Tesco. The company came up with a self-check-out
system that assisted in reducing congestion. The implementation of the check-out system
reduced the long-queues that was boring to customers since they had to stand for long in order to
pay for their shopping. This driver of change has affected the technological change in the
organization because of the introduction of the new technology (Ceulemans, Lozano and Alonso-
Almeida, 2015. Pp.8881). another driver of change realized at the Tesco is the cost of labor. The
company had to implement the check-out system to reduce the cost of labor. This has assisted the
company by reducing the number of cashiers that would have been employed if the system was

Students’ Last Name4
not implemented. This type of driver of change has affected the people. This means that the
employee that worked cashiers were laid off because of the check-off system.
D1
Organizations should first understand the effects of making a change. Change often
results in a big effect which can be positive or negative. Therefore, organizations should avoid
much stuffing since it can reduce performance to levels that are unacceptable. Another strategy is
identifying documents and models that might be modified if the employees adopt the requested
change. The third recommendation according to impact analysis is identifying the tasks that are
required in change implementation and approximating the efforts needed to complete the tasks.
This recommendation based on the impact analysis will assist organizations to effectively
implement changes.
LO2: Evaluate the Influences That Drivers of Change have on Organizational Behavior
P2
The driver of change is technology. The company has improved its mobile apps which
have combined with innovative marketing strategies. The mobile app has been one of the
trending tools and has aided the consumers of the sports direct to shop online especially during
the world cup (Veldhuizen, Blok and Dentoni, 2013, pp.107). This has affected the technological
change of the company in a positive way. Another driver of change is the customer base. The

Students’ Last Name5
company has ensured that customers receive high satisfaction by building a strong relationship
with the company. The company came up with pricing techniques that favored the customers.
This change affected the profitability of the company by raising the profits due to high sales.
How internal and external drivers of change affect leadership, team and individual behaviors
Internal factors such as the change of technology may impact the leadership style of a
leader. Technological change in Tesco may lead to resistance by employees. This may be due to
fear and uncertainty from the employees. The leaders may face a challenge of convincing the
employees to adopt the change. However, in cases where employees are adamant to adopt the
change the leader may use dictatorship leadership style to force the employees to adapt to the
change if it is viewed to have positive impacts to the company (Gready, 2013, pp.1340). On the
other hand, structural changes of Tesco may impact the team in several ways. These changes
transform the existing company’s structure and its general design. They may take the form of job
redesign and decentralization (Pollack, 2015, pp.36). Job design may affect the teams in a way
that team members may be used to a certain task and due change in structural changes, they are
assigned different tasks or additional tasks. This may reduce the morale of team members hence
leading to low output for Tesco. Technology as an internal factor may also affect the behavior of
an individual because of the fear and uncertainty that is brought about by technological changes
in the organization (Stubbs and Higgins, 2014, pp.1068). This may influence the individual
behaviors by reducing the efforts and determination because a person may not be sure if they will
continue working in the organization.
External drivers may affect the behavior of an individual include environmental factors.
Example, the ecological environment of Tesco such as the climate, global changes, and weather

Students’ Last Name6
may affect the individual behaviors. Since this may lead to health issues on an individual which
may lead to absenteeism from work and low output. On the other hand, the safety requirements
for labor may influence an individual’s behavior. Similarly, this force of change may affect the
team’s performance (Rubery, 2015, pp.633). If the Tesco working environment proves to be
hazardous in a team of employees’ safety, this may hinder effective tasks among team members
due to illnesses that may arouse or injuries in the workplace. Additionally, the environmental
impact of Tesco may also affect its leadership. It is hard for a leader to lead people who are not
satisfied with the working environment. This will lead to a lot of follow up by the leader. The
employees will lack moral and this may be strenuous for a leader to follow each and every
activity that is being carried out by employees.
P3
Organizational behavior refers to ways in which people act within groups and includes
the ways of improving job performance encouraging leadership, and promoting innovation.
Organization change may negatively affect individual behavior and the leadership of an
organization if effective measures are not taken. On the side of employees, the organization
should set realistic timelines. The organization might want to experience a drastic change but it
does not mean that everything will go as planned (Bassett, Alderson and Carlson, 2012,
pp.036105). The employees may feel overworked because of the short deadlines assigned to
them. This may lead to the poor performance of work. Another measure that is taken to minimize
the negative effects of change is the openness of the management. The employees should be
aware of what is going on in the organization. The management should devise a good
communication strategy to ensure that all employees are informed of the company’s happenings
(Lozano, 2013, pp.275). The organization should also identify negative people in the

Students’ Last Name7
organization so that they minimize their influence on others. Such people should be allowed in
leadership. A negative person may suck the energy out of good leaders making them develop a
negative feeling about a certain change in the organization. On the other hand, leaders should
make them understand the present state of the organization. This may involve pointing out
challenges that the company is facing, assigning the significance level to each one, and
measuring the types of changes that are needed for the problems to be solved. Leaders are an
important pillar in an organization, therefore, they should implement changes in a systematic
manner (Kuipers, et al., 2014, pp.9). This comprises of managing transformation effectively. The
leaders should draw a plan, appoint people to take the handle, and allocate the resources
effectively. Moreover, the organization’s leaders should create enthusiasm for the change by
sharing their objectives, visions, and goals as the role models for the employees.
M2
Lewin’s change management model
The model consists of three approaches on how an organization may respond to change.
The first stage is the unfreezing. At this stage, it involves an organization to prepare for change.
This means that the organization must be ready for the change and understand that the change is
important and is needed (Shirey, 2013, pp.70). This stage is important since this is where people
are notified about the importance of change. The second stage is changing. This is where
transformation takes place. During this stage, good leadership and communication are important
factors. The third stage is refreezing (Grumbine, Dore and Xu, 2012, pp.98). At this stage,
change has been accepted, embraced, and implemented in an organization. This stage requires
the management to support and assisting employees in adopting effectively the challenges. With

Students’ Last Name8
a sense of stability and little resistance, employees get confident and comfortable with the
acquired changes.
Effectiveness
This force field analysis is created entirely upon the skill and knowledge of the team
working on the analysis. In most situations, this model has formed on assumptions, not facts.
However, although the assumptions are founded on accumulated data, the interpretation of
information should not be seen as an objective within the general process of assessing restraining
and driving forces.
Complexity system theory
This theory is based on measuring heterogeneity in internal and environmental factors of
an organization such as suppliers, customers, and technology. This theory aims at how micro
level in an organization affect employee’s behavior and the overall outcome at the micro level.
When the complexity of an organization increases, it becomes hard to understand and use data in
planning (Jacobs, Van and Christe-Zeyse, 2013, pp.792). Therefore, this becomes hard for an
organization to adapt to the changing environment hence leading to slow response to
organizational changes.
LO3: Determine how Barriers to Change Influence Leadership Decision-Making
P4
The first barrier to Tesco is fear of the unknown. There is always a fear of failure when
implementing a change in an organization. Tesco should overcome personal barriers in order for

Students’ Last Name9
a change to be effectively implemented. Therefore, leaders should make decisions to reduce or
remove the fear so that the change cannot face resistance by employees. Another barrier that
Tesco may face is ineffective leadership. If the employees do not embrace the new change in an
organization, it may be difficult for employees to convince the subordinates. The type of
leadership may play a big role in influencing the decisions that will influence the employees to
embrace the change (Sylvestre, Wright and Sherren, 2013, pp.223). However, if the leaders do
not practice well their leadership style they may hinder the employees from embracing the
change. Example, a leader may not address the employees about the importance of change and
how the change will be effective to the organization. This may make employees not to support
the idea since they are not aware of the implications of that change to the organization. The
leaders should support the employees and plan effectively the change in order to gain the
employee's support (Jadhav, Mantha and Rane, 2014, pp.122). The leader should understand the
sensitivities of the workforce to reduce friction. Communication is also a barrier to change
(Christiansen and Varnes, 2015, pp.218). When an organization like Tesco introduce a new
change, it is important to communicate to the change before implementing it. Every member of
the organization that the change may affect should be involved. If the stakeholders are not well
involved it will be hard for the leader to make the decisions since it will face opposition from
those who were not involved in the decision-making process. In the end, this may result in poor
decisions making which lead to failure of the change.
M3
This analysis model was created by Kurt Lewin and is used by many organizations in
decisions making. Furthermore, the tool is used in planning and implementing change programs
in an organization. This tool provides a powerful understanding of different forces acting on an

Students’ Last Name10
organization sport direct international plc. It helps sports direct organization to assess its
strength. Sports direct may use this tool effectively by carrying out an analysis of a small group
of people. An area of change must be agreed upon by the stakeholders of the sports direct
company. The organization should list all the forces that support change and also list all the
resisting factors (Wetzel and Van, 2014, pp.115). The supporting factors and resisting factors
should be aligned according to their magnitude. After analyzing them according to their
magnitude, a score should be awarded on each side. This assists the sports direct company to
know if it should implement the changes or not depending on the side that has a high score.
The company should come with an idea, solutions, issues, and concerns after analyzing
the driving and resisting forces for effective implementation of change. This will assist the sports
direct organization to reduce the resisting force and focus on the driving forces.
D2
Force field analysis tool can be used to determine whether a change that is proposed in an
organization is practical or not. Moreover, this tool can be used by organization to point out
obstacles and disadvantages to the desired result. On the other hand, it assist originations to
develop or come up with solutions that may assist it to reduce the influence of obstacles.
LO4: Apply a Range Of Leadership Approaches to a Change Initiative
P5
The first leadership approach is autocratic leadership. This leadership style refers to a
situation where a leader imposes a style and the subordinates are the ones who are in control of
the decisions. This type of leadership approach gives has little chances for input from the

Students’ Last Name11
workers or team members. This type of leadership approach is always an obstacle for within an
organization (Afshinpour, 2014, pp.156). For a change to take place in a firm, employees should
be involved in decision making. A leader should lead in a way that there is little resistance
through employee engagement. However, this type of leadership do not employees room for
involvement hence stimulating high chances of employee resistance. Therefore, this type of
leadership may only be suitable in a situation where the organization wants to make quick
decisions. According to Kotter’s model, change can be handled effectively the employees are
well engaged (Pollack and Pollack, 2015, pp.56). The employee engaged assists in overcoming
the rooted structural inertia related to the change process.
M4
Leadership approaches such as the transformational leadership may increase the
effectiveness of change in an organization in several ways. Transformational leadership
motivates followers ignoring their own self-interests and work hard in achieving larger
objectives and goals of the organization. Some of the leadership behaviors suit the readiness
levels of followers. Moreover, transformational leaders develop, clear and appealing visions,
promote visions, act in an optimistic and confident manner, and use early steps to build
confidence in the subordinates. This may reduce resistance to change among the followers.
D3
This leadership approach is effective since it encourages quick decision making. This
type of leadership does not involve a lot of people in the decision making process hence making
the process easy (Rast, Hogg and Giessner, 2013, pp.635). There are no delays in coming up
with strategies since the leaders carry on by assessing a strategy that is useful to the company.

Students’ Last Name12
Another effectiveness of this style is that employees are aware of the vision of the change that is
about to be implemented in the organization as explained by the autocratic leader.
Another leadership approach is democratic leadership. This is a type of leadership where
all the stakeholders are allowed to make their contribution by providing their views and ideas.
The stakeholders are allowed to participate in the decision-making process (Gorran, 2013,
pp.13). This approach to leadership has been viewed as effective during change implementation
since it provides a high level of employee satisfaction and engagement. On the other, it reduces
employee resistance to change. However, implementing a change using this type of leadership
may take longer due to a long decision-making process. According to Kotter’s model,
democratic leadership makes employees feel fostered and part of the organization (Appelbaum,
et al., 2012, pp.764). This results in greater change development options with workers having the
chance to directly influence the change direction.
Effectiveness of a democratic approach
This type of approach is effective since it makes sure that all the stakeholders are
involved in the decision-making process. The leader only acts as the mediator, not as a decisions
maker (Shek, Chung and Leung, 2015, pp.217). This is effective compared to autocratic
leadership where the leader makes decisions from the employees. This leadership reduces
resistance since employees feel like part of the organization and the plan at hand.
Transformational leadership approach has been of the models that have assisted the
organization to reduce resistance when making a change. This type of leadership is effective
when an organization wants to carry out a large scale change (Brandt and Edinger, 2015, pp.48).
It assists the organization to instill trust and confidence in the employees. Moreover, it assists the

Students’ Last Name13
organization to ensure that the change is deeply rooted in the new organizational culture. Despite
this, transformational leadership slows down the process of decision making, unlike the
autocratic the authoritarian leadership approach.
Effectiveness of the transformational leadership approach
This type of approach enables a leader to analyses the company’s situation and devise
visions for the growth or the improvements that will assist the company to grow. The leaders are
able to forecast the challenges that the company may face.
Conclusion
Change is an important aspect of any organization. However, for any organization to
implement the change in an effective manner. It should communicate the change to employees so
that they can understand the type of change, why it is necessary, and how it will impact the
organization. In addition, the organization should have effective leadership. It is critical to have
the right leaders and management in place to communicate and execute the change. So many
businesses around the world regardless of size do not understand that just because somebody is
in a high position they know how to manage people through change. This enables the
organization to face resistance as a result of the change.

Students’ Last Name14
References
Lozano, R., 2015. A holistic perspective on corporate sustainability drivers. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(1), pp.32-44.
Ceulemans, K., Lozano, R. and Alonso-Almeida, M., 2015. Sustainability reporting in
higher education: Interconnecting the reporting process and organisational change
management for sustainability. Sustainability, 7(7), pp.8881-8903.
Veldhuizen, M., Blok, V. and Dentoni, D., 2013. Organisational drivers of capabilities for
multi-stakeholder dialogue and knowledge integration. Journal on Chain and Network
Science, 13(2), pp.107-117.
Gready, P., 2013. Organisational Theories of Change in the Era of Organisational
Cosmopolitanism: lessons from ActionAid’s human rights-based approach. Third World
Quarterly, 34(8), pp.1339-1360.
Pollack, J., 2015. Understanding the divide between the theory and practice of
organisational change. Organisational Project Management, 2(1), pp.35-52.
Rubery, J., 2015. Change at work: feminisation, flexibilisation, fragmentation and
financialisation. Employee Relations, 37(6), pp.633-644.
Stubbs, W. and Higgins, C., 2014. Integrated reporting and internal mechanisms of
change. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 27(7), pp.1068-1089.
Lozano, R., 2013. Are companies planning their organisational changes for corporate
sustainability? An analysis of three case studies on resistance to change and their strategies

Students’ Last Name15
to overcome it. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 20(5),
pp.275-295.
Kuipers, B.S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J. and Van der Voet, J., 2014.
The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public
administration, 92(1), pp.1-20.
Bassett, D.S., Alderson, D.L. and Carlson, J.M., 2012. Collective decision dynamics in the
presence of external drivers. Physical Review E, 86(3), p.036105.
Grumbine, R.E., Dore, J. and Xu, J., 2012. Mekong hydropower: drivers of change and
governance challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10(2), pp.91-98.
Christiansen, J.K. and Varnes, C.J., 2015. Drivers of changes in product development rules:
How generations of rules change back and forth. European Journal of Innovation
Management, 18(2), pp.218-237.
Jacobs, G., Van Witteloostuijn, A. and Christe-Zeyse, J., 2013. A theoretical framework of
organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26(5), pp.772-792.
Wetzel, R. and Van Gorp, L., 2014. Eighteen shades of grey? An explorative literature
review into the theoretical flavours of organizational change research. Journal of
Organizational Change Management, 27(1), pp.115-146.
Pollack, J. and Pollack, R., 2015. Using Kotter’s eight stage process to manage an
organisational change program: Presentation and practice. Systemic Practice and Action
Research, 28(1), pp.51-66.

Students’ Last Name16
Appelbaum, S.H., Habashy, S., Malo, J.L. and Shafiq, H., 2012. Back to the future:
revisiting Kotter's 1996 change model. Journal of Management Development, 31(8),
pp.764-782.
Gorran Farkas, M., 2013. Building and sustaining a culture of assessment: best practices for
change leadership. Reference services review, 41(1), pp.13-31.
Sylvestre, P., Wright, T. and Sherren, K., 2013. Exploring faculty conceptualizations of
sustainability in higher education: Cultural barriers to organizational change and potential
resolutions. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 7(2), pp.223-244.
R. Jadhav, J., S. Mantha, S. and B. Rane, S., 2014. Exploring barriers in lean
implementation. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 5(2), pp.122-148.
Shirey, M.R., 2013. Lewin’s theory of planned change as a strategic resource. Journal of
Nursing Administration, 43(2), pp.69-72.
Shek, D.T., Chung, P.P. and Leung, H., 2015. How unique is the service leadership model?
A comparison with contemporary leadership approaches. International Journal on
Disability and Human Development, 14(3), pp.217-231.
Rast III, D.E., Hogg, M.A. and Giessner, S.R., 2013. Self-uncertainty and support for
autocratic leadership. Self and Identity, 12(6), pp.635-649.
Brandt, T.M. and Edinger, P., 2015. Transformational leadership in teams–the effects of a
team leader’s sex and personality. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 30(1),
pp.44-68.

Students’ Last Name17
Afshinpour, S., 2014. Leadership styles and employee satisfaction: A correlation
study. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, (27), pp.156-169.