Literature Review: The Pivotal Role of Change Agents in Organizations

This literature review examines the critical role of change agents in organizational change management, focusing on their functions within the context of Lewin’s change management model. It discusses the differences between internal and external change agents, their various types, and their responsibilities, including structural changes, job redesign, training, infrastructure improvements, and mindset shifts. The review also critiques existing literature, highlighting issues such as unsuccessful change initiatives due to poor support, the importance of historical reviews, the balance between cognitive and action-oriented skills, and the challenges of addressing resistance to change. The analysis emphasizes the need for change agents to be proactive, skilled, and supported to ensure successful organizational transformation and sustainability. Desklib provides a platform to access similar solved assignments.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Topic: Organizational Change Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................2
2.0 Part A: Role of Change Agents- Literature Review..................................................................2
2.1 Change Management Model..................................................................................................2
2.2 Change Agents.......................................................................................................................4
2.3 Types of Change Agents and Roles.......................................................................................5
2.4 Roles of Change Agent..........................................................................................................5
3.0 Part B: Role of Change Agents- Critique of Literature.............................................................8
3.1 Critique on Change Agent Initiative......................................................................................8
3.2 Critique on Change AgentSkill Based Role...........................................................................8
3.3 Critique on Change Agent Support........................................................................................9
3.4 Critique on Change Agent Resistance to Change................................................................10
3.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................12

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1.0 Introduction
Globalization has created a tremendous competition among the players of any industry.
Organizations are operating under a competitive environment and constantly trying to achieve
higher degree of sustainability through better change management plans. Organizational change
management is the process that helps in restructuring the business operations in order to achieve
better outcome (Kuipers et al. 2014). However, the change initiative is the primary stage where a
change agent acts as the pivotal element. Based on the initiative taken by a change agent,
strategic decisions are taken by an organization and finally the change management process is
implemented.
In this discussion, the change management will be discussed in brief and main focus will
be given on change management agents. The entire discussion will be divided into two parts,
which are literature review and critical analysis.A literature review will be provided where the
change management agents will be pointed out and some theories will be discussed. In the
critical analysis section, different views from various authors will be analyzed in argumentative
manner.
2.0 Part A: Role of Change Agents- Literature Review
An organization takes its decision based on both the internal and external influences. The
strategic decision is implemented through a change management process, which is mostly
actualized through the most common Lewin’s change management model.
2.1 Change Management Model
Lewin’s Change management model is comprised of three stages, which are unfreeze,
change and refreeze (Hossan 2015). In the first stage, employees are communicated regarding

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the change and its significance, adequate support is provided, need for change is created, mission
and vision statement is communicated and finally any doubts from employees are entertained. In
the next stage change management plan is executed where all the decided strategies are placed.
Finally, in the last stage changed process is anchored with organizational culture and adequate
support is provided (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016).
Figure 1: Lewin’s Change Management Model
(Source: Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016)
However, any change requires the initiative from an agent who highlights its significance
and rationale behind the plan. Once the plan is accepted, change management plan is executed.

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2.2 Change Agents
An organization executes its change management plan through the influence from either
internal or external stakeholder. Internal change agents are commonly considered as the
corporate board members, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), managers, deputy supervisors or even
middle level executives (Buono and Subbiah 2014). On the other hand, external change agents
are the consultants who are hired for short term in order to provide strategic development plans.
The external agents may be even the outside researchers from a corporate or regional office.
Table 1: Internal and External Change Agent Comparison
(Source: Volberda, Van Den Bosch and Mihalache 2014)

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2.3 Types of Change Agents and Roles
Following are the four common types of change agents:
Types Explanation
Outside pressure type  External change agents
 Provide radical change options
People-change-
technology type
 Change agent from individual point of view
 Change in individual behavior, changes organization
Analysis-for-the-top
type
 Managers are the most common type of agent
 Organization structural change is initiated
Organization-
development type
 Interpersonal group relations are changed
 Culture and communication change is initiated
Table 2: Change Agents and Roles
(Source: Waddell et al. 2016)
2.4 Roles of Change Agent
The most common role of a change agent is to change the structure of an organization.
This helps in bringing about new designations so that operations are processed in better
categorized manner. Redesigning of job and talent management is another major role of a change
agent. Such change helps in building career planning of an employee and better commitment
towards employee performance. This role also includes changing the authority relations, which is
associated with job enrichment, job rotation, shifting employees and criteria for appraisal. Some
internal change agents also have the role of undergoing training process change so that culture
and process is better practiced by employees (Entrekin and Scott-ladd, Brenda 2014).
Furthermore, infrastructure and facility change agents have the role of modifying and

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improvising better tools and equipment so that workplace becomes more attractive and
professional. Finally, the most essential and challenging role of a change agent is to act as the
counsellor and mentor to change the mindset of employees and encourage them to create a
positive notion towards change management.
Considering the change management model of Lewin, it has been found that unfreeze
stage is the most critical and challenging for the change agents. Therefore, in such stage the
internal change agents have the role of taking ownership of the team’s readiness. They act as the
champion change that benefits the community folks. The agents create the open mode of
communication throughout the workplace so that point of dissatisfaction, doubts and clarification
among teammates are addressed (Cameron and Green 2015). The agents also work with others to
identify the cultural and organizational factors and create better team cohesion.
Addressing the difficulties during change management is the next priority and roles of
agents consist of adhering to change strategies, control and quality along with strategic
developments. Moreover, at the final stage of change management when operation is actualized
through new process, the change agents try to adhere to quality standards and act as the
supportive players so that any challenge post change is addressed at the root level. The major
roles of a change agent are consisted of investigating, advocating, encouraging, facilitating,
mediating, advising and managing (Klonek, Lehmann-Willenbrock and Kauffeld 2014). Finally,
the roles are comprised of integrating ideas, building creative environment, keeping
commitments, understanding strengths and weakness, supportive leadership, being assertive,
extending intent for help and creating the level of trust among key organizational stakeholders.
The roles and responsibilities of the change agents are quite dynamic as they are
constantly engaged with the teams starting from communication to post implementation

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feedback. It has been found that addressing the resistance to change is one of the most
complicated challenge that the agents need to counter and the execution of such responsibilities
create a successful change management. Overall, it can be said that with help of change agents,
an organization is able to establish its sustainability and create a remarkable position in the
competitive market.

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3.0 Part B: Role of Change Agents- Critique of Literature
3.1 Critique on Change Agent Initiative
According to the viewpoint of Gatenby et al. (2015), change management initiative is
often found to be unsuccessful and the reasons are mostly confined to the poor support and
executive process taken by a change agent. However, from the literature review it has been found
that the change agents act as just the supportive player for implementing change and therefore,
failed change management might consist of other factors as well, which are not well examined in
this source.This is the weakness from the article as major players who are responsible for change
has not been pointed out.
On the other hand, Heyden et al. (2017) pointed out thatmost of the managers try to
figure out the change requirement by focusing on the bird’s eye view and does not take into
consideration the potential historical reviews regarding the organizational strengths and
weakness. Therefore, it can be said that the investigation role of change agents as mentioned in
literature review is lacking among them. This source has highlighted the key reason for change
failure and its root cause that agents need to focus while implementing change management. This
idea of change failure can be considered as the strength of the article.
3.2 Critique on Change AgentSkill Based Role
According to Klonek, Lehmann-Willenbrock and Kauffeld (2014), the role of change
agents is supported with some cognitive skills such as self-understanding, conceptualization, and
evaluation in order to realize the change management. These skills were not mentioned in the
literature as discussed earlier. Therefore, it has broadened the scope of analyzing the character of
change agents. Therefore, the article highlights new ideas and theories in response to the role of

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change agents and their skills. Some of the useful elements such as the impact of cognitive skills
on change initiative have been understood, however the optimum outcome is lacking.
However, Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) argued that a change agent needs to have more
action-oriented skills than cognitive skills as they need to act as the researcher, consultant or
counselor to bring out the change. Therefore, the views of authors support the fact that agents
need to advocate, encourage and facilitate the mindset of employees as discussed in earlier
literature.This source act as the credible empirical evidence that proves the existing literature of
change management. This article does not take into consider the elements such as
conceptualization and evaluation of change, which might perhaps be considered as the primary
requirement for change agents before strategic change implementation.
3.3 Critique on Change Agent Support
Rosenberg and Keller (2016) pointed out that change agents try to bring out strategies
that might help in organizational stability though structural improvement. Such changes help in
segregating the work-load and responsibilities among existing human resource base. Eventually,
the management is able to reduce work-pressure and streamline the entire process of operation,
which further helps in reducing the resource consumption. This article highlights some
descriptive discussion however fails to prove the success and the degree of measurement about
how well the structural change might take place.This is the weakness but it has successfully
emphasized on role of change agents.
However, Long, Wan Ismail and Amin (2013) argued that even if the change agent is
able to change an organizational structure, later it is found that adequate support after change is
not prominent. There is no adequate training and sessions provided to employees and ultimately
an organization has to face huge attrition. This mostly occurs in small-scale companies where the

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change agents do not have enough experience and knowledge. Therefore, the sources gave the
ideas of potential challenges that organizations might face post change management process.
According to the roles that were discussed in literature review, if is compared with these sources,
it can be found that change agents are failing to justify the change management process either
due to lack of experience or due to poor planning. The ideas in this article pertinent to challenges
faced by change agents are quite new, which is its strength. However it does not take into
consideration authentic recommendations in support of change agents.
3.4 Critique on Change Agent Resistance to Change
While considering the viewpoint of Matos Marques Simoes and Esposito (2014), it can
be said that resistance to change is the reason that largely impacts on change management. Even
though it is the responsibility of change agents to address such challenges through
communication and clear objectives, however addressing and resolving the queries of all the
employees is often found to be painful.Therefore, it can be said that this article highlights the
same points as discussed in literature review, however does not point out suitable
recommendations in support of change agents. Certain elements such improper communication,
unclear set of objectives, improper rationale can be considered as the useful elements. This
source does not give any proper resistance resolving idea for the change agents.
On the other hand, Burnes (2015) pointed out some recommendations for resolving
resistance to change, which serve as the strength for this article in support of change agents.
Continuous communication, meeting, sessions and presentations are the best ways for
communicating with employees regarding the objectives of change management. At each point
the agents need to resolve any query highlighted by a stakeholder through realistic rationale and
benefits that might satisfy and address the employee concern. Therefore, this source serves as

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pointing out new ideas for change agents. This article not only highlighted the challenges faced
by change agents but also recommended the best ways of communication through which
employee grievances can be addressed prior to change management.Some competing
perspectives such as different modes of communication and justifying the change significance
can be considered as the dynamic roles of change agents.
3.0 Conclusion
The literature review highlighted some aspects of change management including a theory,
the main players of change management and their respective roles. The main idea was to
critically analyze the available literature with other articles. The critical analysis pointed out
strengths and weakness of the articles including useful elements and competing perspectives. It
has been found that most of the authors discussed and found similar points against the theories
and roles of change agent described in literature. However, some of the authors have extended
their viewpoints, added new ideas from their own findings but somewhere either failed to
provide suitable recommendations or failed to identify the practical result from their
assumptions.

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Reference List
Al-Haddad, S. and Kotnour, T., 2015. Integrating the organizational change literature: a model
for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp.234-262.
Buono, A.F. and Subbiah, K., 2014. Internal consultants as change agents: Roles, responsibilities
and organizational change capacity. Organizational Development Journal, 32(2), pp.35-53.
Burnes, B., 2015. Understanding resistance to change–building on Coch and French. Journal of
Change Management, 15(2), pp.92-116.
Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.
Entrekin, L. and Scott-ladd, Brenda D., 2014. Human resource management and change: a
practising manager's guide, London: Routledge.
Gatenby, M., Rees, C., Truss, C., Alfes, K. and Soane, E., 2015. Managing change, or changing
managers? The role of middle managers in UK public service reform. Public Management
Review, 17(8), pp.1124-1145.
Heyden, M.L., Fourné, S.P., Koene, B.A., Werkman, R. and Ansari, S.S., 2017. Rethinking ‘top‐
down’and ‘bottom‐up’roles of top and middle managers in organizational change: Implications
for employee support. Journal of Management Studies, 54(7), pp.961-985.
Hossan, C., 2015. Applicability of Lewin’s change management theory in Australian local
government. International Journal of business and Management, 10(6), p.53.

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Klonek, F.E., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. and Kauffeld, S., 2014. Dynamics of resistance to
change: a sequential analysis of change agents in action. Journal of change management, 14(3),
pp.334-360.
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.
Long, C.S., Wan Ismail, W.K. and Amin, S.M., 2013. The role of change agent as mediator in
the relationship between HR competencies and organizational performance. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(10), pp.2019–2033.
Matos Marques Simoes, P. and Esposito, M., 2014. Improving change management: How
communication nature influences resistance to change. Journal of Management
Development, 33(4), pp.324-341.
Rosenberg, A. and Keller, M., 2016. Making sense of organizational structure change: a practice-
based approach. Baltic Journal of Management, 11(4), pp.452-472.
Volberda, H.W., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Mihalache, O.R., 2014. Advancing management
innovation: Synthesizing processes, levels of analysis, and change agents. Organization
Studies, 35(9), pp.1245-1264.
Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T. and Worley, C., 2016. Organisational Change:
Development and Transformation, Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia.

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Waddock, S., Meszoely, G.M., Waddell, S. and Dentoni, D., 2015. The complexity of wicked
problems in large scale change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(6), pp.993-
1012.