Midshires College Merger: A Change Management Case Analysis

This case study provides an analysis of the attempted merger of five midwifery and nursing colleges to form Midshires College of Midwifery and Nursing. The report delves into the background of the change situation, highlighting issues such as job threats and ambiguous objectives. It examines the need for change, the organization's target achievements, and its readiness for the merger. The analysis further explores cultural implications, emphasizing the importance of balancing hospital and educational environments and managing diversified campus cultures. Leadership and communication aspects are scrutinized, noting the shortcomings of the Project Leader's role and the lack of a clear vision. The report also touches upon the handling of resistance to change and the consolidation of changes after implementation. Desklib provides access to this and many other solved assignments for students.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
Analysis of a Change Situation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
Introduction
Change is inevitable in today’s business environment. Changes in an organization
take place whenever a company tries to reach its desired state somewhere in the future and to
achieve it, goes through considerable transitions (Hayes 2014). These changes can be
organized and managed by the simple processes of planning and bringing about the changes
in the organization such that the employee resistance could be minimized keeping the cost
estimation balance of the organization and increasing the effectiveness of the changes
implemented in the organization (Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). Almost every existing
company needs to undergo constant changes if they have to survive in the contemporary
business world as it is growing in competitiveness every passing day (Bradley 2016). The
following report includes a detailed analysis of a change situation in the organization
Midshires College where it attempts to merger a set of five colleges of the same industry to
form the of Midwifery and Nursing. To analyse the situation of change in the organization,
the report would further analyse in details about the genuine need of the change in the
organization, the target that the organization intents to achieve with the merger, and the
assessment of the organization’s readiness for the merger (Matos Marques Simoes and
Esposito 2014). The change analysis would require the leadership and communication that is
required for the merger along with the handling of the resistances that were imposed upon
during the merger. The analysis would include the type of change and the cultural
implications that come along with it and to what extent the changes have been successfully
implemented in the company.

2ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
Discussion
Background of the change situation in the organization
The change situation that has been described in the case study provided includes the
attempt to merge five colleges of midwifery and nursing to form the Midshires College of
Midwifery and Nursing. The colleges that have been included in the merger served for the
hospitals in ten different Health Authorities, which in fact had appointed a Steering Group to
supervise the amalgamation of the five colleges. The Steering Group included the General
Manager from different NHS hospital trusts that comprised of the Health Authorities. The
total number of representatives included 24 members in the Regional Health Authority. Case
study shows that in previous times these mergers would not interfere with the jobs of the
preceding employees, as a minimum with the managers keeping their posts, and were more or
less straightforward in their approach in comparison. However, in the contemporary times,
there were three indentified issues in the merger. These issues included threat to jobs, the
ambiguous position of the colleges in their objectives and the passing on of these objectives,
and the thought of merging higher education with the qualification gain (Gollenia 2016). It
was thus a challenge to bring about the changes in the organizational structure as well as
eradicate the issues that the merger was facing as a result.
The need for change
The deliverables of the Steering Group was more or less straightforward in approach.
All it wanted to was to supervise the merger of the five medical colleges in a single one and
create the Midshires College of Midwifery and Nursing. In the previous era, there were
nurses in the hospitals having immense skills but no educational support for their required
skills (Kim, McCunn and Lew 2017). This would often create problems in the establishment
of a successful and trustworthy workforce in the hospitals of United Kingdom. This is why,

3ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
with advancement of time, there have been establishments of nursing and midwifery colleges
to educate the people of the respective country about nursing and midwifery without having
to depend on their skills alone. However, there have been situations where an institution
could not include too many students all at once for the required concentration (Aziz and
Curlee 2017). In some cases, it has also been found that in previous times it was part of the
NHS policy that the colleges would have a tie up with the hospitals with a specific college for
nursing and midwifery. This policy was irreversible and the colleges and the hospitals were
to abide by the policy even if they had disagreement with it (Turner 2016). It would go to an
extent of tendering colleges outside the country in order to abide by the policy and there have
been evidences for the same as well. Again, there had been incidences where the nurses in
need for post-experience courses would look for alternative suppliers in the short terms.
Therefore, there was indeed a requirement for the changes in the industry to maintain
the balance of the universities and the nursing and midwifery courses with the number of
colleges and universities within the country. This is because, the inference of the jobs with 30
percent of the on hand staff amongst the five colleges could be fused together (Kuipers et al.
2014).
Target achievement for the organization
As per the strategy of the Steering Group employed to supervise the merger of the
five colleges, it was evident that the merger would be carried out in a mechanical and
uncomplicated process. The target was to achieve the merger in a period of 24 months. To
achieve the merger, the Steering group had appointed a Project Leader, who was the principal
of one of the colleges that were to be merged (Pugh 2016). There was, however, no report of
proposed budget provided to the Project Leader, only the person could decide on the
resources required to merge the five colleges into one. The Project Leader formed the bridge

4ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
in the gaps between the Project Board and the Steering Group. The Project Leader thus
appointed was enthusiastic, had already contacted the principals of the colleges to be merged,
and had formed the Project Board along with the memberships. The Project Lead was a
retiring principal of one of the five colleges that were to be merged; therefore, ideally, he
should not have been selected as the Project Lead (Kash et al. 2014). However, by the first
Board meeting, he had fashioned an administrative process and the centralisation plan for
student requirement even without a secretary.
Therefore, it could be said that to achieve the target, the Steering Group had
implemented the ideal person for supervising the planning to complete the merger within the
next 24 months since the implementation of the plan.
Assessment of the organization’s readiness for change
After the appointment of the Project Leader, who was one of the principals of the
colleges to be merged, the planning for the projects started on a high note. The Project Leader
had already contacted all the respective principals of the remaining colleges and explained
their roles that would be implemented in the project. The project planning was ready during
the course of time and the Project Leader had implemented and disbanded the Project Board
at the same time during this. A short-term Management Committee was also put into action
during this time.
The Project Lead also involved the other four principals as part of the Management
Committee with specific responsibilities leaving their posts to new head of the sites.
Including the proposed sub-projects and project planning, the Project Leader was confident to
introduce the fully functional setup for the new college by the 12th month of the merger
calendar.

5ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
In spite of the successful planning of the structural and functional setup, one aspect of
the entire arrangement was overlooked. The inflow of the new students was not considered
while planning. If the offering post-registration course or moving into higher education of the
courses were not taken into consideration, there would be no inflow of new students in the
merged college (Cummings and Worley 2014). Therefore, despite the growth in the project
planning, the merger was still not ready to be carried out.
Cultural implications
Although, the governmental role and the responsibilities of the institution leader, in
this case, the principals of the colleges, are highly addressed whilst the planning for the
merger goes on, there is very less focus given to the cultural implications that could become
an issue while merging two or more higher education institutions. One of the major cultural
allegations that could occur while merging the institutions is maintaining the balance of the
hospital and educational environments (Doppelt 2017). The primary perception differences
and similarities in the cultural differences performing the merger of the five colleges serving
under the hospitals of NHS trusts should be implemented in the project planning (Hornstein
2015). In comparison to any other organization, cultural implications affect the academic
environment the most. A merger seems to be more effective where there exists a greater
possibility of integration and articulation of commonality between the goals and visions of
the institution in question, helping in the characterization of the institutions where culture and
missions are complimentary. Cross-sectoral or vertical mergers between these five colleges
are more likely to be successful if when the merger and post-merger phases are managed with
effectiveness (Moran, Abramson and Moran 2014). There is another cultural implication in
merging these five colleges into one. This would be the managing of the absorption of the
diversified campus cultures into one consistent educational community. The merged and

6ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
unified culture would represent the higher level of cultural amalgamation in the unified
institution, and not just the amalgamation of the management.
The cultural differences may also imply to the variations in concentration of the
colleges (Hughes and Wearing 2016). It may occur that one college provides detailed
professional training in one concentration whereas another offers training in some other.
Merging all the colleges into one would imply that there would be no solo focus on the
subject but diversified. Although, this only provides professional expertise, the adaptation of
these colleges from one subject to four varied subjects would require adaptation into a
different culture.
Since these cultural differences prevail for the merger of the five colleges into one
midwife and nursing institute, building an integrated and coherent educational community
during and after the merger has occurred, is not an easy task to highlight the leadership and
management to concentrate on consolidation after the merger and building a community.
Leadership and Communication
The Steering Group had selected a Project Leader for the amalgamation of the
colleges. This Project Leader is one of the principals of the colleges that are to be merged.
When he was given a timeline of 24 months, he enthusiastically started to plan for the project.
Initially, being the principal of his previous college, the Project Leader had only two years of
service left. He had not given a fixed budget or any subordinate, but a 24 months’ time to
accomplish his goal.
This was a fault by the Steering Group as there had been no management structure.
Ideally, it would have been more convenient if the Project Lead would have been provided
with few subordinates or colleagues to have several brains forming the management
structure. Since there have been only one Project Lead, the working mind focused on just one

7ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
aspect of managing the structural workforce for the merger (Goleman 2017). During the
course of time, the hurriedness of the Project Lead left the other staff in confusion about their
posts and deliverables. The project also lacked in mission and vision, which is the
responsibility of the Project Lead to provide. The accounting of the new students in the now-
diversified scheme of the new college was also not taken into consideration by the Project
Lead. The staffs were confused about the services to be provided and the structural anatomy
of their services. Even after the staff conference, when the Project Leader had called for
another Project Board meeting, it was found that rather than examining the situations and
discussing the probable actions to be taken, the conference only presented the ideas that the
members had no other option but to accept leaving the work done so far turn meaningless.
Therefore, when all these are taken into consideration, it is seen that the merger team
lacked in leadership and communication (Certo 2015). This affected the change management
procedure to the core such that meeting the target seemed far reach.
Handling the resistances and Consolidation of the changes after implementation
The only resistance that the entire project had was in the mismanagement of the
selection of an influential project lead. Since the inception of the project, the only progress
that it had made was the assignment of posts to the respective people. However, the assigned
post-holders had no idea about their specific tasks. Moreover, the Project Leader was
deflected from his usual course of action, focusing on completing the task as soon as
possible, even if it was before the proposed calendar. This resulted in faulty project planning
and restricted course of work where the people had no other option than abiding the orders of
the Project Lead. This formed a huge resistance in the project marking the slow progress of
the merger such that after a considerable amount of time it was seen that the project was not
implemented practically but was only executed on papers.

8ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
To consolidate the harms that have been done to the merger, during the 9th month of
the merger calendar, a new Chair was appointed by the Steering Group with the condition
that any hindrance in the task would require a takeover by the Trust fund.
Degree to which the changes has been successful
The changes had only been successful in implementing the tasks and carrying it out
fast after it was found that the previous selection for implementing a project leader had failed
miserably (Cameron and Green 2015). That was the point when the Steering Group
incorporated the new Chair on the 9th month of the project timeline. Otherwise, there have
only been sites where the change management had fallen flat on the face trying to merge the
five midwives and nursing colleges into one united Midshires College of Midwife and
Nursing. A successful change management implementation depends on the following factors
(Burke 2017):
 Support from the active executives
 Leadership of the change management
 Clear vision
 Employee participation and engagement
 Constant communication
 Accountability
From the analysis done above, it is clear that the change management had failed to
execute in this case for uniting the nursing and midwifery colleges into one. It lacked in all
the factors that makes a successful change situation in an organization.

9ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis, it could be concluded that the change situation that
was implemented for the betterment of all the five nursing and midwifery colleges by
unifying into one diversified college with the name Midshires College of Midwifery and
Nursing, was failing due to lack of planning. In the existing business era, only change is
constant. The only way a business could achieve success and thrive with the contemporary
times is by keeping on changing their management plans. The same idea was implemented
and a change was brought about in the five colleges of United Kingdom to form a single
college. However, the group, which was given the responsibility of supervising the entire
change, has made mistakes in the initiation. The principal who was chosen to lead the project
did not possess a leadership quality and more or less had a dictatorship going on in planning
the merger. The plans were not discussed and the Project Meetings did not suffice the
progress reports. There had been complete mismanagement until the 9th month of the project
calendar, when it was decided that a new Chair of the Steering Group would be appointed.
Any redundancies that occurred in the process would by then be taken care of by the Trust of
Regional Health Authority. This makes it evident that although change is needed and
inevitable to survive, it comes along with many factors to implement a successful change in
the business. If an organization fails in implementing any of these factors, bringing a change
management would not be triumphant.

10ANALYSIS OF A CHANGE SITUATION
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