Understanding and Leading Change: A Comprehensive Report on Business

This report delves into the intricacies of organizational change, examining its impact on strategy, operations, and various aspects of organizational behavior. It presents real-world examples, such as the merger of The Finish Line Inc. and JD Sport Fashion PLC, and the adoption of e-commerce by Zara SC, to illustrate the different types of organizational change. The report further analyzes the internal and external drivers of change, including political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors, using PEST and SWOT analyses. It also explores the barriers to change and the leadership approaches needed to overcome them, while providing measurements to minimize negative impacts on organizational behavior, such as providing training and presenting successful examples of change. Overall, the report offers a comprehensive understanding of change management and leadership strategies in a business context.

Understanding and Leading
Change

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
A Comparison of Different organizational examples of the impact of change on an
organization's strategy and operations.........................................................................................1
B Impact of internal and external drivers of change on the leadership, team and individual
behaviours within the organization..............................................................................................2
C Measurement taken for the minimization of negative impacts of change on organizational
behaviour......................................................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
(a) Different barriers for change and determination of influence on leadership decision making
in organizational context..............................................................................................................1
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................2
(a) Different leadership approaches in dealing with change at organizational context...............2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Different changes made by the organisation to improve the productivity ad performance
of the company & procedures are considered as Organisational Change.
This report will present the examples of different organisational changes and their impact
on the organization's strategy and operations. It will evaluate the internal and external factors
which arises due to adoption of change and their impact on the leadership, team and individuals.
It will tell the measurements which will reduce the negative impact of change on the
organisation. It will demonstrate the different barriers which is face by organisation during
adoption of changes. It will analysis the different leadership approaches which is adopted by
leaders for the adoption of change in the organisation.
TASK 1
A Comparison of Different organizational examples of the impact of change on an organization's
strategy and operations
Change in the context of organization refers to the transformation of any organisational
aspect(s). Change is an important part of the organisation which is considered to be as a constant
requirement for the up-gradation or betterment. There are three types of organisational changes
which occurs in the organisation. These organisational changes are as follows -
Developmental Change
This type of change is occurred when an organisation feel that a particular area is
required to improve for the better. Here organisation is doing refine the area by changing it and
make it better.
Transitional Change
This type of change is occurred when an organisation feel that a particular area is
required for the completely new course of action. Here organisation is changing that particular
area completely (Ahmad and Cheng, 2018).
Transformational Change
This type of change is occurred when an organisation do change in the strategy or
processes which lead to completely change in organisational culture.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN THE FORM OF
EXAMPLES -
Organizational Change 1 – Merger between The Finish Line Inc. & JD Sport Fashion PLC
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On the day of 26th March 2018, Finish Line Company has acquired 100% shares of the
JD Sport Fashion Company by entering into merger agreement. The value of this merger was
$558 million. This change has impact both the organization in many ways. Impact of the merger
between The Finish Line Inc. & JD Sport Fashion PLC are as follows -
Due to merger, Both companies get the benefits of creation of synergies and economies
of scale because both companies were working under the same industry and doing same business
which lead both the company to use their resources effectively which will help them to reduce
their costs and improve their operations. Due to merger, their customer base increase, their
business model change and their market also increase. This will lead companies to create new
strategies as now the whole business are change (Amis, 2018).
It is the type of Transformational organisational change.
Organizational Change 2 – Adoption of E-Commerce business by Zara SC
On September 2010, Zara started their e-commerce business model and launched its
online boutique. Zara is still doing online business expansion.
Due to this technological change in organisation by adopting new model, Company's
operation and strategy get impacts. These impacts are as follows -
Company's operations get expand as now company have to focus on their offline business
operations as well as their online operations. It will increase the costs of the operations of the
business.
Marketing and distribution department of the company has to not only think about their
offline business strategies. They have to think and focus on their online strategies too for the
growth of the online business and reach out to the large audience (Cruz and Wang, 2018).
It is the type of Transitional organisational change.
B Impact of internal and external drivers of change on the leadership, team and individual
behaviours within the organization
There are various internal and external factors or drivers which encourage organisation to
change their business and its related aspects. Analysis of the external factors are done through
Pest Analysis and analysis of the internal factors are done through Swot Analysis.
PEST ANALYSIS OF THE FINISH LINE INC.
Following are the pest analysis of The Finish Line Inc. which are as follows -
Political Factor
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Change in tax rate will affect the company's profitability. In case government reduce the
tax rate, it will lead organisation to improve its profitability and in case of increment in tax rate
by government, company has to pay more tax from its profit which reduce the profitability.
Due to change in tax rate, company have to change their strategies in order to prevent the
organisation from low profitability (Farrell, 2018). Leader plays an important role in strategy
implementation. Implementation of the change strategies will lead to work pressure on the team.
Work pressure on the team means work load on the individual. It will affect their behaviour and
their working style.
Economic Factor
Due to merger between 2 sports retailing companies, their costs of operating business has
increased which lead to change in their profitability and productivity (Hayes, 2018).
In order to reduce the costs, leader becomes alert. They are thinking and encouraging the
ways to motivate their teams and individuals of the company to think out of the box and
encourage them to do their work in efficient manner. Due to change in cost structure, teams and
individuals are getting motivated due to their leaders' motivational strategies which improve their
work productivity and they are becoming efficient and satisfied.
Socio-Cultural Factor
Due to merger, Company are using so many resources of the societies as now they have
to produce their products at the large amount. This will affect the company's brand image as
many customers and societies will take action against the company.
This change not only impact the company but also impact the leader and their leadership.
Due to change in leadership, company's teams and individuals will also get affected as leader is
the one who are directly linked with them. Due to change in the usage of resources, leaders of the
company have to change and implement their CRM strategies. Implementation of the strategies
are done with the help of the team and individuals who have to work in new way which will
impact their behaviours as well as their working style (Marichal and et.al., 2018).
Technological Factor
Due to merger, Both companies get their production techniques of producing products
which improve their quality of the products. It will help in attraction of the customers towards
company and enhance their brand image.
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Due to change in production style, leader has to do arrangement for the training of the
team and individuals as they have to make them teach about the new production style. Team and
individuals will learn something new which will increase their knowledge and skills. It will make
them efficient in their work and they will become satisfied.
SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE FINISH LINE INC.
Following are the Swot analysis of The Finish Line Inc. which are as follows -
Strength – Strong Distribution Network
Already before the merger with another company, Finish Line organization has strong
distribution network. But after merging with JD Sport Fashion PLC, Company's distribution
network become more strong.
It will impact the leadership style because now leader have some new employees from
distribution department of JD Sport Fashion PLC. To deal with new employees, leader have to
understand them and try to build their relationship with them. It will also impact the team and
individuals as they have to deal with new people and new business model.
Weakness – High Attrition Rate
After merger, company has to face high attrition of employees as they are not able to
accept the change which arise due to merger.
It will affect the leaders. They will try to motivate them and offer them incentives in
order to retain them in the organisation. High attrition rate lead to demotivation of individuals as
due to lack of employees in the organisation, their work load has increase. It will affect the team
and their team co-ordination will decrease which will reduce the efficiencies of the organisation
(Stegen and et.al., 2018).
Opportunity – Entrance in New Market
Due to merger, Company has the opportunity to enter into market which will increase
their operations.
In this case, Leader has to encourage their employees and teams to do their work
effectively which will lead to improve the quality of the products. This will help company to
gain customers and create brand image which is beneficial for the related stakeholders and
company.
Threat – Intense Competition
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Due to stable profitable, there are new players in the market which increase the
competition level in the industry. This lead companies to do merger with each other in order to
reduce this competition (Woodward, Shaffakat and Dominé, 2019).
To fight with the competition, company has to gain competitive advantage. For that
leader of the company has to do strict their working policy which will affect the working style of
the employees and teams.
C Measurement taken for the minimization of negative impacts of change on organizational
behaviour
There are various measurements which are taken by the organisation for the reduction of
the negative impact of merger on the organisational behaviour. These various measurements are
as follows -
By providing training to the employees helps in reducing the negative impact on the
employees. As training will help in understanding the changes that will be taken place in the
organization. It is necessary for providing training so that employees can adjust in the changing
environment of the company. It helps in developing skills that is required for organizational
change. If proper training is being provided to employees they will do work effectively and
efficiently. Therefore, it is important to train employees for the future growth in the business.
This will bring new opportunities and growth for employees. There are different techniques that
will help in removing negative impact from the organization (Rosenbaum, More and Steane,
2018).
Organisation should present various real examples of successful merger and their impact
on organisation & employees. This will lead employees to get motivate which will affect their
working style and they will try to do better work which will increase their efficiencies. The
impact of overall employees' efficiencies will affect the company's productivity and efficiency.
This will lead organisation to achieve their purpose for which they bring change in the
organisation. Increase in productivity and efficiencies will improve the brand image and
profitability of the organisation. This will make organisational environment friendly where
employees will be happy and satisfied.
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TASK 2
(a) Different barriers for change and determination of influence on leadership decision making in
organizational context
Barriers are the obstacles that put resistance in movement of smooth running of
operations of an organisation. It is mostly physical in nature and might be able to put a pushover
over the working practices when any two companies undergo merger. It includes several factors
like resistance in team working or collaboration, changes in the structural formations that has led
to the miscommunications or onset of confusion, several cultural clashes and more. Such barriers
might impact the organization working practices in negative ways and leads to poor usage of
resources and mismanagement of time. In addition, the undue complexity and broken ways of
communication channels are also hampering the overall effectiveness of organization (Burke,
2017). Thus, it is important to remove the barriers by cultivating the surroundings in constructive
ways.
Moreover, it highlights the conflicts and areas of concerns that reflect upon the team
dysfunctionality. Such approach has been executed through channelising the international
communication to make the individuals learn about the verbal and the non verbal dimensions of
the cultural element. The features including the implementation of lack of skills and difficulties
in creating the services required by the inadequate change. Additionally, these barriers are
making a shift in giving the effective results and also led to increase efficiency of both the
organizations. Which helps them to improve their overall profitability.
However, a leader has an integral part in maintaining the environment and managing the
work after the merging of two or more companies (Tidd and Bessant, 2018). In most of the cases,
with the onset of technological advancements and globalization, it is clear that teams are
established on the basis of pillars of strength. This helps in promotion of the cross-cultural
collaboration and support also encouraged the cultural awareness. Moreover, it also made people
realise about the variables in both internal and external forms, that has an influence on the
values, working ethics and behavioural approaches. There is a need to understand about the
sensitivity element while dealing with people of different ethnic individuals who are working in
a team.
It is clearly indicated that a good and positive leader would act as the most beneficial
outcome in laying the decision making for companies that has just underwent merging process.
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When the retail sector saw the merging of Sports Fashion Plc with another company of same
levels named as Finish Line Inc., there were several changes that were required to be
implemented. In this case, it was evident that a good leader would influence the decision making
through making systematic policies and using the principles to overcome the barriers. The leader
is the epicentre who bring changes at the transformational levels and also gain confidence of the
people who are working. Moreover, the purpose is to smoothen out the activities and task
allocated to the employees under the instructions of leaders and managers (Fernandez and
Rainey, 2017).
TASK 3
(a) Different leadership approaches in dealing with change at organizational context
Leadership and the approaches are inter related in terms of maintaining the employees'
engagement and performance management of an organization. It focuses on bringing a balance
between the working practices and the organizational culture due to external factors such as
merger or acquisition. Here the merger between Sports Fashion Plc and Finish Line Inc. brought
attention to its nature of using the immediate values and move towards the stronger position.
Mergers are mostly done to gain insights about promoting innovation wit economic benefits and
help the leaders in ensuring quality and delivery of services. There are several leadership
approaches that deal with change management and provide assistance for companies like Sports
Fashion Plc and Finish Line Inc. It consists of authoritative leadership, transformational,
innovative and inspiring leadership. However, after this merger, these two companies must work
on its approaches used in the leadership to maintain the motivation levels and also engage the
employees without getting apprehensive about the future prospects.
Authoritative leadership approach is the most disregarded approach which infers the
single handed decisions making to manage the operational practices (Kaufman, 2017). Moreover,
it shed light on the high demands and responsiveness to withstand the high standards but there is
also scope of partial treatment. When this type of approach is used, then it only leads to
exploitation and establish bitterness. Along with this, the transformational approach has been
proved useful in the cases of mergers because it moves the objective of managing the practices in
accordance to the demand-supply of markets. This type is also effective when the members are
clubbed in new location and are given flexibility in fulfilling their responsibilities and roles. Out
of these two, the transformational approach is applicable to gain better outcomes for the
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employees and the overall performance. It would also be beneficial in maintaining the safety,
privacy and security aspects to complete the allocated tasks.
In addition to this, innovative approach is one of the most desired approaches that is
going to reflect upon the action plans and strategies to make the ambience comfortable for the
new employees (Cameron and Green, 2015). Here the focus is on creating something new,fresh
and different that puts additional pressure on the employees and might be a turn off.
Nevertheless, the inspiring leadership approach is considered as the functional approach in
nature to combine the people, ethics and objectives in order to establish the foundation of
reliability and transparency. This type is mainly dealing with possessing strong sense of mission
and vision to achieve the aim and objectives of the company.
However, this merger has brought number of concerns that ensure the leaders of both the
companies to regulate the working styles in unison (Anderson, 2016). There are challenges
regarding the restructuring of the offices to manage the cultural aspects. It might be able to note
that transformational leadership approach should be adopted by these two companies to give
respect ad mutual trust. It also led to the pathway of success and progression without any delays
and also support in cost effectiveness. There was a clear indication that statements were in
relation to the forward looking keywords such as plan, foresee, estimates and more.
CONCLUSION
From the report it can be concluded that an organization follows several strategies to
minimize impact of internal factors. Also, there are many internal and external drivers of change
such as change in laws and regulations, etc. Which affect team and individual behaviour within
company. Moreover, there are several measures that can be taken to minimize negative impact
of change like applying leadership theories, Organisational Behavioural concepts and models,
etc. Alongside there are various barriers of change like employee resistance, etc. There are many
leadership approaches that can be followed such as situational style, participative style, etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmad, A.B. and Cheng, Z., 2018. The role of change content, context, process, and leadership
in understanding employees’ commitment to change: The case of public organizations in
Kurdistan region of Iraq. Public Personnel Management. 47(2). pp.195-216.
Amis, J.M., 2018. Understanding organization change and innovation: A conversation with Mike
Tushman. Journal of Change Management. 18(1). pp.23-34.
Anderson, D.L., 2016. Organization development: The process of leading organizational change.
Sage Publications.
Burke, W.W., 2017. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
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.
Cruz, J. and Wang, H., 2018. An Examination of the Lean Leadership Practices in the Supply
Chain Management. Available at SSRN 3135595.
Farrell, M., 2018. Leadership Reflections: Organizational Culture. Journal of Library
Administration. 58(8). pp.861-872.
Fernandez, S. and Rainey, H.G., 2017. Managing successful organizational change in the public
sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). Routledge.
Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Kaufman, H., 2017. The limits of organizational change. Routledge.
Marichal, K., and et.al., 2018. Investigating the Dynamism of Change in Leadership Identity.
In Distributed Leadership. (pp. 53-84). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E. and Steane, P., 2018. Planned organisational change management:
Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change
Management. 31(2). pp.286-303.
Stegen, G., and et.al., 2018. Trainee Leadership Board: learning about NHS leadership. BMJ
Leader. 2(1). pp.46-48.
Tidd, J. and Bessant, J.R., 2018. Managing innovation: integrating technological, market and
organizational change. John Wiley & Sons.
Woodward, I.C., Shaffakat, S. and Dominé, V.H., 2019. Uncovering, Understanding, Unleashing,
Overcoming: Exploring Drivers and Blockers in Leadership Development Practice.
In Exploring Leadership Drivers and Blockers. (pp. 71-87). Palgrave Macmillan,
Singapore.
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