Case Study: Organizational Change and Development at Coca-Cola

This case study report examines organizational change and development within the Coca-Cola Company, addressing the challenges and opportunities it faces. The report begins with an overview of the company and identifies problematic factors influencing change, categorized as external (technological, economic, political, and social) and internal (structure, employees, strategies, values, skills, and systems). The analysis utilizes Lewin's Change Management Model (unfreeze, change, refreeze) and the ADKAR model (awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement) to diagnose the issues. A change intervention program is proposed, with a justification for its implementation. The report also anticipates potential issues and barriers during implementation, including resistance to change, and suggests measures to overcome them. Finally, the case study explores ethical considerations arising from the intervention program and provides strategies to mitigate them, offering a comprehensive analysis and recommendations for the company's change strategy.

Organizational Change and
Development
With Special reference to Coca Cola
Company
Student Details

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Contents
Coca-Cola Company: Overview........................................................................................3
Problematic Factors in organizational Change of Coca Cola Company...........................3
Analysis of Problems and Opportunities that are relevant for Coca Cola’s Change
Strategy..............................................................................................................................4
External Factors.............................................................................................................5
Internal Factors..............................................................................................................6
Analysis of Identified Problems by using Change Management Models..........................6
Lewin’s Model of Change Management........................................................................7
The ADKAR Model.........................................................................................................9
Change Intervention program and its Justification..........................................................10
Issues involved in Implementation of Change Intervention Program..............................11
Measures to Overcome Identified Issues....................................................................12
Change Intervention Program and Ethical Issues...........................................................13
Measures to Overcome Ethical Issues........................................................................15
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................16
Bibliography.....................................................................................................................18
2

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Coca-Cola Company: Overview
In an organization, there is nothing permanent. Everything of the organization tends to
change rapidly. There is a famous philosopher named Heraclitus, said that in the
universe there is not a single thing that is permanent, however, change (Bagley, 2013).
According to him, the proper management of change is required in both an individual
and in an organization. Coca-cola is a carbonated soft drink company that is
manufacturing and distribution its products to various customers from a very large time.
Coca-cola is a very big organization that cannot avoid change.
This project report is all about the prevailing changes in the Coca-cola company, their
analysis and the suggestion of intervention program for it. Further, this report is going to
analyze the issues involved in the implemented change intervention program and the
creation of ethical issues based on them. This report also provides some measures to
overcome those identified issues.
Problematic Factors in organizational Change of Coca Cola Company
Coca-cola is a carbonated soft drink company, which is manufacturing soft drinks from a
very long time. It also serves its consumer market effectively and earning a large
number of profits. Change is a process that does not leave any organization whether it
is big or small. Coca Cola Company is a very big and successful company and
experiences many types of changes very frequently. In order to stay successful and
have a competitive advantage over others, the company needs to adopt change
management strategies.
3

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
In Coca Cola Company, various problematic factors facilitate the change. These are the
reasons that tend to bring change in the company. Coca Cola Corporation needs to
address these reasons to change so that some change strategies can be formulated
before only. Some reasons that are considered as a problematic factor behind the
organizational change in the Coca Cola Company are as follows:
External Factors
These factors cause a change in the organization from outside only. There is less
involvement of the organization in them. They further are divided into various other
factors like political, social, economic and technological factors.
Internal Factors
These factors from inside only bring changes in the organization. These involve the
structure, employees, and system of Coca-cola organization; they tend to bring change
in the company (Banfield & Kay, 2012). They also are further divided into sub internal
factors of causing change.
Analysis of Problems and Opportunities that are relevant for Coca Cola’s Change
Strategy
When the responsible agents to change are identified by the company then the next
step is to analyse them properly in order to manage. As already mentioned above there
are many problematic factors that bring changes in an organization. Broadly, they are
divided into some sub-points.
4

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
External Factors
These factors cause a change in the organization from outside. Internal components of
the organization have no contribution to them. Broadly, these factors are known as:
 Technological Factors: In these factors, technological issues and problems are
involved that causes change in the organization. It can be related to Coca-cola
company needs to discover new product; it can also be related to the use of new
technology in machinery, obsolete of old technology, etc of the Coca-cola
company.
 Economical Factors: This factor causes a change in the organization due to
changes in the economy present around Coca Cola Company. These factors
may include market demand for Coca-cola products, competition in the market,
inflation-deflation scenarios, various types of interest rates, etc.
 Political Factors: in this type of factor, the company due to some political
reasons causes change. These political factors causing a change in the Coca
Cola Company can be changed in the business-related policies of the concerned
government, some laws, and orders enforced by the court on a particular product
or component of it.
 Social Factors: the Last component of external factors is social factors. These
factors bring change in the organization due to the principles present in the
society in which the company is serving. In the case of Coca Cola Company,
social factors that can affect the company are education, culture, religion, etc of
the persons belonging to the social culture of the organization.
5

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Internal Factors
The changes that occur inside the organization and affect the functioning of the
organization are known as internal factors responsible for the change in the
organization. In Coca Cola Company, there are many internal factors that can be
treated as problematic factors, responsible for the change. Coca-cola Company is a
very big organization and serving its products worldwide. Similarly, its structure is also a
big one, which needs proper management of diversity present around them (Batenburg
et al., 2013). The diverse surrounding is treated as one of the components of bringing
change in the organization. There are some major internal factors that can bring change
are the staff of the Coca-cola company, its structure, strategies, shared values, skills of
individuals, and the overall system of the Coca Cola Company (Becton et al., 2014).
Analysis of Identified Problems by using Change Management Models
In order to analyse the identified problematic issues that may bring change in the Coca-
Cola Company, two famous models of change management have been used in this
study. The first model is Lewin’s change management model and the other one is the
ADKAR model. A detailed description of these models with appropriate analysis of the
problems is given below:
6

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Lewin’s Model of Change Management
Source: Lewin’s Change Management Model (Hussain et al., 2018)
As the name suggests this model is developed by, a famous scholar named Kurt Lewin
in 1940s. This model of change management with the help of its three stages gives
detailed knowledge about prevailing change in the Coca-Cola Company and tells it’s
after impacts on the company. The problems identified in the above paragraphs are
analysed effectively with the help of this model. Its detailed analysis is explained below:
 Unfreeze: in this stage of the model, Kurt Lewin talked about the situations in
which the Coca-Cola Company realizes that it needs to bring some changes in
7

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
the company. As if the problems identified in the above sentences that the
company needs to bring change in its technology, the functioning of the company
do concerned government, etc implement getting affected by new laws and
policies.
In this, it is advised to Coca Cola Company to unfreeze its functioning, look the
prevailing opportunities in the market, and try to bring changes according to
those opportunities in the Coca-cola company.
 Make Changes: next step in this model is to make changes according to the
prevailing opportunities in the atmosphere. In the unfreeze situation the Coca-
cola company stopped its functioning hypothetically after seeing the available
opportunities in the market. The company managed to grab those opportunities
like the one with innovative packaging of the bottles of Coca-cola drink, the
creative advertising with various promotional measures attached in the bottle
itself, increase in digital marketing, etc.
It makes changes according to the attained opportunity. The changes can be
appointing specialized persons, training the employees for getting used to new
technologies, putting more efforts in research and development done by the
Coca Cola Company’s department (CIPD, 2019).
 Refreeze: in the above step when the company makes changes appropriately
regarding the adopted opportunities of the market, the last step is to refreeze the
whole environment of the organization after making necessary changes. In this
step, the Coca-cola company after making mentioned changes in the
organization refreezes the culture of the organization. This means now the
8

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
change they have made cannot be reversed or removed the employees have to
cope up with those changes. In this way, with the help of Lewin’s model, the
Coca-cola Company is able to manage prevailing changes effectively.
The ADKAR Model
Jeffery Hiatt, who is the founder of Prosci, develops this model. This model is also
known as the Prosci ADKAR change management model. The acronym of five
elements facilitates changes. With the help of these five elements of this model, the
pertinent problems that facilitate changes in the Coca-cola company are analysed in the
following lines:
 Awareness: In this stage of the model, it is making sure by the company that the
employees of Coca Cola Company understand the prevailing problems that need
to be addressed, however can be addressed by making some changes in the
organization. It is an important step as the involvement of employees of the
company from the first step only gives this model effectiveness over other
models.
 Desire: when the awareness regarding change is circulated in Coca Cola
Company, then the desire to adopt such opportunity or change is tried to develop
in the employees of the company. This applies both sides of an employee that is
logical and emotional sides.
 Knowledge: In this step, the most employee of Coca Cola Company has to
knowledge of the carryout process of change and its consequences. It comes
after the generated desire to change in the employees.
9

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
 Ability: In the knowledge stage of this, model Coca Cola Company employees
get to know everything about the changes they need to make in order to grab
prevailing opportunities in the market. In this step, the ability to cope up with the
change is analysed by the employees of Coca Cola Company. The staffs of the
Coca-cola organization with their levels of ability facilitate change in the
atmosphere.
 Reinforcement: in order to facilitate prevailing changes in Coca Cola Company
is the responsibility of the company to provide all types of reinforcements
required during and after the respective change. It related to the availability of
every resource required to cope up with the change, by Coca Cola Company.
Change Intervention program and its Justification
In general terms, intervention program focus on improving the things. In change
management, the intervention program related to change helps the company in
improving its measures to cope up with the prevailing change (CMI, 2019). In this
report, the change management regarding Coca Cola Company is discussed, with its
identification to analysis. The problematic issues and opportunities that facilitate change
in the Coca-cola organization are intervened with the help of some models and activities
of change facilitation (Jabri, 2017).
Change intervention program implemented by the Coca Cola company is consists of
various steps that together make an effective program. The steps included in the
change intervention program are establishing an urgency sense by the company, next
is to create the coalition that will guide the company, then the strategy gets developed
10

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
and communicated, they get monitored effectively while performance then the company
makes smaller gains, which slowly changes to bigger revenues (Kotter, 2012).
The change intervention process is very necessary, as proper management of change
have to be done within the time otherwise the above-mentioned opportunities can slide
from the hands of Coca Cola Company without waiting for any second. In this
intervention program, the two models of change management that are Lewin’s model
and ADKAR model acted as the influential tools and facilities the change very
effectively.
Issues involved in Implementation of Change Intervention Program
There are many issues involved while and after implementation of the change
intervention program. In order to have an effective and efficient change intervention
program, it is the responsibility of the Coca-Cola Company to identify various issues
involved in the program and the measures to overcome them (Kebapci & Erkal, 2009).
In this section of the report, the brief information about some identified issue involved in
the implementation of a change program is discussed. These issues are as follows:
 Fear regarding the unfamiliarity: The fear of not knowing the unknown things
or changes made in the Coca-cola organization resists the employees to adopt
the changes. When an individual does not know something then they tend to
ignore work related to it and prefer the known conditions more (Carberry &
Cross, 2015). Similarly, this happens with the case of prevailing unknown
changes in the organization, which creates fear in individuals.
 Ineffectiveness in leadership: In this change intervention issue the Coca Cola
Company, get affected by the ineffective mode of leadership (ILM, 2019). As the
11

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT
program implemented to make the changes, however, the leader may not be
good in leading people and motivating them, this will leads to failure of the
change intervention program.
 Cracks in communication network: During the change intervention, program,
various creaks and break down in the communication network of Coca Cola
Company can cause resistance to change among employees (Jenifer & Raman,
2015).
 Complexity those are undue: whenever any change program is introduced in
the organization, it is the responsibility of the organization to look into its various
operations and make the functioning of the organization more effective and
efficient. Undue complexities can hamper the implemented change intervention
program in the organization.
Measures to Overcome Identified Issues
There are four types of issues, which the Coca Cola Company can face while
implementing the change intervention program in the organization. This section will talk
about the measures to overcome them based on a different level of the organization
(Hastie & Dawes, 2010).
The issue that is related to fear of unfamiliarity is considered biggest resistance to
change by the employees of the Coca Cola organization, on the other hand, creaks in
communication networks also act as one of the major barriers to change (M.Madera &
MaryDawson, 2014). Other two-factor act as resistance to change, however, affects the
functioning of the organization at a lower level. The measures to overcome those issues
and resistance by the Coca Cola Company are as follows:
12