Change Management at eBay: A Leadership Perspective

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UNDERSTANDING AND LEADING CHANGE
IN THE CONTEXT OF EBAY
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................4
P1 UNDERSTAND CHANGE BY EXAMPLE OF DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS..............................................4
LO2..............................................................................................................................................................9
P2 THE WAYS IN WHICH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DRIVERS OF CHANGE AFFECT LEADERSHIP, TEAM
AND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR WITHING EBAY ORGANIZATION..............................................................9
P3 MEASURES THAT CAN BE TAKEN TO MINIMISE THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF CHANGE ON
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR.............................................................................................................13
LO3............................................................................................................................................................17
P4 DIFFERENT BARRIERS FOR CHANGE AND HOW THEY INFLUENCE LEADERSHIP DECISION-MAKING IN
A GIVEN CONTEXT OF EBAY...................................................................................................................17
LO4............................................................................................................................................................20
P5 LEADERSHIP APPROCHES TO DEAL WITH CHANGE IN EBAY.............................................................20
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................23
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INTRODUCTION
Change management is the process of identifying the problem in the organization and then
make plan for change in the organization. Change can be done in the strategies, goals,
processes, technological changes, controlling changes, resources change, cultural changes,
structural changes, business processes and other types of changes in the organization.
Organization change management is necessary when an organization identifies losses due to
different reasons so change is necessary for managing that reasons, which are responsible for
loss in the organization (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015).
Organizational change is about moving from the current state of the organization to the future
state of the organization. Change management can be done for reducing expenditure and
producing more profit, for improving the operations of the organization, increasing customer
base of the organization, for redesign the organization, for implementing technological changes
in the organization and other changes (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015).
eBay is one of the world’s largest online marketplace companies and founded in 1995. eBay is a
powerful platform for selling goods and services by individuals and different business
companies. There are thousands of items for sell and its payment partner is PayPal and other
online payments. This is the largest website for buyers and sellers. eBay has more than 5.6
million registered users according to the data of 1999 and in 2004 the number of registered
users increased and estimated number of users are 65 million from 150 countries, more than
971 million items or sale. eBay has stakeholders in more than 8 foreign nations. The company
experience major growth and changes but still serving in the business market of the world
(Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015).
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LO1
P1 UNDERSTAND CHANGE BY EXAMPLE OF DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS
eBay is the global online auction and trading company launched by American entrepreneur
Pierre Omidyar in 1995. It is one of the companies which firstly create and market internet
website for buyers and sellers to sell and buy goods and services. Headquarter of eBay in San
Jose, California (Anderson, 2016). There are various competitors of eBay in the market such as
Amazon, Walmart; Alibaba etc. companies are similar to eBay that all are large network with
large number of products and cusotmers. Different companies provide different payment
options such as PayPal, cash on delivery, e-banking etc. A comparison chart between eBay and
Walmart is as follow:
Organizational change
management
eBay Walmart
Vision and mission Vision and mission of eBay is
to provide global online
marketplace, where
practically anyone can trade
practically anything, enabling
economic opportunity around
the world” (Anderson, 2016)
Vision and mission of Walmart
is “to save people money so
that they can live better.”
Organizational structure The organizational structure
of eBay is hierarchical
because it a very big
company.
Walmart carries hierarchical
functional structure in the
organization. The hierarchical
feature of the organization
has vertical line of command
and authority (Anderson,
2016).
Partnership EBay provide different Walmart has different
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products and services so it has
large number of partners such
as eBay classifieds,
shopping.com, half.com,
StubHub etc. (Anderson,
2016)
partners for delivering their
products such as Point Pickup,
Skipcart, AxleHire etc.
People and culture EBay organizational culture is
like that the company always
guide and support their
employees’ decisions and
always shape their ideas in
the organization.
Organizational culture of
Walmart is very challenging
means employees face
various challenges in the
organization and always fight
with problems and learn from
problems (Anderson and Sun,
2017).
Marketing and customer
relationship management
Marketing management of
eBay depends on customer
relationship management.
Company central data
repository and customer
relationship management
helps to provide relevant and
personalized products to
customers.
Walmart also uses customer
relationship management to
focus on organizational
relationship with customers. It
helps to manage contact,
sales and workflow process of
the organization.
Technological changes EBay is an e-commerce
company and sell product and
services of sellers on the
website (Anderson and Sun,
2017).
Walmart uses offline and
online product sells. The
company has supermarket
and malls in different
countries and also manage its
own website such as
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walmart.com
 Drivers for change in eBay
Internal drivers- SWOT analysis
STRENGTH
 EBay has strong brand image
 Cost-effectiveness based on economies
of scale
 Strong customer base
 Very low competition with other
merchants
 Global operations of the company
 Website provide feedback option,
which strengthen trust between buyers
and sellers
 Seller can choose different selling
options such as auction, accepting
offers, set buying price etc.
WEAKNESSES
 There is not any policy to check sellers
products’ quality that’s why customers
fear to buy products
 Fear of hackers to hake the website and
steel data of users
 Company faces problems related to less
quality products.
 Bidding process is the major weakness
of the company.
OPPORTUNITY
 EBay can become a leader of market
because these days popularity of
online trading rises everyday
 Company can introduce alternative
payment system
 Return policy should be strong
 Should focus on website attractive
design because in this era customers
believes only on what they see
THREAT
 Company in pressure to collect tax
from sellers to sell their products on
this platform
 Increasing cybercrimes can be major
threat for eBay.
External drivers- PESTEL analysis
Political Political factors such as government affect
company in positive and negative way.
Different policies can help to grow the
business globally and also can increase the
expenditure of the company for making new
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rules for employees. Government support e-
commerce websites. Brexit can affect the
company (Anderson and Sun, 2017).
Economical Economic factors can affect the growth of the
business of the company. Economic factors such as
inflation rates, exchange rates, unemployment
rate etc. affects company and their growth. eBay
can do better business in developing countries and
can do stable business in developed countries
(Burke, 2017).
Social Social factors include population growth rate, age
distribution, career attitude; health consciousness
can affect the business of the company. it helps to
grow the business of the company such as rising
online activities of people, rising demand for high
quality etc. (Cameron and Green, 2015).
Technological Technological changes positively affect the
organization growth because now days people
more believe in buying products online because of
different discounts and offers. Time to time
technological changes can help to improve the
operations of the company.
Legal Legal factors such as antitrust laws, labor laws,
copyright laws, health and safety and increase the
expenditure of the company and decrease the
growth (Burke, 2017).
environmental Environmental factors such as weather, climate,
environmental policies, and climate change can
affect the business of the organization because
people need changes as per different seasons and
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weathers.
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LO2
P2 THE WAYS IN WHICH INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DRIVERS OF CHANGE
AFFECT LEADERSHIP, TEAM AND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR WITHING EBAY
ORGANIZATION
Internal and external drivers of change affect the behavior of individual and team in the
organization and it also affect leadership in the organization in different ways. Everyone has
different perception and thinking some people adopts change in very simple way but some
people are not easily adopting change. This depends on the psychological state of people’s
mind. Leadership changes according to change. Leaders are responsible for confortable
adaptation of change by employees in the organization. Change can be done in different ways
in the organization such as technological change, strategy change, process change, cultural
changes etc. Changes in eBay affects the performance of individuals and team in the
organization. Changes should adopt positively and it can be done with the help of individual and
team in the organization (Anderson and Sun, 2017).
KUBLER MODEL OF CHANGE HELPS TO POSITIVELY ADOPT CHANGE IN THE ORGANIZATION
Kubler model of change include six stages of how an individual adopt change in the
organization. The model describe six stages of change, which an individual experiencing when
he goes through change (Burke, 2017).
Figure1: Kubler model of change management
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(Source: Burke, 2017)
Shock: In this stage individual and team are shocked with the announcement of change in the
organization. This is the discomforting stage for an individual when he hears about some
changes in the organization. Some people can exited to hear the news and some can fear to
hear the news of change.
Denial: In this stage individuals in the organization try to stop change and deny the request of
change in the organization but due to professionalism they have to adopt change because
change is only for their future safety and growth of the organization (Cameron and Green,
2015).
Anger: During the adoption of change people faces various problems and they frustrated with
the situation and this frustration tends to decrease their productivity. In this stage if employees
will not get angry with the situation and adopt change after difficult circumstances, it means
they adopt change very easily and comfortably.
Bargaining: In this stage of change employees want to bargain with the situation and they think
that if they get less uncomfortable alternative so they easily adopt change. And because of this
nature of employees they identify less productivity in their work, if employees cop-up with the
situation and enjoy their challenges so they easily adopt change in the organization (Cameron
and Green, 2015).
Depression: This stage comes after employees realize that their bargaining with employer not
working right and they have to adopt change. This stage has the potential to move people in
depression and sad feelings and sometimes employees get demotivated. The employees who
cop-up with this stage, they easily adopt change in the organization and improve their
productivity.
Acceptance: In this stage of change employees accept change not necessary that they want to
adopt change or not but they have not any option to adopt because if they want to continue in
the organization so they have to adopt change positively (Cameron and Green, 2015).
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It is not necessary that each employee will adopt change very easily but they have to put their
extra efforts to adopt change but if some changes can help to provide future growth then it will
be ok to accept change in the organization (Doppelt, 2017).
Some positive and negative effect of change on individual, team and organization are as
follow:
Change effect Individual Team Organization
Positive effect Change related to
individuals such as
change in working
style, change in
designation and
power helps to
motivate the
individual at
workplace and
motivated individual
always helpful for the
organization
(Doppelt, 2017).
Change in working of
team can motivate
individuals to perform
better in the
organization. By
changing working
strategy of team can
help to get attractive
and innovative ideas,
which helps to
achieve the
productivity in the
organization.
Organizational
changes refers to
changes in strategy,
culture,
infrastructure,
technology helps to
get better results and
also help to compete
with other similar
organizations in the
marketplace.
Negative effect Individual change can
resulted in mental
depression, low
productivity of work
and loss of loyalty and
honesty of employees
and directly resulted
in decreasing the
productivity of overall
Change in team
working strategy may
result in loss of work
and mutual
understanding
between team
members. Less
mutual understanding
between team
Organization change
can negatively affect
the organization if the
organization not
adopting required
changes or adopting
wrong changes so it
can affect the positive
condition of
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organization. member can resulted
in loss of project on
which team members
were work (Doppelt,
2017).
organization in global
rankings and help its
competitors.
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