Organizational Change Project Analysis: Lakeland Wonders Case Study

This case study analyzes the organizational change project at Lakeland Wonders, a manufacturer of wooden toys. The assignment explores the nature of the change project, triggered by quality issues, reduced manufacturing, and the CEO's vision for improvement. It examines the appropriateness of the CEO's change approach, including outsourcing and new hires, using the Kurt Lewin model. Gaps in the change process, such as the lack of a code of conduct and quality control, are identified. The PEST framework is applied to analyze political, economic, social, and technological factors influencing the need for change. Finally, the organizational culture of Lakeland Wonders, characterized by resistance to change, is examined through force field analysis, highlighting driving and restraining forces. The analysis aims to provide insights into effective change management strategies within the company.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Answer 1: Nature of Organizational change project at Lakeland Wonders and also the reasons for
the change........................................................................................................................................2
Answer 2: Analysis of the extent to which the change approach adopted by Cheryl Hailstorm is
appropriate to the organizational context at Lakeland Wonders.....................................................3
Answer 3: Are there any gaps in the change process and identification of different approaches or
combination of approaches that could have been better..................................................................4
Answer 4: Analyzing the need for change with the help of PEST framework................................5
Answer 5: Organizational culture of Lakeland Wonders................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Answer 1: Nature of Organizational change project at Lakeland Wonders and
also the reasons for the change
The nature of organizational change refers to all the alternations in the business
environment. Moreover change is an inevitable part of life. Change can both be planned or
unplanned such that it can be imposed on individuals or it can be pre-decided. And therefore
when an organization carries out a planned change, events can be controlled to some extent as it
is known from beforehand however in case of unplanned change nothing is known from before
and as a result it cannot be controlled at all. Further the nature of organizational change also
takes into consideration the all forces of change such as internal forces and external forces
Therefore the organizational change that is going to change place in the LAKELAND
WONDERS is one that according to Van De Ven and Poole will be taking place in form of a life
cycle that is starting with the life stage, then the second stage includes evolution and the third
stage includes teleology and also includes the stage of dialectic (Blue et al., 2016). Therefore
organizational changes take place in form of a life cycle as all organizations have said that they
have a life cycle just like any living organism. Moreover according to the organic growth
metaphor the life cycle begins with the stage of initiation then goes through the stage of growth
and then finally it decline and it is highly influenced by external factors. There are different
implications for manager sin different stages of the life cycle (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown,
2016).
The major reason why a change is required in LAKELAND WONDERS includes the
inability of the company to maintain proper quality of its products and services through effective
designing and also includes reduced manufacturing of goods and services. Therefore according

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to the CEO Cheryl Hailstorm there needs to be a change in the manufacturing activities and also
to improve the quality of the company’s goods and services by improving the designing
effectiveness. For this purpose, Cheryl recommended appointment of new people from her
previous organizations and was also of an opinion that the shifts of the employees engaged in
manufacturing activities also needed to be increased such that manufacturing activities could be
increased (Driskill, 2018).
Answer 2: Analysis of the extent to which the change approach adopted by
Cheryl Hailstorm is appropriate to the organizational context at Lakeland
Wonders
Cheryl Hailstorm decided to carry out the manufacturing activities offshore by
outsourcing the same and to recruit Cencil and Sampsen for the purpose of improving the overall
manufacturing activities, reducing the operating cost and also for the purpose of improving the
quality of the goods and services offered by the company (Duch, 2017). She took this decision to
help the company in overcoming its problems of lack of proper quality of goods and services,
reduced manufacturing activity and also to reduce the overall operating cost of goods and
services offered by the company by carrying out the manufacturing activities abroad. Moreover
by recruiting Cecil and Sampsen from the Kids&Company the CEO of the company will be able
to overcome all the quality issues being faced by the company. The CEO of the company had a
vision of acquiring the bulls eye contract as that would help the company in gaining a
competitive advantage. Therefore for the same purpose she recommended all the changes.
However she was being faced with resistance from many people including the employees of the
manufacturing unit who felt that the decision of the CEO would result in job cuts, further the
organizational culture was also acting as a restraining force because the organizational culture

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was such that individuals in it resisted any form of change as they were not open to any new
ideas. In order to understand the extent to which the change approach adopted by Cheryl
Hailstorm was appropriate for the organizational context needs the application of the Kurt Lewin
Model (Nohria, 2017). According to the kurt lewin model, change takes place in three main
stages that is unfreezing the existing behaviors and processes by creating a sense of urgency in
the employees, then comes moving or changing the behaviors and then the third stage includes-
refreezing the new behaviors and processes of the individuals such that they do not return back to
their original behaviors (Huarng & Mas-Tur, 2016). Therefore for this purpose, the CEO along
with the president are required to explain the importance of change to the employees and the way
the change will ultimately be beneficial for the employees. Then the CEO along with the
president needs to provide support to the employees such that they can accept change and change
be open to new information by overcoming all types of resistance (Zahra, 2016). The last stage
includes refreezing the new behaviors and processes learnt by the employees through different
activities such as recognition and reward.
Answer 3: Are there any gaps in the change process and identification of
different approaches or combination of approaches that could have been
better
Some of the gaps identified in the change process as recommended by Cheryl Hailstorm
includes- the lack of identification and determination of a code of conduct for Cecil and Sampsen
who will be hired for the purpose of looking after the quality of the goods and services offered
by the company. Therefore due to the lack of such code of conduct even Cecil and Sampsen may
not be performing properly because they may feel that their work is not being supervised. On the
other hand the other major gap identified in the recommendations made by Cheryl Hailstorm

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includes lack of any quality control board that would look after the quality of manufacturing
activities in case of offshoring of the same (Hayes, 2018). Therefore Cheryl failed to recommend
any quality control boards or committees that would be looking after the activities abroad and
therefore there is a risk that the quality of products and services offered by the company may still
not be of a good quality. Therefore the Cheryl’s recommendations would have been more
effective if these gaps could have been avoided by her.
Answer 4: Analyzing the need for change with the help of PEST framework
The PEST framework includes identification of all the political, economic, social and
technological factors that may have an impact on the organizational operations and also
determine its success. It is therefore a toll that is used by organizations for strategic planning.
Political factors includes the intervention of the government in the economical operations and
therefore includes trade restrictions, tariff barriers and others. The political factors that is
influencing the company to undergo a change includes- the role of unionization in determining
the manufacturing activities of the company. Due to the increased unionized activities of the
company , the manufacturing activities of the employees have been declining.
The economic factors includes the economic growth factors, inflation rates, consumable
incomes of the customers and various other similar factors. The company operates in an up
scaling market and therefore the operating the operating cost or manufacturing costs of the
company are higher. Considering the company’s objective of achieving the bulls eye contract the
company is bound to optimize the manufacturing cost. That is leading the company to carry out
off shore business activities. Therefore the economic condition of the company will be improved
because of the bull’s eye contract.

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Social factors includes all those factors that are socio-economical in nature and therefore
includes the immediate setting of the individuals and also includes their culture and educational
factors. Further the social factors affecting the company will include- its human resource factors
and moreover due to the change recommended by Cheryl Hailstorm a chaos will be created
among the human resources. Therefore the company will have to see that the change is carried
out properly in the organization by communicating the fact that there will not be any job cut but
there will rather be job expansion for the employees of the organization. Moreover organization
will also have to look after cross-cultural issues that may arise as a result of the off-shore
activities of the company. Therefore proper change management activities need to be carried by
out the company in order to manage the human resources.
The technological factors include all those technological changes taking place in the
business environment that leads to improving the organizational efficiency. The technological
factors are influencing the company because it is required to improve the quality of its products
and services by introducing some new innovative technology in its operations that can also help
in improving the effectives of its designs.
Answer 5: Organizational culture of Lakeland Wonders
The organizational culture refers to all the values, assumptions and beliefs that is shared
between the people in the organization and it also determines the way people should behave in
the organization. These shared values, beliefs and assumptions have a strong impact on the
employees of the organization and therefore have a strong influence on their actions. The
organizational culture at LAKELAND WONDERS COMPANY lacks openness to change and
innovation. This is so because when the CEO of the company Cheryl Hailstorm recommended
on making changes to the manufacturing activities and also regarding appointment of Cecil and

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Sampsen for the purpose of improving the quality of the goods and services offered by the
company by conducting board meeting (Hussain et al., 2018). All the other board members were
rejecting her proposal because they were not open to any ideas and therefore they were not
supporting any changes to the existing processes and policies of the company. Cheryl Hailstorm
the CEO of LAKELAND WONDERS had the vision of winning the bull’s eye contract for the
purpose of making the organization successful by offering high quality goods and services to the
customers and also by improving the manufacturing activities (Cameron & Green, 2019).
Therefore she proposed and recommended offshoring manufacturing activities that would help in
improving production and moreover they will be able to reduce the overall manufacturing costs
through the same because the US market where they were presently selling their goods and
services was an upscale market which was further leading to rise in costs.
Moreover she also recommended the appointment of Cecil and Sampsen from the
Kids&Company for the purpose of improving the quality of their goods and services. However
the organization has a culture where all the employees were wedded to the activities they have
been doing. Therefore here in order to understand the organizational culture the force field
analysis needs to be understood. According to the Force field analysis, there are two main types
of forces- restraining and driving forces. Driving forces refers to and includes all those forces
within the organization that drives the organization towards the change and on the other hand,
the restraining forces refers to all those forces that restrains any change in the organization. Here
in case of the company, the restraining forces are more powerful than the driving forces. The
restraining forces includes- the unions, the board members, the manufacturing unit and also the
organizational leaders. This is so because the unions are resulting in declining manufacturing
activities and therefore they are restraining any form of changes within the organization. Further

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the board members comprising of the heads of different departments such as design,
manufacturing and others are not accepting any change because of their fear of change and the
employees of the manufacturing unit along with the president are not supporting any form of
organizational change in the manufacturing activities because they feel that the decision of the
CEO to outsource and carry out offshore activities of the company will lead to job cuts and
therefore they have not been properly communicated by the leaders that this decision will not
lead to job cuts but will rather lead to job expansion. On the other hand the driving forces
includes the recommendations made by the CEO of the company for the purpose of improving
the quality of the goods and services offered by the company and will also help in improving the
manufacturing activities of the Company.

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References
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Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
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Driskill, G. W. (2018). Organizational culture in action: A cultural analysis workbook.
Routledge.
Duch, W. (2017). Kurt Lewin, psychological constructs and sources of brain cognitive
activity. arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.01767.
Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Huarng, K. H., & Mas-Tur, A. (2016). Turning Kurt Lewin on his head: Nothing is so theoretical
as a good practice. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 4725-4731.
Hussain, S. T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M. J., Hussain, S. H., & Ali, M. (2018). Kurt Lewin's
change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in
organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123-127.
Nohria, N. (2017). Fast forward: The best ideas on managing business change. Business
Review, 9, 10.
Zahra, S. A. (2016). Portrait of a research pioneer: Andrew Van de Ven. Strategic
Entrepreneurship Journal, 10(4), 413-429.