Organizational Change at Lakeland Wonders: A Management Report

This report analyzes the strategic changes proposed by the CEO of Lakeland Wonders, focusing on the Design and Manufacturing departments. It assesses the CEO's approach, particularly regarding offshore manufacturing, and identifies gaps in the proposal. The report evaluates the appropriateness of the change approach, considering the organizational context and potential issues like labor union relations and quality control in outsourcing. Alternative strategies are suggested to address these gaps and ensure the successful implementation of changes for organizational development and growth. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to support student learning.

Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Change Management
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Author Note
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Executive Summary:
The paper analyses the strategic changes proposed by the CEO of the Lakeland Wonders
regarding the organizational development and growth. The paper discusses the strategic
approach that is formulated by the CEO with a specific focus on the Design and the
Manufacturing department of the organization. The scope of Offshore Manufacturing in the
organization for the growth of the organization is also expressed in details in the paper.
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Concept of Change:....................................................................................................................3
Gap:............................................................................................................................................4
Adjustments for the Gap:...........................................................................................................4
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................5
References:.................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction:
The organizations in the modern world are subjected to a sheer competition where
they need to implement different sorts of strategic changes to survive. The organizations need
to make sure that these changes are taken as constructive and progressive by the shareholders
and the stakeholders to avoid any sort of organizational conflicts (Hornstein, 2015). The
paper discusses the impact of the organizational changes in a chosen organization named
Lakeland Wonders, a 94-year-old manufacturer of high quality wooden toys, strategized by
their CEO. The paper analyses the adaptability of the changes proposed by the CEO and finds
the gaps in the proposal and serves required recommendation for them.
Concept of Change:
The changes specified by Cheryl Hailstrom were conveniently internal as the CEO
was thinking of introducing new employees like Pat Sampsen or Cecil to make sure that the
products of Lakeland reach the desired level of quality and the business flourishes.
The changes which were specified by the CEO were following the constructive and
continuous form of change (Carter et al., 2013). According to Van de Ven and Poole’s
framework of change, Life, Evolution, Teleology and the Dialectic are the different change
quadrants. The CEO thought of some of the new entries into the workforce as a plan to grow
and the idea of introducing apt employees with the specified change from Upscale market to
Midmarket in order to expand the business, were satisfying the clause of multiple entities
forming the change (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2015). So the changes had a dialectic form of
approach as it follows a multiple entity and internally driven approach related to it. The
second best approach was Barnes’s speed and scale approach following the quadrant of
structural change as the Lakeland wonders was going to observe a major shift in their
business with the midmarket business planning and the minor changes in the workforce to
make sure that the functionality of the organization increases. Sheryl recommended the
changes to implement in an emergency manner to catch the bull’s eye deal. Hence the
changes were large scale and rapid.
The CEO who had the reputation of a rapid growth of her previous company under
her leadership, wanted Lakeland to catch a significantly profitable project of Bull’s Eye and
wanted to start Offshore Manufacturing in order to catch the developing markets. The CEO
felt the need to develop their products from the target market as she knew it well and clear
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that the products manufactured in the base country of Lakeland will incur a huge selling price
in the new market which will not be affordable for the new market (Christopher, 2016). It
was justified to introduce Offshore Manufacturing to enter a developing market (Ellram, Tate
& Petersen, 2013). One of the members of the meeting Elaine Spenser felt the same concept
as Cheryl has mentioned regarding the offshore manufacturing. The concern of Mark
regarding relocating to a new market and executing the daily proceedings of the organization
was met by the Sheryl’s idea of outsourcing.
Cheryl Hailstrom felt that there is a considerable amount of vulnerability related to
the operations of the particular organization in the manufacturing and design department
where the respective departments were pulling the growth of the company down. The
manufacturing section was not ready to stretch their productivity and the design section was
more interested in the unethical protection of the ordinary design firms. The quality and
design of the product was in deep trouble with the added concern of not being able to expand
the business in a sufficient manner to reach the desired growth.
Gap:
The organizational changes recommended by Sheryl Hailstrom were hitting the
absolute portions of concern but with the probable end of the contract between the labour
union and the organization coming close, there was a major concern related to the
organizational change due its timing. The CEO wanted to introduce some of her preferred
choices into the parts of the organization which were not performing sufficiently for the
growth. The new faces with new concepts were a spot of bother for the existing employees as
they would have needed the proper assessment of their fault. This generated a state of
confusion between the employees and created a scope of union unrest (Cameron & Green,
2015). However Sheryl clarified Mark about the increment of the workforce rather than job
cuts for the offshore manufacturing but it was not clear for the employees and there was a
chance of miscommunication resulting in an interruption in the smooth conduct of the present
organization (Castellani & Pieri, 2013). Along with these the concept of outsourcing to
manage the new market was confusing as well as the aim of providing comparatively good
quality products was not fitting well (Plugge, Bouwman & Molina-Castillo, 2013).
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Adjustments for the Gap:
As mentioned above, Sheryl missed an important trick in making sure that the
respective parts of the organization which were not functioning in a desired speed or quality,
understand the points of concern by themselves. However it is controversial to call that
Sheryl would have given them the proof of their incapability right on their hand but a
disguised approach with some pleasant sense should have been employed by Sheryl to ensure
that the employees have the required knowledge of their faults. A well defined strategy to
maintain the quality of the product in case of the outsourcing must be introduced so that the
organization does not lack the required quality. Sheryl was not able clarify the above
mentioned topic in her proposal considering the scope of mismatch in quality resulting from
the work of employees of the other organization in case of outsourcing. These alternative
adjustments could have been done as that would have ensured the proper recovery of the
faults in the employee’s part and would have been vital in maintaining the goodwill of the
company in terms of quality in the midmarket business.
Conclusion:
It is evident that the strategic changes for the organization which were mentioned by
Sheryl in the meeting are significantly effective in making Lakeland a premier company in
the industry with the lucrative Bull’s Eye deal. The paper gives a clear assessment of Sheryl’s
understanding regarding the not so effective parts of the organization with the proper
evaluation of offshore manufacturing in Lakeland Wonders. The analysis of the scene
whether offshore manufacturing is applicable for Lakeland or not is delicately expressed in
the discussion. The required needs for the organizational changes along with the difficulty
related to it regarding the implementation plan are discussed above.
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References:
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Routledge.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide
to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Carter, M. Z., Armenakis, A. A., Feild, H. S., & Mossholder, K. W. (2013). Transformational
leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous
incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), 942-
958.
Castellani, D., & Pieri, F. (2013). R&D offshoring and the productivity growth of European
regions. Research Policy, 42(9), 1581-1594.
Christopher, M. (2016). Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Ellram, L. M., Tate, W. L., & Petersen, K. J. (2013). Offshoring and reshoring: an update on
the manufacturing location decision. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 49(2),
14-22.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Plugge, A., Bouwman, H., & Molina-Castillo, F. J. (2013). Outsourcing capabilities,
organizational structure and performance quality monitoring: Toward a fit
model. Information & Management, 50(6), 275-284.
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