Change Management in the Field of Business Today - Case Study Example

Reference Page Hambrick, D. C. and P. Mason (1984). ‘Upper echelons: the organization as a reflection of its top managers’, Academy of Management Review, 9, pp. 193–206. 2. Kaplan, R. S. and D. P. Norton (2006). ‘How to implement a new strategy without disrupting your organization’, Harvard Business Review, 84 (3), pp. 100–109. 3. Insalud (2004). Asistencia espacializada, evolucio´n indicadores. Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo. 4. Miles, R. E. and C. C. Snow (1978). Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process. New York: McGraw-Hill. 5. Carpenter, M. A., M. A. Geletkanycz and W. G. Sanders (2004). ‘Upper echelons research revisited: antecedents, elements, and consequences of top management team composition’, Journal of Management, 30 (6), pp. 749–778 6. Businessballs (n.d.) [Internet] ‘Change Management’ Available from: http://www.businessballs.com/changemanagement.htm [Accessed 24 August 2008] 7. PIM (n.d.) [Internet] FAQ. [Internet] Available from: http://www.pim.com.pk/faq.htm [Accessed 24 August 2008] 8. Yourdissertation (n.d.) [Internet] Available from: http://yourdissertation.com/blog/2007/08/31/types-of-research-papers/ [Accessed 24 August 2008] 9. Napier.ac.uk (2007) [Internet] Napier. Available from: http://staff.napier.ac.uk/Services/Planning+and+Intelligence+Services/Market+Intelligence/TypesofResearch.htm [Accessed 24 August 2008] 10. Wiley (n.d.) [Internet] Available from: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120123981/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 [Accessed 24 August 2008] 11. Introval (2007) [Internet] Available from: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/introval.php [Accessed 24 August 2008] 12. Managementhelp (2008) [Internet] Available from: http://www.managementhelp.org/research/research.htm [Accessed 24 August 2008] Change Management Change management involves planning and moving towards development. This involves scheduling, preparation, forecasting and execution of these plans. Change management is all about the new era. It is about promoting new developments in the field of business and management today. It is about entailing all kinds of environmental characteristics, which pursue goals that are established by people. It is about coping up with problems that involve the presence of man people, and how they are affected respectively. Change however, isn’t just about recognizing a new development. It is rather about accepting it. Change should be practical, believable and in a set of guidelines and limits that promote its efficiency to be considered acceptable. Pragmatism of change is of utmost importance, because it also relates to the personal lives of people around us. It is all about questioning yourself as to what you want, how will it be to your development, and how can that level be achieved. (Businessballs, n.d.) Introduction: The organization of certain organizations is such that differences are bound to occur. It is important always that any organization’s objectives are correctly identified and analyzed, so that a deep understanding can take place. This can make the differences and similarities known to the management which can lead to good prospects in future. The hypothesis I believe is the right one here and supports adequate change management policies in a typical business setting organization, is the one that supports the causal relationship between operations of the organization, strategies and management. Strategic management is covered in this paper. This refers to a management system through which an organization can do much better and improved work. This happens because of keeping the long term aspect into viewpoint. All resources are rightly shared and planned for, energy flows are efficient. Organizations become more capable of working in a changing environment, in the fast world of today. This latter aspect deals with change management n specific. (PIM, n.d.) Summary/synopsis: This article deals with the basic notion of change management and what its effects are on an organization’s operational functionality. The nature of the article is evaluative. It’s basically a study that involves a specific methodology through which relevant data was collected. This led to an analysis of how change management can affect the performance and capability utilization of an organization. The purpose of a team working in an organization is to smooth the progress of long-term change. Heterogeneous and homogenous management is compared in this study that is covered by the paper. The former type of management deals with better adaptability to stressful situations, relating to the business environment of course, focus of the organization through these teams improved. (Napier, n.d.) The paper tells us how the operational performance of an organization is improved and made better by keeping heterogeneous teams and adopting change management.(Insalud, 2004) We cab hence call this study a qualitative study, since it takes into account the various subjective factors that can form a causal relationship with each other and the organization in general. I can also be called quantitative but to some extent, because it doesn’t just present data rather analyses it also. This has been given proof of hen the author mentions the study and how in hospitals, a certain number of people were selected along with a certain number of hospitals, the latter being 218. (Napier.ac.uk, 2007) These form the basis of the study henceforth. The overall nature of the paper still standing as descriptive and explanatory. (yourdissertation.com, n.d.) The paper hence in conclusion mentions that there is a relationship between operational efficiency and strategic change. This relationship being negative which means that when strategic change policies and plan employed, there is less motivation and more bitterness to work in all employees. This leads to a decrease in operational functioning henceforth (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). Assessment of Methods: There are many types of business research methods that business use to carry some sort of study off. Some of these are: case study method, quantitative studies, controlled laboratory studies, surveys, listening, questionnaires, observing etc. The paper attached mentions a sample of 218 public hospitals. This is a sample because it has been chosen from a wide range of total hospitals- also called the total population in pure statistical terms. (Managementhelp, 2008) This paper talks about this sample in specific, that being public hospitals in Spain. Te objective is not to simply learn how these hospitals go about with their operations and management, rather about the ever growing structural changes, and operational shifts pertaining to healthcare in the field of medicine and medical. This is today, that the entire sample can be held as a representative for the entire hospital population. Another question that pops up when talking about choosing of this sample, in the methodology of research of this paper, is that of parameter. Why was hospitals chosen, and not any other type of structures/organizations like profit companies example, multinational soda manufacturer, packaging companies, audit firms etc. the answer is simple. Hospitals were chosen because there are everyday changes that take place n the field of medicine and health care and to understand change management and how it affects operations, no other statistic/parameter could be more comprehensive and valid. By validity, it is meant the authenticity of the research and the data collected. The paper in particular makes use of conclusion validity. This means, that there is a cause and effect relationship between two variables. It has also used external validity because the author has taken a sample of four hospitals, which he uses to generalize the results for not only other hospitals in Spain, rather outside and everywhere else also. (Introval, 2007) The paper mentions that before collection of data, the study type was done through interviews. The sample in this case was four hospitals. This was made representative of the entire population. A questionnaire was also undertaken and given to demographic details of the hospitals, their current and previous position etc. The hospitals were divided into prospector and defendant hospitals. This made it easier to measure operational performance of the hospitals through the years. Operational performance being measured through: Use of beds Use of surgery rooms/ operation theaters Patients discharge/ re-admission Length of stay Mortality rate “no-patients’ periods I believe the methodology, through which data was collected and researched for, was appropriate. It made use of secondary research through finding out the number of hospitals, their names, locations etc. After this, interviews first conducted to get first-hand data. Primary research became a part of this hence. To add to this, questionnaires were also made and given to the hospital staff to get information from them too. Although I believe the methodology was right, what they should have done is not just test their data of interviews and questionnaires like this, rather they should have also conducted a wider reach of their research by giving questionnaires to patients and their families also. In particular, all those people who had been a part of those hospital for their treatment time. This would have gotten them a more reasonable picture. Apart from this, they should have taken a wider sample. Instead of having a sample of four hospitals, representing the entire hospital population of 218 hospitals, the study should have involved at least 10 hospitals. This would have been better at being representative of the entire population. (Miles and Snow, 1978) Findings / Results: The findings of the study do show a correlation in between the variables taken under study in this paper. The two hypothesis of the study were: Strategic change is negatively related to operational performance Where there exists job related heterogeneity in more amounts, then the above relationship becomes less towards the negative side. The results show that the job related differences occurred due to age and gender heterogeneity. Non-job related factors were related to pointers like tenure at the hospital, Education experience etc. Operational performance on the whole, was measured and found out to be correlated with: Re-admission rate of patients Mortality rates No-patient periods Length of stay Number of beds and surgery rooms Occupancy rate And on a whole, job related heterogeneity was found out to be the most correlated with operational performance and functioning of the hospitals. (Carpenter, Geletkanycz and Sanders, 2004) This paper tells us a lot about change also, that is strategic change in particular. Strategic change was fund to be in more correlation with job related heterogeneity, which includes number of beds, occupancy number of surgery rooms, waiting periods etc. Strategic change was found to be in les correlation henceforth when taken the whole thing in relative terms to non-job related differences. This is to say that the factors like the doctor’s qualifications, patients diseases, money given were in less relevance to strategic change. The study points towards the fact that as things in the workplace (in this place a hospital setting), due to strategic change, there can be chaos and confusion in the ground form operations in an organization. This means it eventually makes the workers/staff members or doctors and nurses and administrative staff in this case feels less motivated to work. It can lead to less operational efficiency as productivity decreases. Employee resentment becomes prevalent, which means people would not want to work in such an environment, this can eventually lead to a negative effect on strategic change in the organization and its policies itself. (Kaplan and Norton, 2006) Strengths and Weaknesses of the Paper: The paper covers the main topic in quite a bit of detail. However, there still are things it might have mentioned that could have been to the benefit of the researcher and would have given a more accurate set of results. The strengths of the study are as follows: Covers the hypotheses well. This includes: strategic change and its correlation to operational efficiency in health care, as a whole. Strong hypothesis development in relation to theory and understanding Topic of study, researchable Evidence attached to all results Well represented data in the form of tables and visual data also (charts) Well cited material. Evidence to whatever data has been provided is easy to draw references to Covers strategic change comprehensive and provides its results and findings in the form of well correlated data and relevance No mention of redundant data or information that does not relate to the basic alma matter of the study I this paper All study was based on a research sample of four hospitals. This means it was easy and quick to carry out the study. Weaknesses: The weaknesses of the study more are related to the technical aspects of the paper. These are as follows: The language used in the article is technical Correlations have been presented in a very complicated manner and there is not much direct relationship explained. It was a little difficult to understand the relation through the subject matter only. Sample chosen of four hospitals was not very representative of the population in Spain of hospitals. The latter being 218. To be more representative and to make the study more valid, the researcher should have taken a wider scope and studied more hospitals. This just does not apply to hospitals’ numbers, rater to type of hospitals also. The study only mentions public hospitals and how their functioning and operational efficient is related to strategic change. Private hospitals have been totally ignored in the population. Practical implications in relevance to external factors and to hospitals outside Spain have been completely ignored. This gives a vague picture of operational efficiency of hospitals with respect to change. The researcher says the results can be related to hospitals outside this region. It is not possible to make such conclusions through these generalizations because there are many factors like governmental policies, environment, types of diseases, even religion and social characteristics also including population size of the country etc. that are of great relevance when studying strategic change. Hence practical implications of the study cannot be made that easily. Read More