Conceptualizing Management Accounting Change - Essay Example

Reflection on Change Management Change is often said to be inevitable; nevertheless, this does not guarantee that it will be accepted or even appreciated. Many people, even when they are aware of the inevitability the change about to come into their lives are still uncomfortable and resistant to it (Burns & Scapens, 2000). In the organizational context, any discourse on change often elicits sentiments of fear and defensiveness with some people feeling change is synonymous with negative consequences (Lee and Lee, 2004). This is possibly because change does indeed tend to have some shorter negative consequences, which can be loosely thought of as teething problems. Sometimes, people may be laid off if an organization wants to hire fresh talent or they may be forced to adapt to new methods of production that they are not accustomed to. This can be intimidating since people will feel their job security is being threatened and they are being forced to adapt to something they may not be comfortable with. However, in most cases the nature and impact of change as I have come to discover are influenced by the methods used to prepare, implement and manage change. In the cause of the previous semester, I have had an opportunity to study various models of change management, which I shall share later on. Through these theoretical models, my classmates and I managed to understand and critic the role of change in a practical sense by comparing what we experience the school context with real life scenarios where people are exposed to change. One of the foremost change management theories is Lewin’s model, which has three metaphorically depicted stages of unfreeze change and refreeze (Burnes, 2004). Take a hypothetical scenario where one has a block of ice and they wish to turn it into a cone; this would be very difficult if they have to saw or hack it into shape (Flower, 1996). However, if they melt it, first the result will be an almost perfect cone; such is the process of organizational change. Lewin proposes that the first step to changing an organization is to unfreeze; this requires that the agents of change deconstruct existing notions about the concept in question (Lewin. 1947). These include carrying out surveys on the expected changes as well as ensuring there is support from upper management. In addition, they must justify the need for change by creating a compelling message that justifies the change that will occur through a vision and effective communication of the overall objectives (Kritsonis, 2005). This calls for the management of doubts and concerns that will undoubtedly arise as the organization tries to institute the said changes. The last step is refreeze when the change that has been instituted is instituted into the organizational culture gradually phases out the previous methods. Under unfreeze an organization is required to come up with a plan through which they will provide leadership support a system for feedback and helping the staff adapt to the new organizational culture. Before I was exposed to and reflected on these ideas and theories, I was one of those people who thought of change as outwardly negative but necessary construct that nevertheless had to be done. My approach both to managing and responding to change was therefore and clinical and subjective one. In these occasions I orchestrated change, as I tended to do it in an abrupt manner, not because I was unfamiliar with theories such as Lewins but rather because I often dismissed the practices as time wasted trying to sugar coat what is already going to be a painful or at least disruptive construct. In part, a scenario that had played out in my life a few years ago informed this. One of my closest friends worked as a computer programmer in a firm that handles corporate client most of which were banks and private companies. During the time, I was an intern at a HR company through which he had acquired his job, after the financial crisis, the firm was lost two of its major clients and the management proposed they reduce on the number of software clients and take up more IT security clients. As a result, they had to hirer IT security experts and lay off some of their programmers. I discovered my friend was on the list to be let go before he did and when I told him, he was very depressed and refused to believe it until the new was broken to him formally after two weeks. During the period, I knew his firm was working on the various stages of implementing the change but I felt it was a needless process and they should simply have fired those who were leaving without keeping them in suspense. I was of the opinion that change is most effective when carried out clinically and drastically for the most dramatic effect. Although I sympathized with my friend, I felt it would have been better had the firm just sent him home instead of having him work in the induction of new staff while knowing he was being fired anyway. I thought that having the outgoing and incoming staff at the same place was bad for morale since there will would be negative sentiment from those leaving and this may create a negative impression for the new staff whose sense of job security be affected. They could end up reasoning that if the older staff as simple let go after they outlived their usefulness, what guarantee do we have that we will not also be laid off as soon as there is a kink in the stock market? However, with the benefit of hindsight, I can now see why his company could not just have implemented their plan overnight. Before change is instituted, it must be carefully planned for, the leader has to be very careful in establishing what specific changes need to be made who will carry them out, and they should have a timeline. Every time there is a change, people will be affected and it is important that they are informed about it to ensure that their needs can be met to the greatest extent possible. The first step of any change model requires that change is both justified and explained to all those it will effect. The fact that the new staffs were told exactly why their predecessors had to leave and what was expected to them is actually a good thing. This is because they too must be made aware that although change may not necessarily affect their job security, they needs must be flexible and ready to adapt to emerging situations. Many management educators are of the opinion that reflection is critical in the process of management pedagogy (Cotter & Cullen, 2012; Cunliffe, 2004; Gray, 2007; Raber 2009). They hold that, unless one is capable of reflecting on retrospective decision, they may not be adequately prepared for future ones. At its most basic level, reflection involves the questioning and uncovering of the primary assumptions as well as what can be described as blind spots in ones thinking. While this may occur in many formats, most people reflect through introspection or discussing the issue with their peers. Reflection can however also be collective, and this way a group of people can work together in disseminating their previous decisions to determine what role they had in them and most importantly how they can use their experience to improve on decisions made in posterity. Prominent educationist have also underscored the importance of change, many of these were critical thinkers such as Paulo Freire, Dewey and Habermas who all recognized in their variant fields the necessity of reflecting on ones actions and if possible those of others to enhance didacticism from experience (Dewey, 1933; Habermas, 1968). In the context of discoursing on cognitive change, critical reflection is often adopted since it implies the questioning of conventional assumptions and ideas as opposed to the traditional notion of self-criticism (Fook et al., 2006). Reflection on the nature of change and its effect on management theory leads me to re-examine Whitaker, Whitaker and Lumpa’s model of change in the education setting. They posit that there are three types of people one needs to consider before they institute change, these are dubbed as superstars, backbones and mediocre (Whitaker, Whitaker and Lumpa, 2009). The superstar will be enthusiastic about change and they will support it every step of the way while the backbones will put up resistance albeit not very strong. Finally, the mediocre are expected to resist change insisting on maintain the status quo and coming up with reasons and excuses why the new ways are not as good as the old ones (Seguin, 2011). Every leader has to deal with such people and for one to be effective in the management of change, they need to identify and classify their teams based on their propensity for embracing or resisting change (Hackmann, Schmitt-Oliver and Tracy, 2002). During one of our group activities, I had the opportunity to witness a scenario where people are faced with imminent change and they all react different ways. One of the units covered in the previous semester required we work in teams of five to carry out a project. In my group, which has been operation for three semesters we had commendable chemistry based on mutual respect and a willingness to listen to each other. However, on this unit, the professor insisted that two groups would be merged so we could work on the projects jointly. The other group was very rigidly structured and each of the other members were specialized in various areas; whenever handling a project each person would be assigned a part of it, and they would brainstorm on it. Our group’s culture was radically different since while we divided work, there was never an issue of specialization and we would carry out most of the research jointly. This brought some friction with each group feeling the other was dragging them down or cramping their style and although we finally completed the project, our result was mediocre and we were told to our chagrin to re-do it. After holding a consultation meeting, we realized that the reason for our failure was that we were too rigid and set in our ways. We decided to apply Lewins change management model and to unfreeze each group had to put aside its traditions and we plan for the project based on our numbers, mutual interest and time available. Needless to say there are those from both groups who were against the idea, however after working on providing justification for the change, we all agreed to corporate and discorporate the two groups to form a new 10 member team. It was not all-smooth sailing but when we finally presented our project for the second time, the results were remarkably good. From this experience, I learnt a lot about teamwork change management and the role of reflection in improving ones adaptability. In addition, when it comes to introducing change to the team, one of the most common mistakes managers who have been tasked with managing change make is to try to sell the change to their followers. This is because when selling an idea, one will have gone over it, considering its pro, cons and then conclude perhaps rightly, that it is the best war forward for the organization. However, the people who will be affected need to be involved in the process of justification of the change, failure to do this will create a risk of people agreeing with the change only because it has been made to sound logical. However deep down they may not support it at all and as a result the key change agents will be working with people who do not give their all; not because the idea is essentially bad but because they feel it was forced on them. Unless in extreme cases, change should be understood in management in such a manner that people are helped to cope effectively with it and as a change manager, one must provide a balance by having a settling influence. As team leader of my group, I was forced to sacrifice my team’s culture, which I nevertheless thought was better than the other teams. It was evident in our case that although we may not share a point of view, we needed to come up with a compact team and this forced us to implement the change model that gave us a “cone” derived from two original “cubes.” After the managers have taken to consideration all the factors they feel need to be applied in arranging and implementing change, there is one more step that I feel is not given as much weight as the others although it is of equal if not greater import. This is the evaluation stage, the fact that change has occurred does not necessarily mean that it was the best thing and unless it is evaluated, there is no way of knowing if it was justified. This calls for one to ask themselves several questions (Carson & Fisher, 2006), did the change achieve what it was intended to achieve? Can the new process or methods be improved and is the change sustainable? All involved in the process of implementing change need to ask themselves these questions. This is to ensure that change cannot just happen for the sake of itself; rather it happens to fulfil the principal objective. At the end of the semester, I concluded that it is critical for one to have a solid model of change for them to function effectively as an administrator and agent of change. While there many theories, I found Lewins to be the most effective and practical method after reflecting on how I could have used it or how it could have been applied in retrospective situations. I realized that it can be used to reflect on change both individually and collectively making it essential learning from past mistakes. Additionally, it allows one to understand what change they need to bring into their life or organization based on the retrospective impact of the current methods. References Burnes, B. 2004. Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re‐appraisal. Journal of Management studies, 41(6), 977-1002. Burns, J., & Scapens, R. W. 2000. Conceptualizing management accounting change: an institutional framework. Management accounting research, 11(1), 3-25. Carson, L., & Fisher, K. 2006. Raising the bar on criticality: Students’ critical reflection in an internship program. Journal of Management Education, 30, 700-723 Cotter, Richard J., and John G. Cullen. 2012. Reflexive management learning an integrative review and a conceptual typology. Human Resource Development Review 11.2: 227-253. Cunliffe, A. L. 2004. 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