Managing the Impacts of Change Paper Example

Introduction

In the current globalised economic and marketplace environment, change is inevitable. As a result, companies have designed different ways to deal with the changes, both from within the company and outside the organization as well. For this section, two organizations that will be analyzed include Samsung and Apple Inc. Corporation. Each of these companies has responded to the organizational change in different ways. The aim of this report is to show how companies manage the impact of change.

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LO1, P1 & M1: Comparison of Organisational Examples

Samsung's organisational culture has been based on the traditional seniority-oriented system that reflects on its home country, South Korea. Even though this culture has benefited Samsung to some extent, but it has also contributed to numerous shortcomings that the company is striving now to eliminate. Such changes include the need to change from seniority-oriented culture to more collaborative and engaging culture. Dudovskiy (2017) explained the move by Samsung management to change from its long practiced tradition to allow engagement of more stakeholders including the junior employees. According to Dudovskiy (2017), such ideas and initiatives can help Samsung promote its product development and adding innovative features of the existing products. The company announced in 2016 that it was thinking of changing to become more interactive and social with the key stakeholders like customers and employees. Such changes will include holding more online internal discussion as well as minimize extraneous meetings, provide employees with more time to spend with their families and also pursue their professional education opportunities. All these changes did not exist before. As Su-hyun (2017) explained Samsung is thinking of introducing a follow-up organizational reshuffle which is expected to affect top executives and employees. The company's focus is to adopt a collaborative research and development strategy across the different divisions to improve synergy (Su-hyun, 2017). According to Su-hyun (2017), the reshuffle is expected to affect about 221 executives who will get promoted and about 27 vice presidents to advance their professional education opportunities. All these strategies are aimed at enhancing the company's performance.

In Apple Company, change is inevitable as well. According to Meyer (2018), Apple's organizational culture is critical in continuing the success of its business operations. Dudovskiy (2013) explains the leadership change and how it impacted the organizational change in Apple. Apple has been known with the key entrepreneur, Steve Jobs who served as the company's CEO for 14 years. For many years, the success of Apple has been credited to Steve Jobs. As Dudovskiy (2013) explains, the death of Steve Jobs in 2011 significantly affected the company. Millions of people across the world showed their concern about the company's development after the death of the founder and key figure associated with Apple. However, the company could not shut down because of the death of Steve Jobs. Tim Cook took over the management of the company in 2011. Cook also tried to retain the pace of his predecessor, Steve Jobs. He has tried to maintain the key principles that Steve Jobs used to manage the company; for instance, creativity innovation and secrecy. These are some of the key principles and characteristics associated with Apple's management. However, the change in management in Apple is expected to have an impact on the power culture of the firm. Since Cook took over the office, the company has changed to a business platform instead of a product business that it was there before. Shaughnessy (2013) explains why Apple is still the leading profitable company. According to the author, Apple's ability to master the inventing, platform and ecosystem business strategy has given it an opportunity to continue enjoying the larger market share even after the death of the founder, Steve Jobs.

LO2 & P2: Evaluating Impacts of Internal and External Drivers for Change

As mentioned earlier, organization change is inevitable as the marketplace and business environment continue to change. In both organizations, internal and external factors or drivers of change influence the leadership behavior as well as the behavior of the employees. In both organizations, competition, globalization, and change in management are identified as some of the drivers for change. All these factors affect the organizations differently.

The changes in Samsung have been influenced by the increasing competition and the changing market environment. First, competition is both internal and external driver for change in Samsung. As an internal driver for change, employees compete amongst themselves for positions. As Su-hyun (2017) explains, the changes in Samsung are focused on improving the R&D convergence. For the 27 vice president positions, employees will have to compete to obtain them. Competition as an external driver for change involves the line of products. Key competitors of Samsung like Apple Inc. Corporation are working to launch new products which were not involved in their line such as Apple TV is the most recent product. Therefore, Samsung is compelled by this type of competition to make changes to remain relevant and competitive in the market.

The changing market environment is another external driver for change that pushes change in Samsung and Apple. The market environment is changing; new players are coming in and the existing players are thinking of how to improve their market share through innovation and creativity. In Samsung, change has resulted in the launch of new products and expansion of its product line. According to Su-hyun (2017), Samsung's new strategy to allow employees to explore further educational opportunities has resulted in the creation of a new research development team, which is expected to oversee the integration of the leading technologies for different products such as TV sets and software including the artificial intelligence algorithms. Also, these changes are expected to reduce the consumer electronics division. In apple, the changes in the market environment have resulted in improved innovation; for instance, the launch of Apple TV recently is one way to show that the company is working to remain competitive in the market.

LO2 & P3: Measures to Minimize Negative Impacts of Change

Therefore, from the two organizations, change has resulted in improvement, but it is not possible to ignore the negative impacts of change. For example, organization change is never accepted positively for the first time, especially by the employees who are affected immediately and directly. But, in both cases, the two companies can minimize the negative impacts associated with the organizational changes through employee involvement. Apple has been on the right track with employee engagement strategies. Since the time of Steve Jobs, Apple has always focused on employee involvement and engagement strategies because the management realizes that employees form the core part of the company. Samsung, on the other hand, needs to focus more on employee involvement and engagement strategies. For many decades, Samsung's culture has been based on its home tradition, South Korea, where the seniority-oriented system is valued. From the analysis above, Samsung Company seems to be focused on external drivers of change like globalization and competition in the market. The company somehow forgets that employees are critical in achieving the company's aspirations. Based on Lewin's change model, people are the root of organizational change (Calder, 2013). People can include employees, customers or shareholders. Therefore, employee engagement can help in encouraging and motivating them to work towards the achievement of the objectives and not the changes in the management. The recent changes seem to show that the company is working towards changing its tradition to acquire a modern system of management where employees are regarded as important as any other business operation.

LO1, LO2 & D1: Conclusion

To conclude, change is a process and inevitable. This report has shown how Samsung and Apple Companies experience organizational changes and how each firm has been impacted by the changes. The market and work environment is changing significantly in the 21st century. Companies must also be flexible to cope with the changes to avoid negative impacts associated with the changes, but also not to lose the potential benefits that such changes can bring in the organization. Sometimes, going global can force the company to compromise some its policies or norms to adopt a different norm that can ensure its success in the global market. From this report, Samsung has shown such a scenario where it had to leave its seniority-oriented approach to adopt a more collaborative and engaging approach to motivate its employees and also expand its operations in other cultures.

References

Calder, A. M. (2013). Organizational Change: Models for Successfully Implementing Change. Utah State University. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1142&context=honors

Dudovskiy, J. (2017, November 27). Samsung Organizational Culture: Seniority-oriented culture that needs to change. Research Methodology. Retrieved from https://research-methodology.net/samsung-organizational-culture-seniority-oriented-culture-needs-change/

Dudovskiy, J. (2013, May 4). Leadership Change at Apple and its Implications on Organisational Culture. Research Methodology. Retrieved from https://research-methodology.net/leadership-change-at-apple-and-its-implications-on-organisational-culture/

Meyer, P. (2018, September 11). Apple Inc.'s Organization Culture & Its Characteristics. Panmore Institute. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/apple-inc-organizational-culture-features-implications

Shaughnessy, H. (2013, April 12). These Three Game Changes Define the Apple vs Samsung Battle. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/04/12/these-3-game-changers-define-the-apple-vs-samsung-battle/#9a1b8c11ba4b

Su-hyun, S. (2017, November 17). Samsung prepares Organizational Change focused on R&D Convergence. The Korea Herald. Retrieved from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20171117000626