Sample BE460 Organisation and Leadership in a Globalised World Assignment

BE460 Organisation and Leadership in a Globalised World Assignment Sample

Assignment Brief

You are expected to write an essay of no more than 2,000 words

All submissions must be presented in typescript (MS Word format), 12pt, 1.5 line spacing.Note that late submissions will not be accepted unless full details of extenuating circumstances are provided. For details on extenuating circumstances please see the link in Moodle. If you have any query about extenuation, please contact “Academic Services Southend” (Gateway Building, 4th floor).

Essay Question

“Examine the role of organisational change by analysing a case study of change management in an organisation of your choice”.

The case study can refer to managing change in any type of organisation. You can thus choose to discuss issues of change in a for-profit company, public organisation, voluntary organisation, or social enterprise.

Indicative answers

A requirement for this essay is to describe and interpret how organisations change, what managers and leaders do to support change, and how employees may experience change based on evidence from your chosen case. The case chosen can be both about successful or unsuccessful change management as a departure point for your elaborations.

You should focus on internal organisational issues: for example, how leaders or managers communicate any required changes; how changes are introduced in different departments, and what kind of employees are involved and a what level. Often, this is about specific individuals and teams being involved as well as their motivation or resistance to change. Additionally, you can explain the reasons and effects of the case’s organisational change in relation to external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers and business partners as any of these can have an influence on how change is perceived, lived, and managed internally.

You will discuss or interpret organisational change with at least one change theory learnt in the dedicated lecture on organisational change (i.e. life-cycle theory; evolutionary theory, teleological theory and dialectical theory). It is likely that you may need to interpret different types of change with more than one theory or model.

You should describe the specific organisational context at the outset. The type and profile of the company should be brief but it is necessary. The context should include briefly e.g. business strategies as a background, as they prompt changes for employees. The essay will cover interventions or programmes that require effective change management. For example, an intervention for organisational change and how leaders or managers helped the process of change of groups, departments and individuals. You can also look at various types of training programmes to enhance new skills in departments and teams. You should add if such programmes are supported by particular HR policies.

Your elaborations may include selected concepts and points of analysis beyond “organisational change” for helping to illuminate aspects that are interrelated in the case. For example: resistance to change, organisational culture or teamwork and collaboration. You should explain all used terms also conceptually, at least briefly, not just merely mention them in one sentence as an ‘add on’. This will support a deeper discussion of different change practices, after you described events and behaviours.

Final recommendations given by a student can be based on relevant academic literature too, not just practical insights. Whilst any recommendation may be easier to imagine based on analysed unsuccessful or less effective approaches to managing change, they can be offered also for positive processes you have seen in the case study. That is, if the organisational change you analysed had been successful overall, you can still suggest as to what might be changed, emphasised or developed because organisations aim to maintain effective changes also in future.

Solution

Introduction

The 21st-century economic activities are characterized by regular as well as systematic changes in organizations. This is primarily due to the existence of a large number of rival companies in every sector of an economy. This is again due to the emergence of globalization and almost every country in the world is in this global competition. In addition, there is a continuous pressure of innovation that forces industries to change their organizational structure. This essay focuses on different aspects of change management that took place for the merger of two companies Astra and Zeneca. Moreover, the effectiveness of such a change would depend on the leaders of an organization. In this essay the UK based leading pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca has been chosen for the analysis of this topic and this company adopted the tool of merger as its organizational change management. This company enjoys larger economies of scale after this change.

Discussion

Internal challenges faced by an organization (AstraZeneca)

Challenges due to diverse workforce: An organization faces internal challenges primarily due to the diverse nature of the workforce. Especially in the United Kingdom, there are several races that constitute the workforce. As a result, in an organization like AstraZeneca, it is evident that there would be several employees from different cultural as well as linguistic backgrounds. In addition, there are differences in talents, skills, knowledge and efficiency. Therefore, there may be some differences in opinions. If the leaders of the company are efficient in managing such issues, the problems could be resolved much easier by means of direct communication for best assignment help.

Improve operating efficiency: There may be a lack of operating efficiency in several companies and also world competition puts these companies in huge internal challenges (Dirani et al., 2020). Moreover, global leaders of the industry may face higher economies of scale and that forced other companies in the market to face huge internal challenges. This was the case with the companies Like Astra and Zeneca. They were forced to match with the economies of scale of other leading companies, such as Merck and Glaxo-Wellcome. As a result, they decided to merge, so that they can improve their operating efficiency by better utilization of assets.
Lack of communication: Another major factor that is responsible for any kind of internal challenge is the lack of communication (Delanoy and Kasztelnik, 2020). If the workforce of an organization does not get a clear vision about the goals of their organization, they become demotivated, resulting in the issue of internal crisis. The selected organization for the analysis of this essay AstraZeneca adopted the measure of automation in the department of human resources management may deal with this type of internal crisis.

Strategies to solve those issues

The pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive in nature and continuous innovation in this industry takes place. As a result, change management of several companies of this industry is a common practice as it was adopted by the two companies Astra and Zeneca and resolved their internal issues by merger in the year 1999. However, apart from mergers, there are several strategies of change management (Ali, Darmaningrat and Winardi, 2018). There are primarily four stages of change management, namely, understanding the issue, planning the change management, implementing those changes, and lastly communicating those changes.

Improvement in research and development: Several companies adopt this crucial strategy to sustain in the market competition. AstraZeneca’s biggest strength is that this company focuses on its effort to improve R&D, and this is primarily their core business strategy.

Improvement in marketing: This is another important tool of organizational change management. This may improve the performance of the company in the long run by enhancing the growth of the organization. AstraZeneca is one such company that has an excellent capability of marketing.

Innovative biopharmaceutical strategy: This strategy is an outcome of research and development, and AstraZeneca gives huge emphasis on this strategy. They exploit their strength of technologies of protein engineering, immunotherapies, small and large molecules.

Merger: This is an important strategy to solve the internal issue and sustain the global competition. Global leaders of the industry may face higher economies of scale and that forced other companies in the market to face huge internal challenges. This was the case with the companies Like Astra and Zeneca. They were forced to match with the economies of scale of other leading companies, resulting in, the decision to merge, so that they can improve their operating efficiency by better utilization of assets.

Implementation of strategies and communicating them: Any suitable combination of strategies should be implemented in the proper way and that should be communicated correctly to their stakeholders.

Reasons for organizational change

There are several reasons for organizational change management, such as cost-cutting, competitive innovations, failure, social changes, changing technology, changed market demand, changed government policies and so on (Rosenbaum, More and Steane, 2018). Companies in the pharmaceutical sector face challenges continuously due to competitive innovations, social change, changing technology, changed market demand and many more.

Larger economies of scale: After the merger which was the main change main change management tool adopted by two companies Astra and Zeneca, the company AstraZeneca enjoys larger economies of scale and now they can compete with global leaders of this industry. A large amount of employment is generated all over the globe and this company’s pre-tax profit has been increased by a huge amount after this organizational change. As a result, every stakeholder of this company has gained after this drastic step of merger.

Competitive innovations and changing market demand: One example of changing market demand is the change in production patterns in the previous two years due to the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic. This company was committed to supporting the global drive of fighting the Covid 19 pandemic over several fronts. There was a need for a huge clinical investigation as well as a potential medicine and vaccine development. There was an urgent necessity for the huge manufacture of these medicines and vaccines (Islam et al., 2019). Most obviously, the workforce of this company was not prepared to take such a huge challenge and so the organization faced a huge internal challenge (Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018). However, the excellent leaders of this company managed to address this internal challenge during an emergency.

Changing technology: There are rapid changes in the use of technology as well as the innovation of new technologies. A company should adopt an organizational change to cope with these new technologies. The merger of Astra and Zeneca is a step towards strong research for adopting new technologies.

Social Changes: Another important reason for organizational change is social changes and its impact on the pharmaceutical sector is huge. However, due to the merger of the two companies to form AstraZeneca reached the expectations of new product launching, the enhanced scope of research, the creation of new jobs, an increase in the value of shareholders and so on.

Figure 1: Reasons for organizational change
Source: (Stouten, Rousseau and De Cremer, 2018)

Theory of organizational change

AstraZeneca is a very popular pharmaceutical concern that applies evolutionary theory for its organisational change management. This company focuses on organisational change management to handle their management perception and practice properly. In this part, this firm focuses on ecological models of change, which suggest perspective-changing guidance that applications give a better chance to develop their condition. This organisation chose Theory O and theory E in their change management process.

Theory O: This theory identifies those needed changes to a developed organisational culture that support learning and high-performance employees. This theory is similar to 'The critical path' and ‘Learning process strategy’ (Vargas et al., 2019). This theory approaches companies to integrate their culture that expands their capabilities and enhances their structure. AstraZeneca chooses this theory for their organisational change management process to change their organisation capability, behavioural changes, human capability, and many more that support their individual growth too. This theory approaches AstraZeneca as being able to change their corporate cultures such as values, norms, beliefs, and that help to increase their capability too.

Figure 2: Organisational change
Source: (Vargas et al., 2019)

Theory E: Theory E suggests programmatic changes for this organisation. This theory hardly changes economic initiatives. AstraZeneca focuses on this theory to develop their economic system, structure, and financial performance. This theory helps this firm to focus on legitimate measures for their corporate success (Cimini et al., 2020). This theory primarily focuses on increasing shareholders' value and suggests more effective strategies to increase cash flows and share prices. Through the help of this theory, this organisation was able to develop its financial performance and ability to economic improvements.

AstraZeneca focuses on those theories for their changing process which gives more simple and comfortable forms and ideas to increase their performance. Those throes approach different parts that help to balance their internal external factors and that also manage the change process. However, there are several resistances arise either from the stakeholders of each company or from other companies with which any of these companies had previous deals. In case of merger of Astra and Zeneca, Astra faced a resistance from one of its rival companies Merch with which it had a marketing deal. The UK company had to pay a large amount to get out of that deal. Merger is, however, a long process as there are several preparations needed for this change.

Business strategies

This organisation focuses on delivering life-changing medicines that contribute to the values of patients and society too. Their unique business strategy and structure give this firm more capability and presence. In this situation, in the world, the burden of disease and is changing increases the uncomfortable situation and for that reason, AstraZeneca focus to derived their scientific medicines at the doorstep of patients. Their fundamental strategy is very simple and clear. This firm focused on innovative science and leadership quality as their business strategy which claimed a better form of this company.

Innovation Science: Their business strategy includes innovative science that helps to expand their business and can deliver life-changing medicines (Balawejder, Sampson and Stratton, 2021). This scientific innovation gives a global presence and gives strength to this firm to emerge in their market. Their main strategy is to focus on those medicines which have created a specific market demand and changing life experience too. Their innovative strategies increase their market demand and availability of their brands too. Their innovations and science application increase their product sales and this business strategy and plan help this organisation to increase its productivity.

Leadership: AstraZeneca focuses on leadership quality and strategy to develop their business and change management process. This organisation focuses on leadership strategy which bridges the gap between strategy and performance (Ramazan et al., 2020). This firm focuses on leadership quality and their performance which help to maintain their business property and highlight an accurate business strategy too. They always focus their leaders to maintain their performance and their approaches give more plans and techniques to develop their business. Their main focus is to direct and motivate their leaders properly to develop their talent and that allows a lifetime goal for this organisation (UZCATEGUI et al., 2018). In this business strategy application, AstraZeneca achieved proper learning of their organisational transformation.

Recommendations

There are several recommendations for organizational change management for the company AstraZeneca. The merger of two companies was not possible overnight. There are several considerations that should be considered. Firstly, it is recommended to identify the need for change as well as planning for the same. Secondly, it is recommended to identify the strategy of the change. For example, Astra and Zeneca chose the strategy of a merger as the tool of organizational change. Thirdly, it is recommended to focus on issues like innovation for ageing people, chronic ailments as well as in medical treatments, the convergence of technology and healthcare, changing status of drugs, drug prices, reforms in healthcare, OTC growth, off-patent medicines, branded drugs and so on (Mishra and Schmidt, 2018). Fourthly, it is recommended to utilize social media platforms more effectively to improve relationships with prospective patients. Fifthly, it is recommended to understand the necessity of humanizing the organization. Sixthly, it is recommended to understand the present needs of society. Moreover, it is also recommended to the company to understand organizational change management, such as cost-cutting, competitive innovations, failure, social changes, changing technology, changed market demand, changed government policies and so on. Companies in the pharmaceutical sector face challenges continuously due to competitive innovations, social change, changing technology, changed market demand and many more. The company should try to make some new innovations in the segment of effective communication and marketing. However, this company is one such company that has an excellent capability of marketing.

Conclusion

It is revealed from the above analysis that organizational change management is the most important tool for sustaining market competition. Two companies Astra and Zeneca adopted the strategy of merger for organizational change. This analysis was based on several theoretical frameworks to understand the need for organizational change management. Global leaders of the pharmaceutical industry face higher economies of scale and that forced other companies in the market to face huge internal challenges and issues.

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