The successful change initiative (Pikos, 2015) was an initiative of risk management of the municipal offices across Poland. The Polish, Public Finance Act requires all public sector entities to have risk management systems in place that are within the management control framework. Even though the public sector enterprises face several problems in implementing risk management systems, the initiative was mostly successful. A significant obstacle to the initiative was employees resisting change. Most of the public sector firms are large, bureaucratic firms bound and governed by several regulations that hinder effective management. The initiative had to apply several steps to support the successful implementation of the change by overcoming barriers that arise in implementing risk management in the public sector.
The initiative took into consideration the turbulent environment that contemporary organizations operate in, which requires the firms, including public sector entities, to keep adapting to the ever-changing conditions. The conditions create a complex business environment due to the economic crisis and the fast-growing social, political, and economic transformations. The initiative had to overcome several challenges, as reported by the employees of municipal offices. The employees derailed the initiative's implementation at first with claims of lack of clarity on what was expected of them. The employees were not committed to implementing the change due to a lack of organizational support from the top corporate level when the process was introduced to municipal offices. In other offices, the obligation of having risk management measures was utterly ignored, with executives tending to shift their duty of coordinating organizational units' processes due to them feeling the obligation imposed. The top management had failed to communicate with employees and cooperate with them in implementing change. As a result of poor communication and failed cooperation, staff did not receive any feedback on the risk management and did not know the office's relevant documents, which affected their contribution to coherence and integration in the municipal offices. The employees were noticeably the ones responsible for the risk-management-related problems.
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The initiative was successful by overcoming the challenges discussed and by focusing on four main factors of top management support, excellent internal communication, the appointment of a team and a leader and consistent or continually –improved processes. The support from top executives at every stage of the process was to make employees aware of the risk management initiative as a top priority of the office. Support such as appointing a change leader was vital in making the initiative successful. Internal communication helped the staff understand what was expected of them about the process of risk management. The consistent and continually-improved risk management process ensured that it addressed the office's already existing processes and succeeded in the turbulent business environments as was with the municipal offices.
A Failed Change Initiative within an Organization
The failed change initiative was a failure by organizations due to radical institutional change, as described by Oertel et al. (2016). The organizations primarily failed due to the institutional founding environment that affected the organizational success after a radical institutional change. The firms in which the initiative failed were founded by the German Democratic Republic (GDR), particularly firms that experienced the fall in 1990. A significant cause for the initiative's failure was due to the institutional environment of their founding environment. Oertel et al. (2016) found that the firms failed due to the conditions of the environment of their founding periods with variations in their imprinted pasts and their incumbent institutional contexts.
The GDR firms failed due to imprinting by founding conditions of the firms, which affected their longevity. There have been cases of misfit between the institutional requirements and imprinted features, which are high, especially in institutional change. The failure rates in the aftermath of institutional change have been dynamic even though they vary from one organization to another, dependent on how much the current organizational conditions alter their imprint and adapt to new requirements. The GDR firms experienced differences in their failure rates depending on how much each firm had adjusted to change and how they altered their organizational imprints. The GDR firms' change initiative has some similarities with the McKinsey 7-S Model, which is primarily premised on strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff, and skills. However, in GDR firms, the central reference point was how these factors had shaped the firms during their time of the founding. These effects have persisted over time and made a mark in the firms. The combination of strategic decision-making and imprinting approaches was a critical determinant of understanding organizational evolution and chances of survival after the institutional change.
Comparison and Contrast of the Change Implementation Theories
In the cases of Oertel et al. (2016) and Pikos (2015), the successful initiative and the failed initiative, respectively, initiatives faced myriads of setbacks and challenges. The difference in the outcome as to which succeeded and failed depends on how each initiative overcame the setbacks. Additionally, it was also determined by how these initiatives solved the problems they experienced in implementing the changes. The initiative discussed by Oertel et al. (2016) was premised on two theories: the grounded theory and Binning's theory. The first case of the successful initiative applied the nudge theory-building upon the foundational guide of the grounded and binning's theory that helps initiate the right measures that made the initiative successful in public firms. The second case of GDR firms' initiative failed even though they were based on institutional imprinting of the companies at its foundational stages. A major difference between the successful initiative and the one that failed dismally was in the ability and measures of adapting to change and overcoming the setbacks that came in along the way. The case of successful vs. failed change initiative highlights the need for supporting change in several key ways. The top management has to communicate the need for change and convince organizational members and key external stakeholders why the change is essential. They further have to communicate the need for change, develop a plan with an excellent strategy for change implementation, provide internal support for change to overcome resistance, elicit top management and commitment, build external support from key external stakeholders, provide resources, and institutionalize resources.
Summation
Change is often rarely welcome in any setting. There should always be a plan in every initiative to ensure proper management to minimize the adverse reactions. Selecting the best functional change management model or initiatives that help the companies move towards the desired outcomes and the guide to successful adoption of change makes it easier for corporates to navigate. The example of a successful change initiative is an excellent pointer to how the right measures can help overcome setbacks in implementing change. Even though the firms in Poland described by Oertel et al. (2016) faced challenges in getting their employees and leaders to embrace the change of having risk management plans in place, they overcame the setbacks and ultimately succeeded in meeting their goals through the application for the nudge theory. In the second case of the failed initiative, as Pikos (2015) described, the initiative could not factor in employees' and leaders' important role in making the intuitive a success. As a result, the initiative failed similar to the change model of Maurer 3 levels of resistance, except that the implementers did not succeed in instilling the purpose and how to change coupled with building trust and confidence in the leaders of the firms. Radical change may not achieve the desired impact immediately, but if well managed and adjustments made to suit the new settings after the institutional change, the organizations have high chances of survival and success.
References
Oertel, S., Kirsten, T., & Peter, W. (2016). Organizational failure in the aftermath of radical institutional change. Organization Studies, 37(8) , 1067-1087.https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0170840615622071.
Pikos, A. (2015). Introduction of risk management into municipal offices across Poland as an example of organizational change. Central European Management Journal, 23(4) , 94-97. https://doi.org/10.7206/mba.ce.2084-3356.158.
