Description
Learning Outcomes: Describe the basic steps of the organizational development process. Evaluate the strategic role of change in the organization and its impact on organizational performance. Assignment Question(s): Please refer to the case study titled “Planned Change at The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority” given on Page number 31, Chapter 2 in your textbook and answer the following questions: Critically discuss the organizational development process at San Diego Airport and describe its stages. (3 marks)Which model of planned change has been used in the case of San Diego airport from your point of view? If you were the person in charge, which model of change would you choose? and why? (3 marks) Discuss the main challenges faced by the transition team during the planning and implementation phases. (2 marks)Critically evaluate the change process and if you were the consultant what would you have done differently? ( 2marks) Note: You must include at least 5 references.Format your references using APA style. Answers Answer-Answer-Answer-
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المملكة العربية السعودية
وزارة التعليم
الجامعة السعودية اإللكترونية
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Education
Saudi Electronic University
College of Administrative and Financial Sciences
Assignment 1
Organization Design and Development (MGT 404)
Due Date: 09/03/2024 @ 23:59
Course Name:
Student’s Name:
Course Code: MGT404
Student’s ID Number:
Semester: First
CRN:
Academic Year: 2023-24-2nd
For Instructor’s Use only
Instructor’s Name:
Students’ Grade:
Marks Obtained/Out of 10
Level of Marks: High/Middle/Low
General Instructions – PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY
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The Assignment must be submitted on Blackboard (WORD format only) via allocated
folder.
Assignments submitted through email will not be accepted.
Students are advised to make their work clear and well presented, marks may be reduced
for poor presentation. This includes filling your information on the cover page.
Students must mention question number clearly in their answer.
Late submission will NOT be accepted.
Avoid plagiarism, the work should be in your own words, copying from students or other
resources without proper referencing will result in ZERO marks. No exceptions.
All answered must be typed using Times New Roman (size 12, double-spaced) font. No
pictures containing text will be accepted and will be considered plagiarism).
Submissions without this cover page will NOT be accepted.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Describe the basic steps of the organizational development process.
2. Evaluate the strategic role of change in the organization and its impact on
organizational performance.
Assignment Question(s):
Please refer to the case study titled “Planned Change at The San Diego County Regional
Airport Authority” given on Page number 31, Chapter 2 in your textbook and answer the
following questions:
1. Critically discuss the organizational development process at San Diego Airport and
describe its stages. (3 marks)
2. Which model of planned change has been used in the case of San Diego airport
from your point of view? If you were the person in charge, which model of change
would you choose? and why? (3 marks)
3. Discuss the main challenges faced by the transition team during the planning and
implementation phases. (2 marks)
4. Critically evaluate the change process and if you were the consultant what would
you have done differently? (2 marks)
Note:
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You must include at least 5 references.
Format your references using APA style.
Answers
1. Answer2. Answer3. Answer-
application 2 1
CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
PLANNED CHANGE AT THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY
REGIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY
T
he San Diego County Regional Airport
Authority (SDCRAA) was created by a
California state law in October 2001; this
gave it the responsibility to establish and
operate airports within San Diego County.
Most importantly, from Thella Bowens’s
perspective, the law required the San Diego Unified Port District (Port of San Diego) to transfer
operation of San Diego’s international airport to
the SDCRAA by January 2003. Bowens was the
current senior director of the Aviation Division
within the Port of San Diego that was responsible for operating the San Diego International Airport. When the law was passed, she was
named Interim Executive Director of the
SDCRAA, and assigned an interim advisory
board to help manage the transition.
Bowens’s tenure with the organization
gave her an important understanding of the
organization’s operations and its history. For
example, the San Diego International Airport
accounted for about $4.3 billion or roughly 4%
of San Diego’s regional economy. Forecasts
called for air travel to more than double to
35 million passengers by 2030, and contribute
up to $8 billion to the regional economy. In addition, Bowens had participated in the Aviation
Division’s strategic planning process in 2001.
She was well positioned to lead this effort.
As she thought about managing the startup of the SDCRAA, two broad but interdependent categories of initial activity emerged:
developing the transition plan and dealing
with the legal and regulatory issues.
DEVELOPING THE TRANSITION PLAN
In April 2002, Bowens took the senior team
from the old Aviation Division to an off-site
workshop to discuss the creation and management of an effective transition process. This
group understood the importance of SDCRAA
quickly becoming a stand-alone agency and the
need to be seen differently in the marketplace.
The group recommended revising the existing
strategic plan, to hire staff to research, discuss,
and create a transition plan, and to conduct
retreats with employees from multiple organizational levels. In response, Bowens chartered
the Airport Transition Team to ensure the
smooth and seamless transfer of operations
and public services provided by the airport
without regard to which agency was responsible for their provision.
In May 2002, seven employees were handpicked from the Aviation Division to become
members of the Airport Transition Team and
relieved of their day-to-day job responsibilities
so they could focus on the transition. The selection criteria included the ability to work within a
process yet think outside of the box, to communicate well with others in a team, and to influence directors and managers without having
formal authority. A one-and-a-half-day kick-off
meeting was held to set expectations, to communicate goals and responsibilities, and to initiate the team. A “war room” was established
for the team to keep records, hold meetings,
and serve as a communication hub. The team
named themselves the “Metamorphs.”
Many Metamorph members came from different parts of the organization and, having never
worked together, needed to rely on each other
to effectively design the transition process.
Senior team member Angela Shafer-Payne,
then director of Airport Business and Administration, worked closely with the Metamorphs and
led formal team-building activities throughout the
year. Through their work together, the Metamorphs discovered how large and daunting the
organizational change was and yet appreciated
the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
make an impact. As one member put it, “How
many times in your life can you say that you
helped put together a brand-new organization?”
The Metamorphs decided that to meet their
charter, any transition plan had to be designed
specifically to minimize disruption to customers
and service, minimize airport and nonairport
financial impacts, and properly address and
resolve all legal and regulatory matters. These
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PART 1 OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
criteria guided the creation of 12 functional teams
(which expanded later to 19). Responsibility for the
teams was divided among the transition team members, and each team was composed of employees
from the old Aviation Division and other Port of San
Diego departments. Their mission was to collect
data, establish new or parallel functions for the
SDCRAA, and highlight any issues related to the
start-up of that particular function. Once the teams
were in place, they were given tools to use and
questions that needed to be addressed. Each team
set aside time to review all of the records in each
functional area. For example, the human resources
functional team consisted of Aviation Division
employees, HR professionals from the Port of
San Diego, and Port attorneys; it was charged with
developing the actual transition mechanism, HR
operations, and HR organizational structure. Another
team focused on the environmental issues involved
in the transition. They examined over 100 different
environmental permits held by the Port of San Diego
to understand if SDCRAA needed a similar permit,
needed to be a copermittee with the Port of
San Diego, or if the SDCRAA could stand alone. If
it were a stand-alone situation, then documentation
would be prepared to transfer the permit.
To ensure that no issues fell through the
cracks, three distinct peer reviews were held in
the summer and fall of 2002. The peer review
panels were staffed by professionals within the
aviation industry, people who had experienced a
transition of some type within an organization, or
those who were integral to the start-up of the organization. The first peer review panel examined the
transition plan and offered advice on whether to
add any other critical and/or missing components.
The second peer review panel, consisting of
mostly human resources professionals, examined
the proposed organizational structure. The final
peer review panel focused on the IT systems portion of the transition plan because of technology’s
critical role in the overall success of many of the
internal processes.
DEALING WITH THE LEGAL
AND REGULATORY ISSUES
By January 2002, the SDCRAA was not yet a full
agency and had only one employee, Thella Bowens.
Despite all the work of the Metamorphs and the
functional teams, and sometimes because of it,
Bowens also had to interface with the California legislature. The original legislation (California Senate Bill
AB93 [2001–2002]) provided a framework for setting
up the new agency but left many questions unanswered, including issues relating to property transfer
(SDCRAA would lease land from the Port on a 66-year
lease) and the transitioning of employees from one
public agency to another. To provide clarity and
another layer of understanding, “clean-up” legislation
(SB 1896) was passed in mid-2002. Together with the
original bill, the legislation protected employees to
ensure no loss of jobs or benefits. This gave the Metamorphs additional information and guidance to deal
with employee contract issues. For example, in the
middle of the transition planning process, the Port District had to renegotiate its union contract. The Metamorphs had to work closely with the airport’s external
counsel, the Port of San Diego counsel, and state
senators to ensure a smooth negotiation.
Finally, Bowens and the Metamorphs had to
address changes to federal security regulations outlined in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act
that resulted from the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Those events caused a number of disruptions for
many stakeholders in the air transportation industry.
They required the transition plan to include a component that focused on keeping costs contained to
enable aviation partners, the airlines, the gate gourmets, and tenants, to weather the storm.
IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION
The final transition plan was presented to the
interim board and then to the Board of Port Commissioners for approval in October 2002. The
approved plan was comprised of several components, including an IT conversion plan and the process for formally transferring responsibility to the
SDCRAA, but the key elements were human
resources and communication plans.
The human resources plan specified the transition of 145 budgeted Aviation Division employees to 52 vacancies plus the 90 other positions
identified by the Metamorphs to make the organization whole. The plan called for all of the positions
to be filled by mid-2005. The human resources
plan also provided for the purchase of services,
like the Harbor Police, from the Port of San Diego
until mid-2005.
CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
The communication plan was critical to the
implementation phase. The Metamorphs regularly
carried information about their progress to coworkers in their respective departments. In addition,
communication meetings with the entire organization, called “all hands meetings,” were held to provide information about the transition. The Airport
Transition Plan contained a special emphasis on
the needs of the employee. Bowens understood
the sociotechnical nature of change and did not
want the human factor to be forgotten in the
midst of all the legal, technical, and other transitions. She included a number of changemanagement education sessions for all employees.
The change-management education sessions were
developed to reassure employees; to encourage
genuine, candid, frequent, high-quality communications; and to neutralize anxiety and fears.
During the sessions, employees were
(1) updated on the progress of the transition;
(2) introduced to change theories, models, and
concepts; and (3) encouraged to share their issues,
fears, anxieties, concerns, and creative ideas.
Employee input was organized into themes, then
documented and communicated to Bowens and
her direct reports. The leadership team was
committed to answering questions and addressing
concerns that emerged from the changemanagement sessions. Airport managers met regularly to select and answer questions for publication
33
in the organization newsletter or live communication
at “all hands meetings.” In addition, the employee
satisfaction survey was updated with questions to
learn about transition concerns.
Thella Bowens was named President and CEO
of the SDCRAA on January 1, 2003. By June 2003,
the SDCRAA had received awards based on superb
customer service and outstanding levels of performance. The SDCRAA, based on all available
metrics, is successfully operating San Diego’s international airport and serving over 15.2 million passengers on 620 daily flights in and out of the airport.
Part of the success is due to the way the transition
plan was developed. Because of the broad participation in its creation, many employees understood the
plan. When issues arose, identifying the personnel
to become part of an ad hoc problem-solving group
already familiar with the topic was easy.
“Ms. Bowens accomplished the extraordinary
job of leading a successful transition of the airport
from the Unified Port of San Diego to the Authority,”
said Joseph W. Craver, Authority (SDCRAA) Chairman. “She is highly regarded and respected for
both her breadth of knowledge of aviation management issues and her visionary leadership.” Thella
Bowens added, “Fortunately, we’ve been supported
by very dedicated professional employees who have
exhibited great resolve and sheer hard work through
the transition process, and continue to do so as we
create a ‘world-class’ organization.”
limited to the defined issues, although additional problems may be uncovered and may
need to be addressed. Similarly, the change process tends to focus on those organizational systems having specific problems, and it generally terminates when the problems
are resolved. Of course, the OD practitioner may contract to help solve additional
problems.
In recent years, OD has been increasingly concerned with fundamental change. As
described in Chapter 1, the greater competitiveness and uncertainty of today’s environment have led a growing number of organizations to alter drastically the way in which
they operate. In such situations, planned change is more complex, extensive, and long
term than when applied to incremental change.30 Because fundamental change involves
most features and levels of the organization, it is typically driven from the top, where
corporate strategy and values are set. OD practitioners help senior executives create a
vision of a desired future organization and energize movement in that direction. They
also help them develop structures for managing the transition from the present to the
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PART 1 OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
future organization and may include, for example, a program management office and a
variety of overlapping steering committees and redesign teams. Staff experts also may
redesign many features of the firm, such as performance measures, rewards, planning
processes, work designs, and information systems.
Because of the complexity and extensiveness of fundamental change, OD professionals often work in teams comprising members with different yet complementary
areas of expertise. The consulting relationship persists over relatively long time periods
and includes a great deal of renegotiation and experimentation among consultants and
managers. The boundaries of the change effort are more uncertain and diffuse than
those in incremental change, thus making diagnosis and change seem more like discovery than like problem solving. (We describe complex strategic and transformational types
of change in more detail in Chapters 18, 19, and 20.)
It is important to emphasize that fundamental change may or may not be developmental in nature. Organizations may drastically alter their strategic direction and way of operating without significantly developing their capacity to solve problems, to make future
changes, and to achieve both high performance and quality of work life. For example,
firms may simply change their marketing mix, dropping or adding products, services, or
customers; they may drastically downsize by cutting out marginal businesses and laying
off managers and workers; or they may tighten managerial and financial controls and
attempt to squeeze more out of the labor force. On the other hand, organizations may
undertake fundamental change from a developmental perspective. They may seek to make
themselves more competitive by developing their human resources; by getting managers
and employees more involved in problem solving and innovation; and by promoting flexibility and direct, open communication. The OD approach to fundamental change is particularly relevant in today’s rapidly changing and competitive environment. To succeed in
this setting, firms such as General Electric, Kimberly-Clark, Asea Brown Boveri, IBM, and
Banca Intesa are transforming themselves from control-oriented bureaucracies to highinvolvement organizations capable of changing and improving themselves continually.
2-3b Degree of Organization
Planned change efforts also can vary depending on the degree to which the organization
or client system is organized. In overorganized situations, such as in highly mechanistic,
bureaucratic organizations, various dimensions such as leadership styles, job designs,
organization structure, and policies and procedures are too rigid and overly defined for
effective task performance. Communication between management and employees is typically suppressed, conflicts are avoided, and employees are apathetic. In underorganized
organizations, on the other hand, there is too little constraint or regulation for effective
task performance. Leadership, structure, job design, and policy are poorly defined and
fail to direct task behaviors effectively. Communication is fragmented, job responsibilities
are ambiguous, and employees’ energies are dissipated because they lack direction.
Underorganized situations are typically found in such areas as product development,
project management, and community development, where relationships among diverse
groups and participants must be coordinated around complex, uncertain tasks.
In overorganized situations, where much of OD practice has historically taken place,
planned change is generally aimed at loosening constraints on behavior. Changes in leadership, job design, structure, and other features are designed to liberate suppressed
energy, to increase the flow of relevant information between employees and managers,
and to promote effective conflict resolution. The typical steps of planned change—
entry, diagnosis, intervention, and evaluation—are intended to penetrate a relatively
CHAPTER 2 THE NATURE OF PLANNED CHANGE
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closed organization or department and make it increasingly open to self-diagnosis and
revitalization. The relationship between the OD practitioner and the management team
attempts to model this loosening process. The consultant shares leadership of the change
process with management, encourages open communications and confrontation of conflict, and maintains flexibility in relating to the organization.
When applied to organizations facing problems in being underorganized, planned
change is aimed at increasing organization by clarifying leadership roles, structuring
communication between managers and employees, and specifying job and departmental
responsibilities. These activities require a modification of the traditional phases of
planned change and include the following four steps:31
1. Identification. This step identifies the relevant people or groups who need to be
involved in the change program. In many underorganized situations, people and
departments can be so disconnected that there is ambiguity about who should be
included in the problem-solving process. For example, when managers of different
departments have only limited interaction with each other, they may disagree or be
confused about which departments should be involved in developing a new product
or service.
2. Convention. In this step, the relevant people or departments in the company are
brought together to begin organizing for task performance. For example, department
managers might be asked to attend a series of organizing meetings to discuss the
division of labor and the coordination required to introduce a new product.
3. Organization. Different organizing mechanisms are created to structure the newly
required interactions among people and departments. This might include creating
new leadership positions, establishing communication channels, and specifying
appropriate plans and policies.
4. Evaluation. In this final step, the outcomes of the organization step are assessed.
The evaluation might signal the need for adjustments in the organizing process or
for further identification, convention, and organization activities.
In carrying out these four steps of planned change in underorganized situations, the
relationship between the OD practitioner and the client system attempts to reinforce the
organizing process. The consultant develops a well-defined leadership role, which might
be directive during the early stages of the change program. Similarly, the consulting relationship is clearly defined and tightly specified. In effect, the interaction between the
consultant and the client system supports the larger process of bringing order to the
situation.
Application 2.2 is an example of planned change in an underorganized situation.
In this case, the change agent is a person from industry who identifies a multifaceted
problem: University research that should be helpful to manufacturing organizations is
not being shaped, coordinated, or transferred. In response, he forms an organization to
tighten up the relationships between the two parties.32
2-3c Domestic versus International Settings
Planned change efforts have traditionally been applied in North American and
European settings, but they are increasingly used outside of these regions.33 Developed
in Western societies, OD reflects the underlying values and assumptions of these cultural settings, including equality, involvement, and short-term time horizons. Under
these conditions, it works quite well. In other societies, a different set of cultural values
and assumptions can be operating and make the application of OD problematic.
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