Change at Whirlpool: An Analysis

Businesses are facing a dichotomy between wanting to chalk out an all-time structure and strategy for their organization, and recognizing that their world is in a constant state of flux [3]. For most of the 20th century they were largely focused on the static elements of this dichotomy. However, in the last decade changes have become more frequent and more dramatic, so much so that a whole branch of management is now devoted to the subject of change itself.

Today’s companies are challenged by frequent changes in market demands and consumers’ desires for new products and services. Companies which fail to adapt to these changing conditions often find themselves struggling to survive. This is the situation for the Texas Plant, as described in the case study by Pryor, Humphreys, and Taneja (2011). The Vice President, Human Resources Director, and Organizational Development Manager find themselves not only facing the struggles of transforming the Texas Plant, but also the difficulties of working together to achieve it. The following paper describes these difficulties and examines how the actions of the leaders impacted the change process. Recommendations to assist the plant’s leadership in moving forward will be offered.

Change is inevitable. Changing is not always welcomed but it is necessary for organizations to maintain their place in the world. Successful organizations thrive because they have a vision, a mission

Organized Change Consultancy. (2010). Re-engineering and TQM: Approaches to Organizational Change . Available: http://www.organizedchange.com/village.htm. Last accessed 2nd January 2014.

The intent of the proposal is to address the case brought forward to our organization concerning “The Young Change Agents,” at Price Waterhouse (PW) who later merged with Coopers & Lybrand. It is my understanding that the platform to address the need for change in the organization plummeted with three young pioneers (Shaw, Middleburg and Sgaralgli) recognized a need for change. Prior to Shaw and Middleburg arrival to PWC, they had an opportunity to work in a well-known student organization AIESEC. In their tenure at AIESEC life was different, as Shaw recalled while operating as the president of the national organization in New Zealand division; he recognized that AIESEC focused on developing his leadership skills by focusing on such programs as skills, attitudes, values and cultural understanding. Furthermore, he noted that his transition to PwC led to a lower echelon, and it was difficult to transition from the president to a staff member. PwC also had a high spending budget for stationery compared to New Zealand AIESEC. Moreover, the technology was not up to par for such a large cooperation. (Jick & Peiperl, p. 463) Shaw and Middleburg later partnered with Sgaralgi to fight the deficiencies that they saw in PwC. They created a force that focused on overhauling the existing values at PwC. They approached each situation, manager and employee one step at a time. Expecting nothing in return, but only to share their message on the new

Change is a constant in today’s organisations. In a Recent CIPD survey it found more than half of all employees said that their organisation has been going through some kind of major change during the last year. Most organisations more than ten years old look nothing like they did even five years ago. And it is likely that in the next year or two organisations will not look as they do today. Below are 6 factors that drive and influence change In any organisation.

Leading and managing change require a solid theoretical foundation. This assignment will research the theoretical elements of change and change management. Addressed will be the following: Organic Evolution of Change, Formulating Strategic Development Approaches, Leadership and Management Skills and Gathering and Analyze Data. As societies continue to evolve and changing demand creates the need for new products and services, businesses often are forced to make changes to stay competitive. The businesses that continue to survive and even thrive are usually the ones that most readily adapt to change. A variety of factors can cause a business to reevaluate its methods of operation. According to literature from the past two

Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.

Introducing organisational change is often hard, the main reasons for that can be variation in perceptions of the employees, fear of disruption or failure and underlining the right approach to apply change. Then even if the change in a specific organisation is projected successfully there is still lot to be done to manage it in an appropriate way (Oakland, 2007).

Secondly, because change management is occurring on the regional level instead of the corporate level, there is differing technologies, processes, and management styles which leads to a growing sense of frustration. Due to lack of IT Governance framework the company was not able to:

Competitive imperatives of market forces and customer demands in today’s environment have led to the emergence of less hierarchical and more flexible organisations (Doyle, 2001). In working towards this paradigm shift, a distinction and clarification of the relationship between leadership and management in the change process needs to be addressed. According to Caldwell (2003), change leaders are executives or senior managers at the very top of the organisation who envision, initiate or sponsor strategic change of far-reaching or transformational nature by challenging the status quo, communicating a vision that employees believe in, and empowering them to act. In contrast, change managers are usually middle level managers and functional

Change is going in the organization. With the help of theories I can easily visualize

Burke (2014) stated that organizations change from day to day. The changes that take place in organizations can be intentional or unintentional. Generally, the changes that occur is accidental. It is important to have a broader and deeper knowledge of understanding organization change. Understanding what is currently happening as well as trends in which the organization is functioning can provide such awareness.

Whirlpool Corporation is the number one major appliance manufacturer in the world. Whirlpool Corporation was incorporated on August 10, 1955. It trades on the NY Stock exchange under WHR. Whirlpool is one of the world's top home appliance makers. It specializes in laundry appliances, cooking appliances, refrigerators and freezers, compressors, dishwashers, mixers and other small domestic appliances as well as manufactures and markets home appliances. Whirlpool has huge global experience in the consumer electronics business as well as a strong research and development capabilities to innovate consumer electronics. As of December 31, 2016, the Company manufactured products in 14 countries and sold products to over 135 countries. Whirlpool does an excellent job marketing in global markets throughout the world under popular brand names, such as Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Consul, Brastemp, Roper, Amana, Bauknecht, Jenn-Air and Indesit. The Company has different segments including the North America; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Latin America, and Asia segments. Major customers for the Whirlpool Corporation include retailers Lowe's, Home Depot, Sears, and Best Buy. In 2016 the corporation had approximately $21 billion in annual sales, 93,000 employees and 70 manufacturing and technology research centers. Whirlpool strives to be the leader in home appliances and does this by being innovative and promoting corporate entrepreneurship throughout the

For international business strategy, Hill and Jones (2004) suggested that there is four basic components of strategy development need to be addressed by a firm in order to succeed in foreign markets. These components are: ¡¥distinctive competence¡¦, ¡¥scope of operations¡¦, ¡¥resource deployment¡¦, and ¡¥synergy¡¦. By applying the theory, it is revealed that Whirlpool¡¦s distinctive competence is its brand name ¡V Whirlpool, the world¡¦s largest white-goods manufacturer. For the scope of operations, Whirlpool is specialised in broad middle market niche of white-goods products. In terms of resource deployment, Whirlpool allocates the resources equally to its three product lines. As far as synergy concern, due to the poor business performance of Bauknecht and Ignis, Whirlpool is not benefited in whole.