Viewing A Change Disaster Through Change Perspectives

Many types of risk are created – risk to the project, to the organization, to the employees involved and to the individuals supporting the change.

As a result, Zwick (2002, p. 542) has noted that implementing change programmes in organisations that realise positive outcomes remain problematic for many organisations in the 21st century. Ayodeji & Oyesola (2011, p. 235) have postulated that organisational change is a dynamic process, which when taken poorly contribute to employee resistance to it, and eventually leads to failure of the whole process. 3|Page Organisation Behaviour; MGTS 1601; Individual Essay; Employee resistance to change Yuanli Zhang 43401163 Employees resist changes when they occur in the organisations for several reasons. Many organisations when they introduce changes are likely to stick to the ‘top-down organisational change’ process (Awasthy, Chandrasekaran & Gupta, 2011, pp.

• A catastrophic industry crisis as 200 000 staff were cut in the world aviation industry.

The Air Transportation Stabilization Board was created in the weeks following the attacks. The board was authorized to give faltering airlines up to $10 billion in government backed loans. Despite this government funded measure, several prominent airlines declared bankruptcy. At the same time that the industry was facing this large-scale drop in the number of passengers, low-cost carriers grew significantly and air fares decreased. As a result of the massive financial losses due to lack of passenger demand, canceled flights and increased expenditures for

Some argue that the 9/11 attacks hastened the airline industry to make changes that would have come sooner or later because many carriers were already in financial trouble. The airlines were forced to make cuts in their cost structure and renegotiate labor expenses due to a decline in passenger demand, which realistically was needed regardless of the 9/11 attacks (Logan).

September 11, 2001, was a horrific event that rocked the world and the way people viewed the safety of airline travel. The airline industry was hit the hardest after that day and it was uncertain if they could regain their customer’s

One of the harsh realities of all organizations is the need for change. Although change is inevitable, many organizations fail to make the transition successfully because of strong employee resistance to change. Indeed, many people fear and resist change and some will even actively sabotage change initiatives unless the change is managed effectively. Moreover, these issues become especially significant when the organization in question is the U.S. Army, which is tasked with protecting the nation's security and interests at home and abroad. Because the U.S. Army must remain mission ready at all times, there is no room for resistance to change when it occurs and leaders at all levels must ensure that the change process goes smoothly and efficiently. This paper presents a plan to address anticipated and/or actual individual and structural barriers to the U.S. Army's change process, followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Air France – Air France had a notable strike with its air traffic controllers. The strike affected many European airlines and caused Air France’s stock price to plummet.

British Airways faced the worst crisis in its history in the late 1970’s early 1980’s.

Qantas, Australia’s largest domestic and international airline service, has grown immensely since its formation in 1922 and has dominated the Australian domestic aviation industry for years. However, a recent dispute between the unions and management lead to the grounding of all Qantas flights causing the company to suffer both financially as well as in terms of their

Empowering broad-based action—the company should continually check barriers of change and remove obstacles to make the change strategy successful. BA (2010) announced that striking staff would forfeit cheap travel perks. This action aimed to reduce strikes and penalized strikers. In addition, more than 80 crew members (2010) had been suspended and 13 had been permanently dismissed from BA. BA took actions to remove barriers. However, it did not help Cabin Crew to meet their needs, and caused new barriers.

The British Airways case study was a very interesting case to read. It proves that not all people can be leaders, especially the chairman, board and chief executives of British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC.) According to the case study of British Airways, the life at the “old” British Airways was “bloody awful” (Changing the Culture of British Airways, 1990, p. 1).

Individuals when faced with any major change will be inevitably resistant and will want to preserve the status quo, especially if they think their status or security within the organization is in danger (Bolognese, 2010). Folger and Skarlicki believe that organizational change produces skepticism in employees which make it problematic and possibly even impossible to contrive improvements within the organization (as cited in Bolognese, 2010) Therefore, management must understand, accept and make an effort to work with resistance, since it can undermine even the most well-conceived change efforts (Bolognese, 2010). Furthermore, Coetsee states for organizations to achieve the maximum benefits from change they must effectively create and

Bolognese, A. (2002). Employee Resistance to Organizational Change. Retrieved December 2, 2006 from Internet, http://www.newfoundations.com/OrgTheory/

British Airways (BA) is a company that encountered several difficulties back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The poor performances of the organization, was leading the company to failure. BA was offering a service that even though it accomplished the mission of the company, was not providing customer satisfaction. The organization was not taking into consideration the needs of the costumer and was not providing an acceptable customer service experience. “Productivity at BA in the 1970s was strikingly bad, especially in contrast to other leading foreign airlines” (Jick, Peiperl, 2010, p.28). Due to numerous changes, the company increased their revenues and became a respectful and well know organization.