Implementing of Organizational Change for Pearson Education - Term Paper Example

Introduction Change simply means doing things differently (Werner 2003). Change in an organisation is inevitable and is often necessitated by variousinternal and external factors which include social, economic, technological, competition as well as structure of the organisation among others and this initiative often affects the operations of the company in many ways. This essay therefore particularly attempts to outline some of the implications of change by analysing a short case study of an organisation called Pearson Education which is a UK based publishing company and how it managed to implement its change strategy which was adopted in 2000 to become a leader in the publishing industry. Implementing a new order in an organisation is concerned with change of the current operational system and in most cases change is met with resistance by many employees as a result of many factors. For the initiative to be successful, there is need for effective change management which can be achieved through re-orientation of the workers through provision of basic training and development which would be closely monitored upon implementation as going to be illustrated using the lessons learned from the case study of Pearson Education. The change initiative According to Datamonitor (2007), Pearson Education is a global publishing company which focuses its operations in education, business information and consumer markets. In the given case study, it can be noted that the main challenges that affected the operations of Pearson Education in the 1990s include competition, in some instances bookshops were unable to stock sufficient books in demand and the other problem noted is that the market is still weak in developing countries. As noted, the major competitors in the publishing industry include McGraw-Hill, Reed Elserivier, and Thomson as well as other niche publishers. For instance, the mentioned competitors are also major forces to reckon with in the publishing industry at international level. Competition is a major challenge that often affects the viability of any organisation Woodman (1995). During the 1990s, the organisation underscored to diversify its operations mainly through the use of new information and communication technology in order to achieve its commercial goal. Against this background, this study mainly seeks to analyse concepts such as leadership, creativity and innovation in an attempt to establish how the organisation managed to achieve its change strategy in the face of the external challenges surrounding it. Pearson Education is found in more than 110 countries and has developed its online services through the acquisition of state-of-the-art technologies for teaching and professional development. According to the case study, staff is the most valuable asset to the organisation and it is committed to fulfilling the goal of becoming the best place to work in the world. During the period the organisation embarked on its change initiative, they implemented a diversity plan where it sought to recruit diverse people regardless of their race, gender, religion or physical ability. The company offered promotion, good salaries as well as training as a way of motivating the workers in a bid to effectively manage change. Basically, motivation is the enthusiasm employees have for their jobs and factors which influence how hard they may try to do the job (Armstrong 1999). The employee must be persuaded and inspired to do the job since he would know that he would get some form of reward for the effort put. A person who is demoralized would not be very happy to continue working when there are clear indications that he will not benefit. As is the case of Pearson Education, its success story is owed to the fact that the workers were motivated in order to take up various global positions since the company operates in different countries. This has also been achieved through well designed communication channels among the employees as well as the customers who are regarded as always right. In most cases, communication plays a vital role in enlightening the otherwise skeptical workers about the benefits of the new change programme. Another basic tenet of managing change is found through leadership which is defined as the ability to influence a group of people towards the achievement of organisational goals (Robins S.P., Odendaal A.& Roodt G. 2001). Basically, leadership is concerned with the vision of the organisation while management is concerned with the practical implementation of that vision. As noted in the case study, the central in academic publishing is the commissioning editor who stands the link between the company, the authors and the market place. As the name implies, the commissioning editor is responsible for agreeing the idea for a book and appointing the author. The responsibilities go further where commissioning editor remains the link between the author and the organisation during the process of writing the book. This person conducts some research to see the demands of the market and is responsible for offering advice to the author. The commissioning editor can make suggestions on various aspects of the book and more importantly, is a motivator and counsellor if the author encounters any problem during the course of writing the book. This is ideal for leaders to influence the author which has greatly contributed to the success of the company. The leaders of the organisation ought to take a leading role in spearheading change such that the subordinates will also be inspired to follow suit. Indeed, they are the ones who set the pace and tone of how the organisation ought to operate and any mistake would be costly to them. Democratic, participatory leadership style is seen taking effect in this case since it enhances positive performance of the subordinates if they are given high levels of autonomy. In this regard, the leaders are responsible for communicating the vision of the organisation that is conducive to their operations and encourage subordinates to find solutions to problems in an innovative way. It can be said that leaders who tend to be empower individuals in decision making or solving problems in their own way, supporting them to develop autonomy, while still providing help or advice to subordinates are more likely to produce better performance standards which has resulted in the success of the organisation. Pearson Education’s organisational structure is flexible and it is the reason why it can effectively manage change. An organisational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated (Robbins, Odendaal & Roodt 2001). Whilst there are different types of organisational structures, this organisation has a flat structure with decentralised features which is more effective and ideal in the case of Pearson Education which has embarked on a drive to implement some changes that are likely to affect its operations. In a decentralized organisation, action can be taken more quickly to solve problems and more people would provide input to decision making and the employees are likely to feel less alienated from those who make decisions that affect their daily operations at work. Adaptive organisational forms which emphasize the flexibility to adapt to change can enhance better performance while bureaucratic structures will inhibit it (Kleynhans 2007). Another success factor to Pearson Education is the fact that the organisation mainly specializes in writing and publishing books that are in demand in response to the market forces. The organisation offers curriculum assessment data management packages where it gathers data about the required texts in the market. This information is obtained through involvement of teachers as well as lecturers of colleges and universities. These will supply with the recent information that may characterise the curriculum since they are the ones who are directly involved in the teaching activities of the learners. In most cases, the educators are aware of the changes that may be taking place in their sector hence their contribution is very significant especially in the success of the above mentioned organisation. Careful consideration is also taken to ensure that the organisation publishes books that are different from those by the other rival competitors. By virtue of involving the stakeholders in the education field, the organisation is able to satisfy the needs and interests of the market since they will have first hand information about what would be required by the users of the books they publish. With this strategy in place, 2004 saw a turnaround in Pearson Education’s share of professional education business with sales up 12 % and profits by 30 %. Thus, effective management of change through being responsive to the market demands has seen a surge in business for the organisation in question. Besides concentrating on publishing educational products, Pearson Education also embarks on carrying out research about the requirements of their target markets and gathers all the relevant information that can be useful in designing the products that will meet the requirements of the customers. This is achieved through embarking on holding consultations with the responsible authorities who design the curriculum in order to keep pace with the developments in the targeted educational sectors. This includes streamlining the ideas and views of the educators where the leaders take a leading role in implementing such initiatives. Change is a process and it usually requires the involvement of various stakeholders particularly the workers. At Pearson education, the workers work in teams during the process of development of the book until it is finally published. It can be noted that teamwork is another major contributor of Pearson Education’s success. According to Robbins et al (2001), teamwork is where individuals participating collectively, work together towards the attainment of certain goals as well as objectives within a given organisation. Real learning which forms the basis of teamwork takes place in teams where team members learn from each other, learn from their achievements and mistakes, and continuously learn to optimise their efforts and contribution towards the achievement of organisational goals. From this assertion, it can be noted that the underlying principle towards the success of teamwork is sharing of ideas and the willingness to learn from other team members among the team. In the same vein of implementing change in an organisation such as the above mentioned where there is consensus among the team members, there would be little chances of misunderstanding since the decision to implement change would be collective. In their quest to find solutions, members of the organisation ought to engage in collective learning that creates norms, shared assumptions and beliefs that become organisational culture. An organizational culture is created by the members who learn and gain experience of doing things from those around them in a given situation. To enhance an organisation’s cohesion, it is imperative to create a culture that promotes innovative ways of identifying a problem and finding a solution (Locke and Kirkpatrick, 1995). Brand (1998), posits to the effect that innovative and supportive culture will encourage better performance and cohesion while controlling and directive culture will hamper it. Performance can be effective where organisational culture can integrate with individual’s values, perceptions and capabilities in the workplace. Implementing change in an organisation is not often an easy task to do as it would be met with different reactions such as resistance by various stakeholders involved. However, in its endeavor to achieve its commercial goals, Pearson Education has responded by implementing knowledge management among its workers. Knowledge management is a virtue in this regard and there is need to ensure that the management of its operations conforms to the needs of the employees to have the right knowledge with regards to the dictates of the market environment. Basically, knowledge management is about making sure that knowledge from employees, team units within the organisation is captured, remembered, stored and shared with others (Jackson and Schuler 2000). During the current period, it is imperative to manage knowledge in order to operate viably. This concept posits to the effect that there is need to gather all the necessary information about the operations of an organisation as well as the needs of the customers in order to provide satisfactory products (Brand, 1998). According to information obtained from the organisation’s official website (2010), Pearson Education is a leading player in publishing educational books in about 60 countries but the problem is that the world is big. Against this backdrop, the organisation has also underscored to penetrate different countries as a way of increasing its market shares globally. As noted by Chief Executive, Marjorie Scardino in her 2007 review, the developing countries comprise of about 80% of the total world population but only about half of the people who go to the colleges come from these countries. This literally translates into saying that the market for Pearson Education is weak in the developing countries, the reason why it has decided to target these developing countries. Whilst local publishers are seen taking a leading role with regards to publishing books for lower level schools in developing countries, Pearson Education responded by adopting a strategy meant to produce simplified books meant to satisfy the needs of these markets. It is assumed that lower level education often requires the generation of locally produced knowledge which implies that this strategy has contributed to the growth of the organisation in those countries. The organisation thrives on training the local people in different countries it would be penetrating. One advantage of offering training and development skills to the employees is that they would have hands on experience with the operations of the organisation which would not technically halt progress especially in cases where less experienced workers are employed. If experienced workers are in control of strategic positions, it would be easier to create a situation where other local employees in different global markets would be assimilated to perform the same functions. Another major contributor to Pearson Education’s effective change management is the adoption of new information and communication in its publishing business. It can be noted that about 20 years ago, most of learning and teaching activities were conducted using mainly hard copies in the form of textbooks and other files. However, during the contemporary period, technology has brought sweeping changes to the ways people do business. In most industrialized countries, it is now possible to conduct studies without the use of hard copies as a result of digital technology. According to information obtained from Pearson Education’s official website, the organisation is taking a leading role in championing e-learning through the use of new computer systems designed to assist the learners and educators in learning and teaching respectively. As noted already, organisations do not exist in isolation but they function in an environment where most of the times they do not have control over the changes in this environment. Thus, according to Kleynhans (2007), for organisations to be successful, they need to adapt to these changes by keeping up with the technological and other developments taking place in the environment. In order for an organisation to be profitable, it must always strive to adopt new ICT which is the case with Pearson Education so as to be able to keep pace with the market demands which are constantly changing. Conclusion In view of the conceptual framework outlined above in relation to management of change, it can be noted that there are various lessons that can be learned from the case study of Pearson Education. Bringing change to the organisation is often not an easy thing hence the need to carefully consider all the requirements of the workers as well as the stakeholders in order to make them confidently take up the challenging tasks that would have been brought about by change. 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