Change Management

Report
Executive Summary:

This report is about the change management in which the literature review with
different arguments and the change management is defined while continually
processing the Carrefour structure, direction and the capabilities that mainly serve to
bring the tremendous change in every company. The implementations of the change
mangment not only change the Carrefour processes and structure but also change
the working activities of employees. The main purpose of Carrefour to implement
change is to look the future opportunities, new technologies, new products and new
advantages and to maintain the reputation and international standards to take the
competitive advantage along with new experiences and new values. Nevertheless,
the approaches and the theories use in change management are risky and
conflicting in which there is lack of empirical evidence but it is good for the company
step in more competitive world. The Carrefour face challenges but they have
mitigated effect and overcome through change management strategies.

TOC:

Introduction:

Due to the several reasons i.e. acquisition or mergers, financial concerns,

accommodating growth or expanding market and to shift the business model the
organizational change happen. In the modern organization change in necessary to
take the competitive advantage and remain in the international market but it is time
taking, challenges and risk involving process in which many outcomes as a threat of
the company occur that are hard to mitigate. Before the announcement of the
change the make different plans and forecast the expected outcomes of the change
along with the reaction of the management.

In this report the change management is implemented on UAE base company i.e.
Carrefour systematically and address the consequences that arise due to this
change related to ethical issues and change in the behavior of employees and
leadership. After analyzing the different issues suitable strategies are suggested to
overcome this problem and make the change more successful and effective.

Change Management:

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The change management is refers to the systematic approach that particularly deals
with transformation or transition of a company process, goals and technologies. The
main aim of change management is to implement such strategies that affect the
control change and support the employees to adapt the change. The companies
before the implementation of the change know about the change management types
i.e. transformational, transitional or developmental and according to them they use
the different strategies and make the plan to reduce resistance, gain engagement
and ease acceptance.

Literature Review:

Under the planned approach the dominate perspective of change of organization that
is proposed by Lewis (1951) that consist of three stages i.e. unfreezing, change and
refreezing. Bullock and Batten (1985) generate the model that consists of four stages
related to change i.e. exploration, action, planning and integration. The early theorist
conceptualized the change in to two basic ways. In the first step there is the analysis
of the change that where it need, strategic process and the action course that are
require adapting. In the second step the change I view as the evolutionary selection.
(Flood and Fennell, 1995) In 2013 the Anyieni argues that the change refers to the
initiate, pan, control, realize and stable the process of change on both personnel and
corporate level. Nickola in 2006 argues about the change management task that
includes the impact of change on people and said that the leadership and mangers
hardly implement it. The updated and suitable technology for the implementation of
the change management for monitoring and final evolution but it is financially
strengthen and very expensive ( Senge, 1999).

Kanter et al (1992) proposed and argued that during the change implementation the
first step is to build coalition with stakeholders in which the sponsors and employees
involve. Aladwani (2001) proposed that the management change tools are
communication, leadership, planning, training and incentive system. The change
management in organization occurs at different levels that requires different
techniques and change strategies (Goodstein and Burke, 1991).

Way to discuss the Change management:

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The ways and the systematic discussion on the change management through which
we address our report is to follow the steps that are use in the change management
process during the time of implementation of change and the complete action plane
while recognizing the relative risk associated with this change, ethical issues and the
suitable strategies to change the negative attitude of the employees and leadership
toward the change is the main discussion of the project. This can be done by taking
the UAE operational company name Carrefour and defining the each step that works
greatly and effectively at the time to beginning till completion phase of the change.

Carrefour Company Background:

In all over the world the Carrefour Company is the multinational company with many
retail stores. In the past decades company expand its business toward the Asian
market. The company grow and spread in this way that in 1995 it is running with only
seven retails but in 2004 the company increase and it stores become 126. The
company best feature is that due to it the economic crisis not affected and due to this
key characteristic the company enters in UAE with its biggest plan. The Carrefour s
consider as the real state and infrastructure group that affect the downfall of
economic and has enough capability to reduce and face the risk.

In UAE the company is consider as the second largest group of retail that enter in
UAE in 1995 and now a days it establish 11 retail stores in different location of UAE.

Identification of changes in Carrefour:

In the sport city of Abu Dhabi to start work with hypermarket Carrefour take the
initiative to collaborate with MAF and undergoes to start the partnership with it. For
this purpose and to commit the MAF partnership the company needs many changes.
The changes that are needed to recycle and realign under the change management
for Carrefour are following;

Require Changes

1. Working atmosphere of Carrefour in UAE is need to change

2. Change the company policies
3. Change the activities that are related to human resource

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 4. Change the implementation process of the work
5. Change the responsibilities and the role of company employees
6. Change the company ownership

The entire working process are relatively very high that are not match with the
Carrefour working standards so there is need to change the processes and the
policies of the company especially its ownership.

Purpose of change:

In the organizational structure of the Carrefour there are many reasons that led the
company to bring changes in the working process of the company. The first reason is
that company is going to start its operations with MAF and the MAF is well known
company of construction in the UAE state. For developing the sense of easy
capturing and collaboration with the well known MAF these changes are necessary.

Changes in company scope:

In the entire level of organization the Carrefour undergone the change in specific
areas that are follows;

Organizational level Area of change in Carrefour

1. Changes in employee types

2. Company working process
3. Department level change
4. Change in the units of business process
5. Change in system level

These area are quiet obvious for the Carrefour change to collaborate with MAF
because in every culture of the company there are huge differences and both
companies entire atmosphere is also change.

Changes Goals:

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The main goal that the company set to bring changes in the entire system of
Carrefour and for effective collaboration with MAF is following;

1. To enhance the business of Carrefour

2. To make the UAE people aware about Carrefour
3. For fulfillment of order ad law of UAE
4. Collaboration with MAF and Carrefour

Model use for changes:

To make the change management system and its implementations more effective
and collaborative Carrefour company use the following model of Kurt Lewin that
consist of three steps;

Kurt Model For change

Unfreezing Changes Freezing
In this step Carrefour In this step according to In this step the final
getting itself to respond the current situation the strategies are approved by
the desired changes for major changes are the Carrefour and
making the collaboration undertaken by Carrefour implementation start
with MAF. and aware the staff and practically.
customers about this
change.

Master plan (Road Map) for changes:

To bring the effective change in the Carrefour and the main objective for the plan
consist of following parts;

a) Risk consideration during the plan implementation

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 b) Cost consideration and estimation during the implementation of change
c) Methodologies, alternative, different ranges and methodologies of plans and
action that are consider during the change implementation
For this road mapping the Carrefour use the change model of Kotler’s that consist of
following steps;
1. Creation of urgency is need
2. Development of powerful collaboration is needed
3. Carrefour set the perfect vision that leads it to effective and successful
change
4. Communication must support the vision
5. It is significantly important to remove the obstacles that comes across in short
term profit
6. On every single sector of the Carrefour the change must applied

Implementation of Change in Carrefour:

The company leaders and board of directors are actively involves during the
implementation of throughout change in the company and this is done under the
proper strategic plan. In the readiness of the people during the time of
implementation the action plan, unit notified under the business contract, contract
with tem members, top priorities, proper training of the workers, analysis of the
training, detail sheet of the training by the coordinator are involve to make the
implementation successful and effective. In the system readiness during the
implementation time the complete action plan of communication and technology, tool
for audit, proper documentation and require software are necessary.
After the system readiness and the people readiness the proper implementation start
by the management of the Carrefour.
Risk Assessment during implementation:
It is the phase in which the company can analyses the possible hurdles that may
come across its way cause the several risks. In these risk the internal conflicts,
resistance to change by employees, many other ethical issues arise. The main
factors due to which these risks arise if the planning is not effective, there is no
scope of change and lose incur due to change. To eliminate the risk level there are
many steps and methodologies that are follow by the manager to reduce the risk
level and make the change more viable. This is done with proper planning according
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to the culture of the UAE, using the alternatives when there are chances to failing in
change.

Effect of change on leadership and company employees:

In the organizational change of Carrefour there is the acquisition with the MAF. So, it
is hard for the leaders, team members and the individual to adopt the change easily
and start working smoothly on it. The behavior of employees and leaders start
changing suddenly and unnecessary stress cause in their behaviors.
Effect of change on employees:
If there is no direct communication and conversation during the implementation of
the change the employees start resisting the change and show the negative
behavior. In this way the following factors cause;
1. Loss of confidence:
The company employees due to the change and quickly jumps on highest
rank cause the loss of confidence in the attitude of the employees and in the
overall management of the company. This is because the employees are not
aware about the new functions and there is lack of aware that how to handle
the change effectively. This lack of confidence cause because the Company
not provide and conduct the proper training sessions and clear conversation
with employees during the implementation time. Due to this the Carrefour
ultimate goal are not achieve effectively.
2. Increase turnover rate and loss of loyalty:
Due to this change the employees show the negative attitude and due to
increase in their discomfort level they start resigning the job. In the way the
turnover rate due to this change increase and they are not show their interest
in their job and not perform their task effectively.
Those employees that remain in the Carrefour show the lack of motivation in
their job performance and they become angry for this purposefully sabotage
of Carrefour and employees lose their loyalty toward the company.
3. Time Away from work increase:
Due to change the attitude of the employees quickly change and they not
meet the deadline of work and avoid doing more work. During the time of
break and lunch they spend more time. Come later, even not come in office

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 and leave the workplace earlier. They start searching the new job and put
minimum effort to make their performance effective.
4. Acceptance and Resistance:
Once the implementation start the attitude of the employees become negative
because they are not aware about the change and the new process of the
company. They show the resistance but after some time while conducting the
training session and open conversation with upper level mangers of Carrefour
they start accepting the change and smoothly perform the activities.

Effect of change on leadership behavior:

As the Carrefour is going to start its partnership with MAF and it is the big and
well known company in UAE. Due to its reputation the Carrefour also change
the entire system of the company and upgrade its level. Due to these external
and internal changes the management team and the leader of the company
affect in the following ways;

Political Change Demographic change Competition increase

This factor is related to Under this factor the In the business of both
the democracy and leader face many MAF and Carrefour
openness but on the challenges because due there are the huge
same side it arise the to change and stepping differences in the
political changes that in the new business and technology and the
affect the leaders. Due the environment the development. Due to
to the internal conflicts company follow the high competition of MAF
of both MAF and customs, culture and and low value of
Carrefour many political accept the various level Carrefour for customers
conflicts arises that of understanding. In this in UAE it is hard for
change the decision stage the leader shows leader to make the
power of the leadership the negative behavior decision in such a
due to change in the and they feel that they competitive environment
ideas and in this way have no power to make quickly it cause negative
the change bring the decision by themselves impact on the decision
negative impact on the but they highly relies on making power and lose
leader behaviors. the MAF decision and their confidence while
they have to follow them. causing the stress.
So this affects the
profound manner of
leader in significant way.

Ethical issues that arise after change:

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During the time of measuring and implementation of the change in Carrefour it
faces the ethical issues. The main reasons to arise these issues are that
organization do not involve the employees and communicate the causes of
change on employees. At the time of implementation organization face the
hard consequences that are not easy to mitigate and are not negotiable. The
main areas in this case that pertain the ethical issues are the change agent’s
role that are related to MAF and unfreeze process. The change agents in this
case are refers to the leaders of MAF that take the decision and it directly
arise the issues in the organization due to cultural changes of both
companies. When the company give right to other agents to take the decision
internal conflicts arise because the company well informed all the key process
of the change to its workers and the senior management define the change
formula but the authority and freedom is given to external consultant and in
this way ethical issues arise.
1. Lack of integrity:
In the change the Carrefour starts partnership with MAF. Due to the change in
the values of both companies and cultural change the ethical issues arise
because MAF is UAE base company but Carrefour is France base company.
So, there is lack of understanding, change in the entire processes of both
companies the employees does not show the interest and there is the huge
change in culture that cause the gap ad lack of integrity. So, there I need to
add value and redefine the culture to tackle with this issue and to perform the
activities effectively.
2. conflicting and unrealistic goals:
Although Carrefour due to change management in their entire process brings
the changes but as the company MAF is well known and its goals and
criteria’s are different. In this way the decision making power of the Carrefour
company leaders are not much effective as compare to MAF. Due to
unrealistic objectives the company leaders induce the pressure on employees
and as a result the internal conflicts rise that lead the serious ethical issues.
The individual and the team of the company are fail meet the goal and the
leaders of the company revisit the goals and evaluate the expectation of
performance.
3. Shared Values:
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Due to the share value of both companies the conflicts arise among the
decision and the common goals of the company among the leaders. Due to
this the conflicts of interest also create because all the structure of the
company is realign and due to advance technology of MAF the Carrefour after
partnership reduce the wages of employees that is ethically wrong and
turnover rate of company employees increase that directly affect the
reputation and the goals of Carrefour. Due to these share values the conflicts
arise.
4. Workplace culture is Toxic:
The ethical issue due to the cultural change of both companies occurs. Due to
the repopulating of company with different mindset people and different
behaviors employees are not comfortable with this environment and they not
only show the lack of interest in their work but also stay away to perform their
activities in given time. So the culture of the work place becomes more toxic
and organizational goals are not achieve effectively as per plan.

Strategies for leadership, individual and employees to cope the change

process:
The dominate and the effective strategies for the change management that
are use commonly in each organization to resolve the internal conflicts,
motivate the workforce for work and make the change successful and
effective the Carrefour use the four strategies i.e. Power-coercive, Empirical-
Rational, Environmental-Adaptive and Normative Re-educative.
1. Empirical Rational (Employees):
This strategy is specifically design for employees to keep their behavior
positive toward the change and they don’t resist the change and perform
smoothly throughout the course of change. In this strategy these is the
proper communication among the employees and all information’s related
to change share with the employees by the upper level management. The
additional incentives are given to employees to follow and give the
rewards to motivate them and encourage attracting more toward the
change. The ups and down that occur due to the change clearly share with
employees and clear their doubts through open and direct conversation.
All the doubts regarding to the current change are ask to the employees of
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 the Carrefour and suggest the suitable recommendations to resolve the
current issues.
2. Normative Re-Educative strategy (Group):
This strategy is directly link to the workplace and company culture that
depends on the employee culture. In every organization and Carrefour the
employees mainly prefer their country norms and culture and show the
satisfaction in their job. Due to this strategy the internal conflicts and the
ethical issues that both leaders and employees face reduce significantly.
By adding and redefining the values employee show their interest and the
change can make easily.
3. Power-Coercive Strategy (Leadership):
This strategy is particularly set for higher authority of the Carrefour and the
leadership that guide the people that what they have to do. This strategy is
also known as directional strategy in which employee receive the proper
sharing of information regarding to the change and perform its activities
properly. This strategy is effective for both leadership and employees in
this way that the employee gets the proper guidelines and it confidence do
not lose; there is no stress and not fear to lose their job. Beside this the
power of the leader and managers retain like the old system and they don’t
feel hurdles during making the decisions and easily respond either it arise
externally or internally due to culture. In the culture of the Carrefour if there
is bureaucracy then this approach effectively works. In case of
entrepreneurship and autonomy this strategy works to fill the position.
4. Environmental Adaptive (Employees):
This strategy is particularly design for those employees that are not
comfortable with the change environment of the Carrefour and they also
don’t want to lose their job. The employees on the same time don’t take
much interest in the operational activities and waste their time in other
activities. To overcome this problem the companies start shifting those
employees to old environment where they perform with full interest and
effective way to increase the productivity level of the company.
Personal Reflection:
After the deep discussion of the change management practically in the
Carrefour Company analyze that this is not the simple and easily
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implementable process but it is a complex and time take process with
many risks. At the initial stage of the project it is hard to predict after the
future consequences and the outcomes of the implementation. But once
we apply all the theories and the change model practically on Carrefour it
is seems that non-negotiable risk and the negative attitude of the
management arise quickly that are also threaten for the organization to
achieve its goal. While creating the waves of the change, managing,
implementing and initiating it is more challenging for company because the
tracking of consequences are hard to predict. The time in the
implementation come when the risk increase and chances of the failure
arise. To overcome this problem effectively the implementing of the
suitable strategies work effectively that proposed many benefits on
individual and leadership level and tackle this situation.

Conclusion:
The main conclusion that we find out after this report is that the change is
necessary for every company to meet the international standards, take the
chance to get the competitive advantage while improving the work quality,
productivity and morals. It is seems that the change management is risky,
challenging and time consuming process because it not only redefine the
organizational values but also change the individual behavior to accept the
change. For Carrefour this is the more effective and planned approach that
reduce the anxiety and stress of employees and encourage the people to
stay loyal with organization while giving them additional reward an
incentives. In this case many ethical issues and the individual behavior
divert but due to Strategies Company wisely track the issues and
implement strategies to overcome the issues and make the change
effective and successful. This management change is developmental in
which Carrefour start collaboration and partnership with well known MAF
Company of UAE successfully.

References:

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