MLDR 6905 Week 4 Organizational Context Analysis Example

Where This Change Would Succeed or Fail: Formal Authority, a Self-Funding Budget, the Memory of an Abandoned Consolidation and the Informal Network at a Four-Campus Community College

Student Name

Walden University

MLDR 6905: Capstone: A Case for Leaders as Change Agents

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Where This Change Would Succeed or Fail: Formal Authority, a Self-Funding Budget, the Memory of an Abandoned Consolidation and the Informal Network at a Four-Campus Community College

Formal Authority

Continuing education at Cedar Hollow Community College sits under a district dean of workforce and continuing education, who reports to the college's vice president for academic affairs. Each of the four campuses has a continuing education director. The directors report to the dean for budget and programs, but they also report to their own campus presidents for space, staffing and local priorities. This dual line means that the dean can propose consolidation, but a campus president can slow it by withholding space or objecting to staff transfers. The author, a program manager on the Main campus, reports to the Main campus director and has no formal authority over the other three offices.

Money

The division funds itself. Last year fees and employer training contracts together produced roughly $6.2 million, and any surplus supports new programs; any shortfall comes out of next year's offerings. This has a direct consequence for consolidation: a change that slows registration or delays employer invoices costs revenue within weeks, not years. The earlier attempt at centralization coincided with a drop in fall noncredit enrollment that staff still connect to it, whether or not it caused the drop. Any shared-services unit would need to keep registration turnaround and invoice timing at least as good as now from its first week.

History

Six years ago, the college moved noncredit registration for all campuses to the Main campus office over a single summer. In the first fall term, learners were placed in wrong sections, several employer cohorts were split across two invoices and the Linden campus's walk-in learners were told to call a number on the Main campus. The change was reversed after one term. The official explanation at the time was a software problem. Staff remember it differently. Clerks on the other campuses describe being told about the change two weeks before it happened, and two directors describe it as a Main campus decision made without them. Ford et al. (2008) argue that resistance is partly a response to how change agents behave, including broken agreements and poor communication; the memory of the earlier attempt is less about centralization than about how it was done.

The Informal Network

The formal chart does not show who staff turn to when something goes wrong. Based on the author's own observation over four years, and on a short set of questions asked of eleven staff across the four offices about whom they ask for help with registration and billing problems, the informal network looks quite different from the formal one.

Two features stand out. The Main campus registration specialist, a clerk with no supervisory role, is the person every office calls when the system fails; she is the most central person in the network. And the Linden director, who opposes consolidation, is trusted beyond her own campus. Battilana and Casciaro (2012) found that change agents who bridge disconnected groups are better placed to push through changes that depart from established practice. The author's position is only a partial bridge. The registration specialist and the Linden director are the people whose support or opposition would carry most weight.

Table 1

Who Staff Ask for Help With Registration and Billing Problems

Composite college. Based on the author's observation and informal questions to eleven staff; not a formal network survey.

Conditions Any Shared-Services Unit Would Have to Meet

The context implies five conditions for the change to last. First, registration turnaround and invoice timing must not worsen in the first term, because the division's budget cannot absorb a drop in revenue. Second, the change must be built with the campus directors, not announced to them, because the earlier failure is remembered as a Main campus decision. Third, every campus must keep a staffed place where learners can get help in person, especially Linden. Fourth, the Main campus registration specialist must be involved early, because staff will judge the unit by whether she trusts it. Fifth, the change must proceed in visible steps, each of which can be stopped, so that no single failure repeats the earlier collapse. Oreg et al. (2011), reviewing six decades of research on reactions to change, found that how change is introduced, including participation and communication, consistently shaped how people responded to it. These conditions become tests for the stakeholder case and the implementation plan.

References

Battilana, J., & Casciaro, T. (2012). Change agents, networks, and institutions: A contingency theory of organizational change. Academy of Management Journal, 55(2), 381-398. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0891

Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 362-377. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.31193235

Oreg, S., Vakola, M., & Armenakis, A. (2011). Change recipients' reactions to organizational change: A 60-year review of quantitative studies. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 47(4), 461-524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886310396550