How do managers manage resistance to change Research Paper

How do managers manage resistance to change - Research Paper Example This research will begin with the statement that organizations today are faced with severe competition, technological development, economic pressures, social and demographic shifts force organizations to implement change. Change is usually a reaction response to changes in the business environment. Some of the changes include job design, structural changes, and changes in the business operations. Change needs to be welcomed because it brings positive benefits to individuals and organizations. This attracts opportunities for new challenges, personal development. Unfortunately, change is usually accompanied by resistance from employees. It is crucial for managers to anticipate and plan for strategies that will help deal with resistance to change. Change is crucial to the success of any organization. Barriers to change include failure to accept that there is a need for change, fear and insecurity, preference to the current arrangements, inability to perform better under the new situatio n, a breakup of teams and groups, and the difference in people’s ambitions. Other factors include lack of understanding of the need for change and its benefits among employees, a poor introduction of change to employees by management. Change can also be negatively affected by poor employee-management relationship, lack of employee involvement in the process, and lack of management support in terms of providing training to its employees. Resistance to change takes a number of forms, the most obvious form being an active refusal, resistance, and objection to cooperate when a change occurs.

Brand Positioning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Brand Positioning - Essay Example There is now a strong emphasis on brand building through the explicit communication of a vision in the whole organisation where strong brands are more than mere trademarks that people recognise. In the generation of a branding idea and implementation of the same to build a brand profile, organisations behind the strong brands have managed to build a brand identity. "Brand identity should help establish a relationship between the brand and the customer by generating a value proposition involving functional, emotional or self-expressive benefits" (Aaker 1991). While the consumer's behaviour is based on a brand, and the reasons for choosing an associated product may depend on various factors including peer reference, peer approval, or other social factors beyond the direct control of the brand's investor, the brand's marketing mix is definitely within the investor's control, and something that demands big budget investment. Therefore, investor's and researchers are always concerned about the actual effects and results of marketing components including advertisement, sales promotions, and company emblems - upon the consumer's perception and their consequence upon brand equity. In the last decade, a lot of research has been dedicated to conceptualizing and measuring customer-based brand equity. However, apart from putting forth various influencing factors, no integrative framework has so far been developed to account for the complex psychological processes underlying the formation of customer-based brand equity. In this context, this paper a ttempts to propose such a framework by drawing on the theory of the Elaboration Likelihood Model. (Kotler, 1997) This has been firstly discussed in the case of the Coca Cola Company. A soft drink giant, the Coca Cola company shifted its strategy from mass marketing to product variety market and then to target marketing so as to cater to the growing market for soft drink products. Its strategy can be studied under the elaboration likelihood model as it wanted to be a forerunner in the market where soft drink brands were emerging with each passing day. The choice of the Elaboration likelihood Model was one that came directly from the consumer oriented characteristics of brand equity and brand knowledge. Elaboration Likelihood Model identified message relevance as one of these factors. According to this model, when message relevance is high, individuals will actively process and evaluate the information in the advertisement when forming or changing attitudes. (Aaker, 1991) When message relevance is low, individuals will not actively process the information in the advertisement, but will instead rely on peripheral message cues to form or change attitudes. Brand Identity is that element of customer perception and awareness which has its focus in the results of a certain kind of projection through the brand equity building measures. This calls for an integrative model which will combine the basic elements of the brand identity and brand equity concepts so as to create a platform for the effective discussion of the Elaboration Likelihoo d Model. This has been of special relevance for the Coca Cola company as far as its foray into target market and product variation is concerned. (Kotler, 1997) An integrative mode