Unraveling change

: the most prominent factors for successful change

Abstract

Leading and managing change has become critical for organizations' survival in today's rapidly changing business environment. Given this, numerous models, and methods for leading and implementing change successfully have been developed in the past decades. However, change efforts are still characterized by a high failure rate. Each formula for change emphasizes different success factors and strategies to lead and implement change successfully, utilizing different terminologies and articulating ideas and concepts distinctly, adding to the complexity associated with accomplishing change and emphasizing the need for clarity and consistency around this topic. Thus, this study focuses on distilling the most prominent success factors in literature. To accomplish this, a hybrid content analysis was performed, leading to identifying the ten most prominent factors: need for change; vision; change champion / change leadership team; enabling structures that facilitate change; communication; institutionalization; sustain change; implement, consolidate, and produce (more) change; mobilize commitment and gather support; and cultural fit. Secondly, a survey targeted at experts in change management was conducted to assess the validity of the content analysis findings. Consistent with the hybrid content analysis findings, the survey's results demonstrate that the identified ten most prominent factors/steps are the most important for leading and carrying out a change effort successfully and, in contrast, highlight "communication" as the most relevant factor. This study's main contribution is not to provide a novel formula for change, but to clarify the most critical steps/success factors for leading and managing change successfully, thus unraveling the intricacy associated with change management models.

Date of Award	23 Jan 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Pedro Parada (Supervisor)