British Airways

British Airways

Ricardo Fischer

Ashford University

Leading Organizational Change

BUS 661

Dr. Renee Just

October 14, 2013

British Airways

The first change perspective that we will look at is Organizational Development. In Organizational Development, the following are associated with it. Change is planned with plans for improvement and enough resources to carry it out. The upper echelon of management is committed to the process. The effectiveness of the company is the goal to help achieve its purpose. It is usually long term, taking two to three years for the change to be fully operational. It is action oriented. The focus of the change is to change attitudes and behaviors. Experiential based learning is used to help learn current behaviors and changes that are required. Groups and teams form the primary focus for change (Palmer et al, 2009).

In relation to the Wildcat strike it seems that Organizational Development methods were totally ignored. Management decided to force the smart card issue by implementing it without consulting the Union and planning it together, so all the kinks could be worked out, moreover, getting the voice of the employees heard which all they wanted was respect from management. They did not think of the implications of starting it at the time of year, which was during the summer quarter, a very busy time for the airlines.

The second change perspective is Sense-Making which consists of 8 features, they are: Identity Construction, Social sense-making, Extracted cues of sense-making, Ongoing sense-making, Retrospection, Plausibility, Enactment, and Projective sense-making (2009). The concern with this perspective was that the employees did not want to be brought back to work that day just because the company wanted them to come back. They believed that it would cut into the workers family time at home and for female employees who were mother’s, it would disrupt their routine at home. They did not want the same pay if they...