Carolyn Bivens: Change Agent at the Ladies Professional Golf Association

Week 7

Case Competency: “Carolyn Bivens: Change Agent at the Ladies Professional Golf Association”

1. Which forces facing Bivens supported change and which resisted change?

Forces Supporting Change

New organization structure: Bivens maintains a vision that she can make the LPGA a model for 21st-century sports organizations. Reward systems: Bivens knows that companies still want the business opportunities that tournaments create, but with less fanfare and spectacle to avoid public backlash. Change of leadership: In 2005 when Carolyn Bivens became commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), she was surprised to learn that 70 percent of tournaments were losing money. Communication Channels: Bivens believes that the LPGA’s hospitality benefits will save the LPGA. It is the networking that occurs in the Wednesday pro-amateur rounds that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.

Forces Resisting Change

Threats to power and influence: Tournament sponsors balked at the increase and some left, including Corning Glass, who had been a sponsor of the Corning Glass tournament for more than 31 years, and McDonald’s. Habits: Adding to the LPGA’s challenge is the backlash against golf sponsorships in general. Organization culture: She moved some long-standing tournament dates around to satisfy Ginn, causing some long-time sponsors to question her judgment. Perceptions: Bivens imposed an English-proficiency policy for the tour’s international players. She took this action to make the tour and its players more marketable this action caused such uproar that she had to rescind the policy.

2. Did she use an economic or organizational development approach to create change? Was it effective?

Bivens used an economic approach to create change. To keep the LPGA on solid financial footing, after looking at each event’s profits and losses and severing ties with long-time sponsors, she found new...