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ChangeTheory by Mel Sharpe

April 28, 2009

Introduction

Of all the theories important to the effective performance of public relations, change theory may be the most vital.

The reason is simple.

Virtually every thing we do in the professional field of public relations is related to the accomplishment of change whether changes of attitudes, opinions, or behaviors. Even when our public relations mission is to maintain existing relationships that contribute to customer, legislator or public support, as would be the case in maintaining loyalty to a product or service, knowledge of the factors relating to the way social change takes place gives the practitioner an edge in management counseling and in public relations planning.

In some cases, change theory knowledge allows public relations managers to counsel management on the cost an organization will confront in resisting change or in changing public opinions, attitudes or behaviors. It may also help us to know when the best management counsel may be defining the reasons why the timing for a public opinion change campaign is simply wrong. In the 1980s, utility companies faced an up-hill challenge in gaining public acceptance for the construction of nuclear power plants. Executives, at that point in time, would have been better served through counsel based on change theory research as to why the battle to win favorable public opinion simply could not be won. Unfortunately, some members of top management may have interpreted failure as the ineffectiveness of public relations counsel in achieving the successful persuasive communication needed.

Our Needs

Employee change

You probably think of the use of change theory and strategy as it may relate to employee change. Certainly knowledge of effective change strategy is essential when faced with needs related to mergers, downsizing, or a change in corporate culture. The public relations executive�s knowledge needs may relate to the direction of the activity or as a contributing member of the change management team. In all change planning, however, the role need of public relations counsel should be that of an executive with expertise in his or her knowledge of facilitating change with the least disruption to the relationships needed to achieve and advance organizational goals.

Target Audience Change

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There is also a need for implementation of change theory knowledge in the strategic planning process in any change activity such as a change of public behavior for health, safety, environmental, or conservation benefits. Even the trial and use of a new product or service on the part of a target audience involves a change in attitude, opinion, and behavior. Knowledge of change factors provides another set of guidelines for increasing the effectiveness public relations problem solving strategies.

Organizational Change

Probably the most critical role of the senior public relations executive, however, is that of keeping his or her own CEO and executive management team open to change. It is a role that is not always recognized because of all of the other public relations responsibilities placed on a public relations manager. Yet, if organizations are to achieve two-way symmetrical public relations performance, then the role is critical. It may also be critical to the public relations manager�s status as a member of an organizational management team. The ability of the public relations executive to contribute to this task will depend on the demonstration of knowledge of change theory in his or her day to day management counsel, a public relations program that includes the monitoring of changes and trends in the organization�s social environment, and the ability of a public relations executive to convey to management what public relations can contribute to a management team�s ability in responding to social change.

Harold Burson identified the role as that of the �early warner." Jim Grunig helped professionals recognize effective, proactive public relations performance is only truly accomplished when performance is fully interactive or �Two-way Symmetrical.� From systems theory, we also know that an organization will not maintain stability or longevity if it cannot change in relation to the needs of its social environment. Organizational change ability, therefore, is directly related to the ability to listen to the voices within the social environment and to accurately predict human behaviors in relation to changes taking place within the social environment. Both are roles of effective public relations performance. The contribution of the information to the management decision making process creates top management recognition of the value of public relations as a management function.

What Change Theory Teaches Back to top

Knowledge of change theory provides the ability to identify strategic communication needs and allows identification of the obstacles to the accomplishment of change. Most importantly it empowers the public relations executive in influencing executive management in understanding the importance of environmental, stakeholder, and target audience research and communication of the results to the management team on a continual basis.

Change theory also teaches patience in the achievement of change as well as the importance of flexibility on the part of management in achieving change objectives.

• What cultural anthropologists teach us is that: • Change is constant; • Resistance to change is normal; and that

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• Change basically takes place in two ways: through persuasion or through force. It also teaches that the most effective, long term change occurs through persuasion.When force is necessary, it must be sustained over a period of time sufficient to achieve permanent acceptance.

• The larger and older an organization, the more resistant the organization will be to �change.�

It also teaches us that in relation to change, there is nearly always an action by a change agent followed by a reaction on the part of the targeted audience or population. The end result is some type of integration. An understanding of this end result teaches us, as practitioners, patience and recognition of the importance of management flexibility in the achievement of the change. It is a critical change theory understanding that must be shared with a management team.

The literature relating to change is spread across numerous academic disciplines. The most relevant to the needs of public relations executives are the research findings found in cultural anthropology. Other contributing areas are sociology, management science, higher education administration, and political science or public administration. The variations in strategies for the accomplishment of change relate largely to management needs and to the backgrounds of authors addressing what they see as the needs based on their academic orientation. Force is, understandably necessary, when downsizing or in corporate mergers and will require different strategy than when change is to be achieved through persuasion. Differences in organizational needs also exist based on the type of organization, the size and age of organization, the existing governance process, and the types of employees, stakeholders, or publics targeted for change. This is why numerous opinions and recommendations on strategy and methodologies exist.

My introduction to change theory came from Solon Kimball, who I have learned was one of the two pioneers in developing today�s change theory. Based on a review of his work and that of the current literature on change, I have identified six change factors that I believe need to be considered in any change activity. While credit for the identification of the factors for change goes to cultural anthropologists, I have adapted the factors for the needs of public relations and organizational managers . I recommend that readers keep them in mind when reviewing the various methodologies outlined by authors and in adapting change strategy to their own organizational needs.

Six Factors Critical to Change Accomplishment

1. Achievement of Effective Communication. �Effective� in this case applies to use of the communication channels, formal and informal, preferred by the audience targeted for change. It also requires use of the target audience�s language and symbols. This applies to the use of all forms of verbal and non-verbal communication. Knowledge of the communication taking place among target audience

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members is also critical for the correction of communication during the change process.

2. Achievement of credibility through endorsement of the change. It�s who you can get behind you!�Organizations (health, scientific, professional, etc.), experts (economic, health, environmental, etc.), informal and formal leaders (employee, community, professional, religious), etc.

3. Effective use of the target audience�s existing culture. Tie strategies to recreation and food preferences; existing work patterns, social customs and behaviors, and belief systems whenever possible.

4. Accurately evaluate the degree of felt-need for the change on the part of the targeted audience. This research step identifies what you are up against in persuading a target audience to accept change and the types of force or persuasion that may be necessary to accomplish the change.

5. Identify, use, and communicate the strongest motivations (perceived benefit) for change acceptance. The strongest motivations are normally economic, status, health/safety, and convenience, but other motivations will also exist. Learn and confirm them through target audience research. Use more than one motivation in organizational communication for maximum effectiveness.

6. Involvement of the target audience�s leadership in the planning and implementation of the change. This requires research identification of the target audience�s informal and formal leadership. Ignoring target audience leaders results in a natural opposition to change on their part because of lack of consultation and involvement.

This is a website designed for continuous growth and change in terms of the addition of new knowledge from a broad range of researchers and professionals. Therefore, we hope it is one that you will find you can revisit when confronted with a change need or problem.

Theories and Change Models The Ethical Debate

Much of change theory has evolved from cultural anthropology where anthropologist looked at how change has and is taking place among social groups. But cultural anthropologists have not maintained the leadership role in looking at the application to social and workplace needs with

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very good reason. Change has both positive and negative impact on those affected by change and it raises ethical issues and questions as the result. For this reason, public relations practitioners, like applied cultural anthropologists, must examine cultural change issues carefully if they are to be viewed as ethical professionals and if the organizations they counsel are to be viewed as socially responsible. At issue, is the analysis of the practitioner�s overriding social obligation to serve the public interest in the performance of their responsibilities.

Nothing brings the ethical issue more in focus than awareness of Nazi Germany�s attempt to use modern scientific knowledge learned in the behavioral sciences to achieve and condition social change. Therefore many sociologists and cultural anthropologists view social change intervention as unethical and it is one of the reasons many academics in the behavioral sciences have serious concerns about their involvement in contributing to the process.

The actions of the founding fathers of public relations have also created debate related to the ethics of practitioner involvement in the engineering of change. Ivy Lee was criticized by Congress for his early WWI era willingness to accept Germany as a client for a media campaign to change negative American opinion about Germany�s actions in Europe. Edward Bernays� ethics in changing attitudes toward the acceptability of women smoking are now also questioned as knowledge of the health risks of smoking are substantiated and as more is learned about management�s knowledge of the health risk of smoking at the time Bernays was engaged as counsel.

While professionals must always examine the ethics of change, particularly the long range impact, Bernays may have also provided some guidance with his concept of engineering public consent based on Thomas Jefferson�s contention that in a democracy, everything is dependent upon the consent of the public. While this concept is not ethically infallible, it does stress the importance of evaluating planned actions based on the broad, long-range global public interest and not just the more narrow organizational interest or even the interest of a single social group or society.

The reality of modern society with global communication and social interdependence is that change takes place as the result of social interaction, education, and communication. Some will always be positive and some negative. The long range impact can not always be accurately assessed.

Types of Change Theories

Sociology provides the identification of three types of change theories that have influenced concepts of change (Dube, 1992, 51-52):

• Apocalyptic theories: Judaic and early Christian thinking viewed society as moving toward a final judgment that would result in a pure and just social order.

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The concept of creating conditions that assure individual development and promote social justice is a part of this theory.

• Evolutionary theories: The emphasis on these theories is on progress rather than perfectibility. Quickly adopted in some academic areas, they are characterized by impersonal and instrumental relationships.

• Cyclical theories: According to this approach, all societies, organizations, etc., have periods of rise and fall, growth and decline. These concepts of change address �variably or creatively recurrent patterns.�

While we can see the influence of all three of the above theories on methodologies currently in use in addressing organizational change, we can also recognize the influence of theories built around major factors of change. Four of these theories are as follows (56-61):

• Economic theory: Based on the concept that economic change is a prime mover of social change. It remains debatable because it can be argued that ideological commitment and revolutionary politics are preconditions of economic change.

• Ideational theory: This theory emphasizes the primacy of ideas, which are, according to it, the key determinants of social change. It can be convincingly demonstrated that ideational change, and a degree of commitment, is a precondition or at least a major supporting factor of all large-scale change. The debate, however, relates to the fact that socio-economic and cultural influence are propitious for the effective transmission and acceptance of ideas.

• Technological theory: There is little doubt today that social change can be directly correlated to technological change. The debate is that far-reaching social change can occur without any technological change and that technology itself must adapt to the societies where it is promoted.

• Conflict theory: Conflict between different groups and segments builds up pressures and provides an impetus for change. Opposition and conflict between different segments of the socia system and culture can thus be viewed as major change producing factors. The debate of the theory is based on the fact consensus and cooperation are equally important components of successful large-scale change.

• Adaptation and tension-management theories: Adaptation to the environment is viewed as the principal function of change in this theory. Culture, by

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its modern definition, is regarded as an adaptive mechanism, and it contributes towards adaptation iof the social system to both the natural and the social environment. The debate here is that no proof has been offered to suggest that social change is oriented to total adaptation since it may have certain non-adaptive elements also.

All of the theories explain some aspect of change and suggest that a factor mix may contribute to particular types of change. Collectively, they offer many research opportunities for public relations educators and practitioners as well as to those in multiple behavioral science areas.

Change Definitions

�Change is a never ending process of readjustment and readaptation, as man responds behaviorally to ever changing circumstances.� (Schwartz & Ewald, 1968, 454).

�Profound Change� is �organizational change that combines inner shifts in people�s values, aspirations, and behaviors with �outer� shifts in processes, strategies, practices, and systems.� (Senge, et. el., 1999, 15).

How Change Takes Place Back to top

Basically, cultural anthropologists tell us that change takes place in two ways: force and influence. Economics, climate change, religion, and many other factors can exert force or influence dependent upon intensity. �From the standpoint of particular socio-cultural systems, two general categories of change can be recognized: (1) internal change, whose source is within the culture, and (2) external change, which originates and enters from outside the culture� (Schwartz & Ewald, (1968, 434).

Because change has been and is being examined in many different areas and from many different frames of reference, practitioners, scholars and students of change benefit from a basic knowledge of variations in theory. Following are some of the theories and models for the facilitation of organizational change found in the literature:

Types of Organizational Change

Leban and Stone (2008) indicate the intensity of change needs increase from 1 to 4 below (53):

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1. Incremental proactive change (tuning) - change made in anticipation of future events.

2. Incremental reactive change (adaptation) - change made in response to external events such as actions of competitors.

3. Strategic proactive change (reorientation) - change made with the luxury of time afforded by having anticipated the external events that will require a fundamental redirection of the organization.

4. Strategic reactive change (recreation) - change necessitated by external events that threaten the existence of the organization.

Change Theories and Models

It is recommended that you review all of the theories and models. Some will be familiar to you and some may introduce you to concepts with which you are not familiar. But all will contribute to a more holistic understanding of the change process and give you authority in your discussion of change with management teams.

Basic Change Management Strategies

Empirical-rational People are rational and will follow their self interest - once it is revealed to them. Change is based on the communication of information and the proffering of incentives (Bennis et. al. 1985, 24-31).

Normative-Re-educative People are social beings and adhere to cultural norms and values. Change is based on redefining and reinterpreting existing norms and values, and developing commitments to new ones (31-38).

Power-Coercive People are basically compliant and will generally do what they are told or can be made to do. Change is based on the exercise of authority and the imposition of sanctions (38- 45).

Nichols (2006) adds a fourth strategy based on his personal experience. He uses the example of Rupert Murdoch in notifying the printers of Fleet Street that they were all fired but that he had jobs for them on very different terms. One can argue that his environmental-adaptive strategy combines all three of the strategies identified by Bennis et. al.

Environmental-Adaptive People oppose loss and disruption but they adapt readily to new circumstances. Change is based on building a new organization and gradually transferring people from the old one to the new one.

Lewin�s Change Model

Kurt Lewin (Schein, 1990; Leban & Stone, 2008, p.55) provided one of the earliest contributions to �organizational change� by describing a three-step change model as a framework for planned change. Basically, he saw that encouraging performance is a more effective change strategy

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than supervisory pressure. The key to understanding this approach is to see change as a profound psychological dynamic process.

1. Unfreezing. A process of identifying existing behaviors and the desired organizational behaviors needed to achieve the organizational mission and shared goals. This step will be familiar to managers familiar with cultural change. The analysis of the differences between existing behaviors and needed behaviors with the involvement of organizational members is viewed as the first step in �unfreezing� existing change.

2. Changing/Moving. The process of developing new behaviors, values, and attitudes by identifying the processes and changes in organizational structure that will facilitate the accomplishment of the new behaviors combined with implementation and evaluation of achievement.

3. Refreezing. Stabilization of the organization�s new group behaviors, values and attitudes. It is normally accomplished through systems that reward the new behavior and with policies, education and communication that reinforce the new culture and behavioral norms.

Nadler�s Five Stages of Discontinuous Change

Nadler (1998, 41); (Leban & Stone, 2008, 57-59) recognized that an organization is a social system and that optical performance of an organizational system is dependent on congruence between its various subsystems. Using this conceptual framework, he introduced a set of techniques for achieving organizational change that he identifies as stages of a process for accomplishment.

Stages 1 and 2: Diagnosis and Preparation.

Initiating change requires anticipating and preparing for change. Therefore the process begins with diagnosis of the external environment which requires knowledge of the changes occurring locally, regionally, nationally and globally as well as analysis of their possible and probable impact on the organization. It also means the accurate identification of an organization�s own needs in confronting the changes.

Preparation requires the identification of the internal adjustments that will need to be made to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the external change as well as well as steps needed to minimize the threats presented by the change. An important part of the preparation is the development of a shared direction and vision of organizational change needs on the part of organizational leadership that can be successfully communicated to the entire organization. Planning to assure consistency and frequency of communication is viewed as key to the preparation stage.

Stage 3: Implementation of Change.

Because the effectiveness of implementation will be based on the congruence of the component parts of the organizational system, unity among members of the transformational subsystems, viewed as Work, Formal Organization, Informal Organization, and People by Nadler, is strongly recommended in

1. Building the new strategy for implementation

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2. Redesigning the organizational hardware 3. Aligning organizational strategy and culture and 4. Finding the right people

Stages 4 and 5: Consolidating and Sustaining Change

Stages 4 and 5 involve assessment through monitoring and measurement, refinement, where the change agenda is refined to capitalize on successes and minimize failures, and stabilization where the change is baked-in to the formal structure of the organization with policies, reward systems, cultural behaviors.

McWhinney�s Theory and Modes of Change

Will McWhinney, a past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, associates the process of planned change with problem solving (McWhinney, 80-109) and the realities of the approach that can be used with leadership style, the world view of the followers of leaders, and the culture, i.e., differences in the way issues are resolved (183-220).

McWhinney identifies what he calls six modes of change (pp. 80-109) and the two great paths of change or resolution (125-145).

In summary, his points are as follows:

Change Achievement

• The planning and achievement of change is basically �problem solving�. However, problem formulation for the achievement of change can not be identified unless we are able to detect that something is �wrong� based on criteria for what is �right� (80-81). A change problem, therefore, is the identification of an existing condition followed by a desired condition or outcome based on criteria for the maintenance or achievement of stability (organization or social order) related to the realities of an existing or predicted social environment.

Paths of Resolution

• Revitalization�A top down planning model commonly used in Western civilizations (pp. 125-132). Members acquire energy and focus through the leadership of a charismatic individual or movement based on a broad set of principles. �The leader�s work begins with an organization having a vision of a desired future.

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Assuring that there is a vision is the first responsibility of the leader� (128). The second responsibility is to gain commitment to the core idea. Implementation is achieved through pluralistic involvement and interaction.

• Renaissance�A process of rebirth involving open systems planning and Lewinian change (132-145). A process of change that may be initiated when an individual, organization, or society seeks new criteria for choosing an outcome. It involves maximum involvement in deframing, identification of new values, reframing, and rebirth. Change in this case is �participatively� planned, achieved and implemented creating group ownership.

Basic Modes of Change (83-109)

• ANALYTIC: Change achieved by imposing policies that have been developed by testing an idea, formally or casually, against data learned from experience or observation. Often defined as �rational action� by management.

• PARTICIPATIVE: Change achieved by developing a shared value based on data learned from shared observation and experience. Source of power is democratic, guided by a �rational� relationship to the data.

• IMPERATIVE: Change achieved based on the authority of leadership acting on behalf of an institution. Change is approached with the assumption that the principles on which the society, organization or issue is based are true but that an inappropriate interpretation has led to conditions that need to be corrected.

• EMERGENT: Change achieved through creating and accepting a new idea that may have originated with an idea leader or emerged from the involved group. Emergent solutions produce change by facilitating social interaction. Emergent solutions are fresh formulations of positions through which the participants sense they can make something work, move a position, or most commonly, change the values held by the parties critical to the solution.

• INVENTIVE (MYTHIC - SENSORY): Change achieved through the material realization of a new. In a pure form there is no recognition of values or social truth, though the idea may attain acceptance for its �usefulness�.

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• INFLUENTIAL (SOCIAL - UNITARY): Change achieved by acceptance of new values, either through the imposition of a �truth� by an authority or through the adoption of a value by a population. The pure mode ignores data.

Wallace�s Stages of Social Revitalization (Change Adjustment)

1. Steady State. A condition of cultural stability (1956, p. 268; Schwartz & Ewald, p.448-449).

2. Period of Increased Individual Stress. A progressive decrease in the cultural means for reducing individual stress.

3. Period of Cultural Distortion. Prolonged stress and anxiety resulting from recognition of need to change behavior.

4. Period of Revitalization, Change leaders and followers emerge. Severe resistance may occur from dominant power structures (formal or informal). Eventually, however, significant reintegration may occur resulting in a noticeable social revitalization.

5. New Steady State. Achieved with the establishment of viable new culture patterns resulting in the reestablishment of cultural stability. The culture of the new steady state will differ in many ways from that of the earlier steady state.

Murray and Richardson�s Ten Winning Conditions for Change

In their review of organizational success in the implementation of change, management professors Murray and Richardson (Leban & Stone, p. 117) concluded that change success is linked to the elimination of organizational inertia. Their conclusion is that in today�s fast paced business environment, successful change occurs when sufficient speed and mass are generated to move the organization quickly from its status quo position. Their analysis of organizational change success led them to the conclusion that it was not so much what people did, but rather that certain winning conditions were established during the change process. This led them to identify what they view as the ten winning conditions (Leban & Stone, pp. 117-118).

1. Correct diagnosis of the change challenge - its nature, depth, breath and the forces at play.

2. Early establishment of a shared understanding of the change challenge among the leadership team - a sense of vision, success measures, key programs and projects, and of the change process itself.

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3. Multiple and ongoing opportunities to enrich this shared understanding - frequent progress reviews and action plan updates.

4. A sense of urgency - emphasizing speed when building awareness and understanding of the need for change, without a crisis, and insisting on early tangible deliverables.

5. A limited and focused agenda for change - identifying 2, 3, or 4 major priorities, at a maximum, and driving them hard and fast.

6. Rapid, strategic decision-making and resource deployment - essential to build both speed and, subsequently, momentum.

7. A human flywheel of commitment - engaging the early adopters very rapidly, and bringing along the fence-sitters� in a timely manner.

8. Identifying the sources of resistance and dealing with them ruthlessly - eliminating the �drag� in the process that can prevent the build up of momentum, and waste valuable executive time.

9. Effective follow-through on changing key organizational enablers - ensuring that structure, communications, performance evaluation, and recognition/reward are aligned with the new direction.

10. Demonstrating strong and consistent leadership - appropriate behaviors that provide tangible, early evidence of true commitment to the change process and the relentless pursuit of the new direction.

Murray and Richardson see the first 100 days as critical for the achievement of change with the second 100 important in terms of consolidating the progress made (p. 118-119). It is obvious that their approach has in mind immediate change needs such as in the case of acquisitions, downsizing, or a change in direction under a new CEO. It should be kept in mind that this approach will require considerable coercive power rather than persuasive power and may not be an option for long range cultural change where the elimination of change resistant managers and staff may not be an option.

Questions Significant in Assessing the Quality of an Innovation

Dube provides a set of questions which allow assessment of an innovation (44). Because the advocacy of change always raises ethical questions that public relations executives and the top management of organizations must evaluate, Dube�s questions, which are framed in the context of the public welfare, are good ones for management teams to consider:

1. Does the innovation (proposed change) meet a felt inadequacy?

2. Do people perceive any advantage in it?

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3. Is the change compatible with the norms of the culture in which it is sought to be diffused?

4. Do people have the resources to adopt it? 5. Can people easily master the techniques involved in

the innovation? 6. Does the gain from the acceptance of the innovation -

in terms of economic advantage, efficiency, prestige, and so forth - outweigh the penalties that its acceptance may involve?

Martin�s List of TQM Critical Success Factors

A number of authors on change see TQM, quality control methods drawn from the work of W. E. Deming and J. M. Juran, as a change process. For this reason, I list the success factors Martin sees as critical (Martin, 1995, 22):

• Leadership and participation of key executives • Training for all employees • A team approach, in an open and sharing culture • A long term view • A quantitative approach - application of statistical

methods • Focus on the Customer and the delivery of excellence

Systemic Levers of Organizational Culture Change

Bennis, et.al. (1985, 169-173) suggest that culture change efforts should begin by management�s examination of the following internal organizational change levers. Their identification follows:

1. Superordinate Goals (guiding mission and goals)

Cultural Change Levers: Communication (Ouchi, 1981) Demonstration (Business Week 1980, 148-160)

2. Management Style and Action

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Cultural Change Levers: Communication (Bennis, 1981, 60)(Waterman et al., 1980) Management Behavior (Role Modeling) Management Style (Openness) (Ouchi, 1981) (Lawler, 1980) Promotion of Innovation (Rothman, 1974, 466) Empowerment (Bennis, 1981)(Kanter, 1981) Reward System (Lawler & Drexler, 1980)(Kanter, 1981) Degree of Consistency (Bennis, 1981)(Peters, 1981)

3. Human Resource Management

Cultural Change Levers: People Orientation Recruitment (Ouchi, 1981)(Walton, 1979) Orientation (Waterman et. al. 1980)(Peters, 1980) Training and Development (Ouchi, 1981)(Waterman et. al. 1980) Promotion and Assignment (Lehr, 1979)

4. Organization Structure

Cultural Change Levers: Structural Flexibility (Peters, 1980) (Rothman, 1974) Structural Simplicity (Peters, 1980) Role and Number of Staff (Lawler & Drexler, 1980)(Peters, 1980) Use of Ad Hoc Systems (Waterman, 1980)(Kanter, 1981) Ease of Approval Systems (Lawler & Drexler, 1980) Resource Assignments (Kanter, 1981) (Rothman, 1974)

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Structural relationships (Peters, 1980) (Rothman, 1974) (Waterman et. al. 1980)(Kanter 1981) Decentralization and Unit Size Control (Peters, 1980) (Waterman et. al. 1980)(Rothman, 1974) (Kelly & Kranzberg, 1978)

5. Administrative and Control Systems

Cultural Change Levers (Peters, 1980): Degree of Simplicity Degree of Flexibility

6. Planning

Cultural Change Levers: Environmental Monitoring Quality (Glueck, 1980) Focused Objectives (Peters, 1980) Long Term Goals (Quinn, 1978)(Ouchi, 1981) Bias Toward Action (Peters, 1980)

7. Information and Communications

Cultural Change Levers: Support of Two-way Communication between levels, across divisions, with customers (Kanter, 1981) Openness to criticism and proposals for change (Ouchi, 1981, 271)

8. Strategy

Cultural Change Levers (Peters, 1980)(Waterman et. al. 1980)(Pascale & Athos, 1981): Commitment to base of excellence Attitudes toward Customers Simplicity of Management

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9. Physical Design and Setting

Cultural Change Levers: Design Controls for Openness, Assess, and Communication of intended Environment (Kanter, 1981)(Peters, 1980)

10. External Relations

Cultural Change Levers: Management Time Expectations (Ouchi, 1981) Communication of Ethical Positions and Social Responsibility (Ouchi, 1981) (O�Toole, 1981a) Degree of Demonstrated openness (Rothman, 1974)

Factors Contributing to the Resistance of Change Back to top

Zaltman and Duncan (1977) provide an excellent discussion of the barriers of change. An outline of the barriers with brief descriptions is provided here for the benefit of the professional (68-86):

Cultural Barriers to Change

Cultural Values and Beliefs: Ideologies, traditional heritages, social relationships, economic well-being, personality needs, health conditions, etc. Max Weber (1947) identified lack of a work ethic and the absence of desires for upward mobility as examples of cultural barriers.

Cultural Ethnocentrism: Resistance to change from those from another culture. Perceptions of cultural superiority increase the problem.

Saving Face: Loss of peer status associated with acceptance of a change.

Incompatibility of a Cultural Trail with Change; The necessity of displacement of a strong cultural belief or practice in order to accept a change.

Social Barriers to Change

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Group Solidarity: Reciprocal or mutual obligations to others that prevent changes or innovations requiring demonstration of individualism.

Rejection of Outsiders: A major problem in introducing change is to secure enough group initiative and participation so the enterprise will not be a foreign importation.

Conformity to Norms: Change that is incompatible with existing norms will tend to be resisted by most members of a social system. Public opinion is the expression of group feelings about an issue and is based on group norms. Modification of a change to meet the need satisfied by a norm may facilitate acceptance.

Conflict: When conflict and factionalism exist within an organization or society, any change proposed by one faction may be automatically opposed by the other not because of opposition to the change, but to show opposition to the opposing faction (Frye 1969, 1-12).

Group Insight: Lippitt et al. (1958, 181) suggest that one of the major barriers to change in small groups is �the members� imperfect awareness of their own interpersonal processes and their lack of a frame of reference in which to judge their performances and their possibilities for improvement.� Feedback and involvement in collective decision making are viewed as solutions.

Organizational Barriers to Change

Threat to Power and Influence: Resistance to change that threatens the influence of a managerial group. One of the most important sources of resistance when two organizations merge (Blumberg et al., 1971) (Marrow et al., 1967)

Organizational Structure: The authority patterns, channels of communication, division of labor, rules and procedures, etc. must be compatible or supportive of the change or they become barriers. The division of labor is another structural factor (interunit competition) and hierarchical differentials (fear of loss of status) are additional sources of resistance.

Behavior of Top-Level Administrators: Organizational support and commitment from the top communicates the organizational commitment to change. Failure allows internal barriers to develop.

Climate for Change in the Organization: Resistance to change is likely to be greater when the need for change is low, and the openness to and potential for change is perceived as being low in an organization. There is also research evidence (Duncan, 1972b, 205-245) that a high felt-need for change in an organization may create anxiety with the result that organizational personnel may feel change can not be accomplished creating a barrier.

Technological Barriers for Resistance: One very real source of resistance to change is the absence of the necessary technical human skills to implement the change adequately as well as an inability to understand the technology.

Psychological Barriers to Change

Perception: Selective perception and retention may prevent a person from seeing the need for change (Watson, 1971, 745-766) or recognize solutions even if the need is recognized.

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Communication is a major part of the problem when perceptions of messages differ between innovator and receiver. Lack of clarity about the behaviors required by a change may also be a source of resistance at the trial or adoption stages (Gross et. al., 1971).

Homoeostasis: Many programs of social change involve a level of arousal and stimulation well above what is comfortable to the individual. Lippert et. al. (180-181) suggests fear of failure, bad experiences with change efforts, and fear of loss of present satisfaction can all contribute to homeostasis.

Conformity and Commitment: Conformity is a major force working against change (Kiesler & Kiesler, 1970) (Homans, 1974) People need to be liked, to be correct, and to participate in the fruits of achieving collective goals. Similarly, commitment is a powerful force working against change (Kiesler, 1971). Financial and social psychological investment in programs and practices help root people in the status quo. In such cases, incentives must be created as alternative investments in the advocated change.

Personality Factors: High dogmatism, inability to deal with abstractions, fatalism, low achievement motivation, lack of conceptual and inquiring skills, lack of creativity, and high resistance to change are all examples of personality factors that may present barriers to change acceptance (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971, 187-188) (D. W. Johnson, 1969, 143-153) (H. G. Barnett, 1953). In organizations, the solution relates to good employment practices and performance evaluation. Within social groups, research of the group personality and understanding of factors contributing to the shared social group personality traits (shared experiences, belief system, etc.) permits the development of proactive strategies.

References Back to top

Barnett, H. G. (1953). Innovation: The Basis of Culture Change, McGraw-Hill, NY.

Beitler, M. A. (2006). Strategic Organizational Change, 2nd Ed. Practitioner Press International, Greensboro, NC.

Bennis, W. G., K. D. Benne, & R Chin. (1985). The Planning of Change, 4th Ed., CBS College Publishing, NY.

Bennis, W. (1981). The Five Key Traits of Successful Chief Executives, International Management, October.

Blumberg, A. & W. Wiener. (1971). One from Two: Facilitating an Organizational Merger, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 7.

(1980) Corporate Culture: The Hard-to-Change Values That Spell Success or Failure, Business Week, October 27.

Dube, S. C. (1992). Understanding Change: Anthropological & Sociological Perspectives.

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Duncan, R. (1972b). Organizational Climate for Change in Three Police Departments: Some Preliminary Findings, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 8 No.2.

Frye, N. (October 1969). The Ethics of Change: The Role of the University, The School Guidance Worker.

Gross, N., J. B. Giacquinta, & M. Bernstein (1971). Implementing Organizational Innovation: A Sociological Analysis of Planned Change, Basic Books, NY.

Glueck, W. F. (1980). Business Policy and Strategic Management. McGraw-Hill, NY.

Homans, G. (1974). Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms, 2nd ed., Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, NY.

Johnson, D. W. (1969). Influence on Teachers� Acceptance of Change, Elementary School Journal, Vol. LXX, December.

Kanter, R. M. (1981). Power and Enterprise in Action: Conditions and Strategies for Entrepreneurial Accomplishments among Corporate Middle Managers, USC Business School Lecture, November 18.

Kelly, P. & M. Kranzberg, Eds. (1978). Technological Innovation: A Critical Review of Current Knowledge. San Francisco Press, San Francisco, CA.

Kiesler, C. A. & S. B. Kiesler (1970). Conformity, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Lawler, E. E. (1980). Creating High Involvement Work Organizations. USC Center for Effective Organizations, Los Angeles.

Lawler, E. E. & J. A. Drexler. (1980). The Corporate Entrepreneur. USC Center for Effective Organizations, Los Angles.

Leban, B. and R. Stone. (2008). Managing Organizational Change. John Wiley & Sons.

Lehr, L. (1979). Stimulating Technological Innovation - The Role of Top Management, Research Management, November, 23-25.

Lippitt, R., J. Watson, and B. Wesley. (1958). The Dynamics of Planned Change, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.

Marrow, A., D. Bowers, & S. Seashore (1967). Management by Participation, Harper & Row, NY.

Martin, J. (1995). The Great Transition: Using the Seven Disciplines of Enterprise Engineering to Align People, Technology, and Strategy. AMACOM, American Management Association, NY, NY.

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McWhinney, W. (1992). Paths of Change. Sage Publications.

Nadler, D. A. (1998). Champions of Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Nickols, F. (2006) Change Management 101: A Primer. http://home.att.net/~nickols/change.htm

O�Toole, J. (1981b). Making America Work. Continuum, NY.

Ouchi, W. (1981). Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.

Pascale, R. T. & A. Athos. (1981). The Art of Japanese Management. Simon and Schuster, NY.

Peters, T. J. (1980). Putting Excellence into Management, Business Week, July 21, 196-205.

Quinn, J. B. (1978). Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, Sloan Management Review, Spring, 19-29.

Rogers, E. M. & F. F. Shoemaker (1971). Communication of Innovations: A Cross-Cultural Approach, The Free Press, NY.

Rothman, J. (1974). Planning and Organizing for Social Change. Columbia University Press, New York.

Schein, E. (1990). Kurt Lewin�s in the field and in the classroom: notes toward a model of managed learning, Occasional paper, MIT Sloan School of Management. http://www.solonline.org/res.wp/10006.html

Schwartz, B. M. and R. H. Ewald. (1968). Culture and Society, Ronald Press Co., New York.

Senge, P. et. el. (1999) The Dance of Change, Currency/Doubleday, NY, NY.

Wallace, A. F. C. (1956). Revitalization Movements, American Anthropologist 58:264-81.

Walton, R. E. (1979). Work Innovations in the United States, Harvard Business Review, July-August, 88-98.

Watson, G. (1971). Resistance to Change, American Behavioral Scientist. Vol 14, May-June.

Waterman, R. H., Jr., T. J. Peters, & J. R. Phillips (1980). Structure Is Not Organization, Business Horizons, June, 14-26.

Weber, M. (1947). The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, A. M. Henderson and T. Parsons (translators), The Free Press, NY.

Zaltman, G. and R. Duncan. (1977). Strategies for Planned Change. John Wiley & Sons.

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Change Management Overview

Edward Spicer stated that changing peoples� customs is an even more delicate responsibility than surgery (Spicer, 13). But when an administrator institutes a program of change he is dealing not with one individual, but with the well-being and happiness of generations of men and women. While Spicer was writing about technological change, cultural anthropologist make the same point about any planned social change and urge caution on those who would be change agents. All long range effects are difficult to foresee or the consequence difficult to predict.

Ed Bernays demonstrated early wisdom in how to achieve change through what he called the �Engineering of Public Consent.� He used to repeatedly say in presentations that �people want to go where people want to be led.� One of his most famous examples related to his role in breaking down the social barriers against women smoking in public. Through the counsel of an early New York City psychiatrist, he learned that women saw the inequality of their lack of the right to smoke in public versus the right of men to do so as discrimination, which indeed it was. But he knew achieving this social change would sell more cigarettes for client Phillip Morris. Which indeed, it did. While the date of this occurrence predated current evidence and proof of the health hazards of smoking, Bernays� role in the social change emphasizes the ethical responsibility public relations professionals share when using their knowledge and skills to facilitate the needs of clients or employers in either the public or private sectors.

Bernays may have also have given the profession early guidance when he based his concept of the engineering of public consent on Thomas Jefferson�s principle that in a democracy, everything depends on the will of the people. Fulfillment of this principle, however, clearly carries responsibilities of disclosure and transparency and research analysis of change consequences for the effected public both positive and negative. must carry full disclosure implies that people are fully informed of the But the world was far less complex in the period following WWI than in today�s globally interdependent society. So the best ethical guidance for the professional and the organization�s we serve may again relate to change. And this is the practitioner�s leadership in enabling an organizational management�s team�s ability to change in relation to changes within the social environment.

Because the public relations practitioner has the need for involvement in three areas of change: Organizational Change (Internal target audiences: management levels, employee types and classes, volunteers), Target Audience Change (External target audiences: potential and existing customers, stakeholders, and various social system populations targeted in campaigns), and the Executive Management Teams of Organizations with the primary purpose of contributing to a management team�s ability to listen and respond to change within the social environment. As one might expect, most of the literature on change management is related to the problems organizations have had in downsizing, in facilitating mergers, and in contributing to the change of culture needed with changes in products or services, economic and social conditions or with changes in leadership, organizational goals, or the adoption of new ethical values.

Management Models for Accomplishment of Internal Organizational Change

Kotter�s Eight-Stage Change Process

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Kotter�s model (Kotter, 1996, 16); (Leban & Stone, 2008, 60-61); (Beitler, 2006, 39-48) was developed after his study of more than 100 organizations in which he found that the majority of change efforts failed. He identified two key lessons from his analysis of change failures: First that the change process goes through a series of phases, each lasting a considerable period of time. Second, critical mistakes in any of the phases can have devastating impact on the momentum of the change process. His eight-stage change process was, therefore, designed to avoid the eight fundamental errors he had identified in his organizational study.

The first four stages relate to the �thawing out� or the �unfreezing� of organizational resistance to change.

1. Establishing a greater sense of urgency.

a. Getting people to examine seriously the competitive realities.

b. Identifying crises, potential crises, or major opportunities.

2. Creating the guiding coalition.

a. Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change.

b. Getting the group to work together like a team. 3. Developing a transformational vision and strategy.

a. Creating a vision to help direct the change effort.

b. Developing strategies for achieving that vision. 4. Communicating the Change vision.

a. Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies.

b. Role modeling needed behavior by the guiding coalition.

The next three stages introduce strategies to address what Lewin identified in his change model as �changing/moving.�

5. Empowering a broad base of people to take action.

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a. Getting rid of blockers. b. Changing systems or structures that seriously

undermine the change vision. c. Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional

ideas, activities, and actions. 6. Generating short term wins.

a. Planning for some visible performance improvements.

b. Creating those wins. c. Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who

made the wins possible. 7. Consolidating gains and producing even more

change.

a. Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that don�t fit together and don�t fit the transformation vision.

b. Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision.

c. Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents.

The last stage relates to what Lewin identified as refreezing. Basically, it is designed to assure desired change behaviors stay in place.

8. Institutionalizing new approaches in the culture.

a. Creating better performance through customer and productivity oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management.

b. Articulating the connections between new behaviors and firm success.

c. Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession.

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Leban and Stone�s Model for the Design and Implementation of Change Strategy

Drawing from Beer and Nobria (2000), Leban and Stone (2008) identify a model that can be described in six processes:

1. Identification of the forces driving change:

These forces are categorized in five areas: Human Capital, Market/Competitive Forces, Technology, Economic/Political, and Global. Leban and Stone point out that understanding these forces is important to designing and implementing an effective change strategy (20).

2. Change Assessment:

Two steps are identified. First is recognition of the need for change and second is the identification of the nature of the change needed. They point out that if management is slow in responding to the forces driving change, overall organizational performance may be seriously impaired.

3. Internal Management:

Leban and Stone stress the change project leader must be able to take ownership of the change and be able to muster the necessary resources and provide the expertise and operational know-how necessary to guide the change to success. They feel strongly that project leadership should come from the units undergoing change and not some support function. While this could be viewed as reflecting negatively on the role of the public relations manager, I rather think it is an astute observation on the needed role of public relations within an organization. If public relations is viewed as a line support function similar to marketing rather than a top management function, it is unlikely that leadership would be accepted.

Leban and Stone emphasize that project leadership should occur at all levels across the organization drawing from key managers and employees whom others trust and respect and who have the technical and interpersonal skills needed to influence others. They recognize the importance of the active involvement of formal leaders and that informal leaders can be powerful allies. They do not believe the management of change can be effectively compartmentalized or externalized. Good ammunition for understaffed, over- worked and ill-equipped public relations managers in resisting CEO pressures to assume the task, rather than guiding the establishment of the change management team.

4. Planning and Alignment of Dimensions:

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Planning, according to Leban and Stone, serves two key purposes: the cognitive aspect of thinking through the issues and their implications and the identification of resources for effective performance. This process includes the establishment of clear performance goals and the alignment of four factors: strategy/vision, resources, systems, and culture (21-23).

a. Strategy/Vision - Definition of the kind of performance that is needed, the types of capabilities and competencies necessary to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and how the organization will respond to driving forces in the organizational environment.

b. Resources - Analysis and implementation of an organization�s assets: human capital, plant and equipment, information technology, raw materials, and financial resources. Analysis of the organization�s ability to attract and retain good people and to use their knowledge, wisdom and insights.

c. Systems - The administrative support systems needed to execute of any new strategy or change initiative: information technology systems, financial planning and reporting systems, project management systems, decision support systems, rewards, and communication systems. Management recognition of the role of motivation in achieving the desired behavior for desired performance.

d. Culture - Identification of the behavioral norms which guide the way in which people work and interact with one another and the achievement of needed norms to achieve the change.

5. Implementing and Sustaining Change:

Leban and Stone recommend using Lewin�s approach and combining it with Kotter�s eight-step process (Kotter, 1996, 20). See the Lewin and Kotter methodologies under �Change Models.� The methodologies include �Unfreezing� which means creating a climate for change, �Change/Movement� which involves engaging and enabling the whole organization, and �Refreezing� by implementing and sustaining the change. Refreezing, they recognize requires organizational leadership that will recognize, reward and model the new behavior in order to lock the behaviors into the culture of the organization.

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6. Evaluation and Feedback:

The process of evaluating the achievement of the change management team�s objectives and for revising the plans and adjusting the process. Leban and Stone quote Kotter and Schlesinger in stating �Only by carefully monitoring the process can one identify the unexpected in a timely fashion and react to it intelligently� (Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979. 113).

Leban and Stone conclude that in today�s changing environment �Managing change is here to stay; it will never go away. Managers who can learn to apply the basic change management process and principles � and implement the change project plan, possess a powerful competitive advantage� (Leban & Stone, 2008, 25).

Schein�s Steps for a Change in Organizational Culture

1. Clarify Your Purpose. Articulate the business problems that have brought you to a need for a change in culture. Members of cultures resist change as a natural response to an aggressive attack on existing values. Make it clear why an external threat has made it clear existing cultural values must be changed.

Hipple and Verdigets� Five Elements of Transforming Corporate Culture

• Cultural Analysis: Focusing on Priorities. Identify and prioritize areas where change is most needed.

• Leadership Strategy and Commitment. Executive leadership must drive the change.

• Management Buy-in, Education and Training. Senior leaders must state the business case for change continuously, beginning with managers combined with a meaningful management-awareness and education program.

• Accountability. Annual evaluation and rewards of all managers and employees must relate to individual progress in contributing to the cultural transformation.

• Employee Communications. Communication must be backed with demonstrated management commitment to the cultural goals and employee inclusion to build trust.

• Transformation Equals Paying Attention Plus Being Intentional. An integrated strategy of communications, leadership development and management accountability tied to corporate goals provides the best approach. (Hipple & Verdigets, 2008, 16-19).

Martin�s Recommended Process for Changing Culture

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• Design the corporate change, for example new value streams.

• Plan whether the culture change should be tackled in stages.

• Identify any changes needed in the formal culture. Plan how to avoid unnecessary formal culture clashes.

• Identify any changes needed in informal and technical culture.

• Establish the vision and language needed to change the formal culture, and the communication methods.

• Establish the training needed to change informal and technical culture.

• Realistically estimate the costs of the culture change and the time required.

• Identify the possible obstacles to culture change, and how they can be overcome ( Martin. 1995, 470).

Most corporate change initiatives fail. A number of articles place the failure rate at around 70 percent. Harvard�s John Kotter, in a study of one hundred top management-driven organizations �corporate transformation� efforts, concluded that more than half did not survive the initial change stages. There is little to suggest that schools, healthcare institutions, governmental, and nonprofit institutions fare any better. (Senge, et. el., 1999, 5-6).

Martin makes the point that there is no cookbook for organizational change and that sometimes gentle, continuous change is the right approach (58). When changes come at a rapid rate, the large hierarchical firm is the last to change (147).

It is my opinion, after years of observation of management systems, the reasons for failure of forced top-down change relates to the failure to address factors that cultural anthropologist see as critical to change in society. The most important in my mind is the failure to involve the informal leadership of an organization in the implementation and planning. Even members of Congress resist change when they have not been consulted and involved in change proposals, which is something repeated U. S. Presidents have had to learn. But also key is an attempt to replace cultures instead of using existing cultures to accomplish the organization�s goals and objectives. Both create resistance that can not be easily overcome.

Management Models for Accomplishment of External Audience Change

Models for social change are difficult to find that can be applied in the strategic planning of public relations when the need is to change behaviors or opinions. This may be because management scholars have concentrated primarily on corporate needs in changing employee culture and behaviors rather than the behaviors and opinions of external target audiences. Primarily the body of literature relates to persuasion, diffusion, lobbying, and issue management. While all of these areas of literature can have application, they do not provide the specific change guidelines public relations professionals need when planning campaigns to

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achieve behavioral or opinion change among target audiences, stakeholders, or target populations.

In the introduction, I identified six change factors that repeatedly appear in change literature. Most of the six factors are also included in models for the achievement of internal organizational change. Why the variation? Keep in mind the difference in needs when downsizing or in establishing new corporate cultures where change is largely a force process implemented by management compared to an effort to influence the opinions and behaviors of an external audience where the use of force is not an option. However, even in the cases where force can be applied through the threat of loss of employment or of internal rewards, all six still have merit in campaign planning consideration. The simple reason is that cultural anthropology, in particular, teaches us that force is the least effective way of achieving permnent change. Influence is by far the better means of achievement.

When the role of the public relations practitioner is to plan strategies that will influence change, his or her role is that of a change agent. Therefore, I recommend using the factors as change action checkpoints in evaluating the courses of action in a strategic plan. This process means that the theory will be yet another aid in the development of an effective plan. Knowledge of the theory simply helps you dot the �I"s and �T� in your plan and it gives you another lever in allowing management to see that your counsel is based on solid social science principles

So let�s look again at six factors identified by Kimball (1972) and Arensberg (Arensberg & Niehoff, 1971) as important to the change process:

Six Factors Critical to Change Accomplishment

1. Effective Communication. Effectiveness in this case particularly applies to use of the target audience�s preferred communication channels as well as use of the target audience�s language. All forms of communication, both verbal and nonverbal, must relate to the target audience (Arensberg & Niehoff, 84-89 and 244).

The research need for full information about a target audience�s informal communication is emphasized by anthropologists who state that knowledge of the communication among members of an audience targeted for change is essential in understanding the interpretation of communication on the part of a change agent. Interpretation often develops from gossip and rumor. Without knowledge of the way a change project has been interpreted in accordance with existing beliefs, public relations professionals are unable to correct communication or miscommunication (Schwartz & Ewald, 1968, 479). Sharpe refers to this as an essential evaluation process allowing corrective actions or adjustments in communication or behaviors. Both communication and behaviors miscommunicate if not corrected (Seitel 2004, 5).

Senge stresses that �Studies of the ways in which innovations diffuse within large organizations have consistently pointed to the importance of informal networks and professional communities. These networks, much more than the formal management structures, seem vital to how people

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learn about new ideas, coach one another in trying them out, and share practical tips and lessons over time.� Also see Arensberg & Niehoff (174-175).

�Such informal networks are almost always superior to hierarchical channels for spreading new innovations,� he states. �First, these informal networks already exist; they are already essential for doing work. Spreading new ideas through them is a natural extension of current practice. Second, the information that passes laterally through them has credibility� (Senge, et. el.1999, 49).

Arensberg and Niehoff make the point that one of the strongest forms of communication is demonstration (93-96). It is one of the reasons that many of the change processes listed by various authors stress that management must �walk it talk� in achieving change. One of the main reasons for change failure is management �lip service� in support of organizational change without the supporting demonstration of commitment.

Schwartz and Ewald point out that present day anthropologists are no longer interested in diffusion for its own sake, but find it far more significant to investigate the processes for acceptance of change and the way it is incorporated into cultures (442).

2. Achievement of credibility through the achievement of support for the change. It�s who you can get behind you!�Organizations (health, scientific, professional, etc.), experts (economic, health, environmental, etc.), leaders (employee, community, professional, religious, etc.) Arensberg and Niehoff suggest religious, educational, civic, and informal community leaders can all influence acceptance of change (136-142). Union leaders, employee informal leaders, and organizations that have influence on employees would be other examples in a corporate community.

An excellent example of use of this change factor can be found in the political science area where community leaders might be asked to endorse a candidate or a bond issue followed by a full page advertisement in a local newspaper listing the supporters.

3. Effective use of the target audience�s culture. Tie strategies to recreation and food preferences; customs, behaviors, and belief systems whenever possible.

Schwartz and Ewald point out that the ready acceptance of change is directly related to the ease with which change can be adopted without serious disruption to existing cultural patterns (442 & 462). They believe that �only persons who know the culture of the society to be changed can even hope to succeed, and even then the change agents will have difficulty (464). Differing social systems must reinterpret the change to fit the existing social patterns or accommodate

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the diffusing patterns, or both (443). They point out that groups share goals, values, and beliefs and may be characterized by significantly different values and behavioral norms which create differences in the way change will be accepted. Arensberg and Niehoff state that traditional culture should be treated as something that exists. By ignoring it, a change agent reduces the chances for successful innovation (133).

While Schwartz and Ewald cite examples of differences in international cultures (433-458), any practitioner who has worked in more than one corporation, university, or state or local government is equally aware of the differences in culture among organizations in the United States alone. Perhaps the freedom democracy has provided for development of varied social structures and perhaps the variations of social influence of publics within regional social systems may account for the sometimes dramatic variations in organization and social system cultures. These differences, Schwartz and Ewald and other anthropologists repeatedly emphasize, are compounded in today�s international, economically interdependent business world.

Public relations practitioners need to recognize that there are multiple ways of achieving this change factor from use or adaptation of existing cultural behavior, to use of cultural interest and preferences for recreational and social activities, to the role models and images used in communication. Schwartz and Ewald emphasize that the ready acceptance of change is directly related to the ease with which change can be adopted without serious disruption of existing cultural patterns.

It is sometimes difficult to see how to use existing work cultures in organizations, particularly cultural patterns that can be used to achieve change. It is easier to see the negative aspects of the culture that management may want to change. It is much easier, however, to learn the recreational, food preferences, and religious preferences of work culture. Recognition will require formal or at least informal research. But the theory teaches how much can be gained by using elements of any culture we are attempting to change.

4. Accurately evaluate the degree of felt-need (target audience) for the change. It identifies what you are up against in persuading change or the degree of force necessary to accomplish the change.

Schwartz and Ewald repeatedly stress the importance of a �felt need� for change on the members of a social group (442 & 482-284). Anthropologists categorize needs into the degree of existing felt need suggesting to public relations practitioners that one of the first steps in a change activity is to learn the degree of existing felt need for a change by a target audience (Arensberg & Niehoff, 115-116). Where no felt need is found, then it is essential that a recognition of need be created through communication. This element relates to the �creation of a sense of urgency� in many change models. But the initial research step is missing in most of these models which may be one reason for a high change failure rate. In the case of a total lack of felt need for a change, the theory also suggests a realistic appraisal of costs in terms of communication and management time for the change task to be attempted. Wise counsel should also be realistic with management as to the odds against achievement of a change in such situations. The best communication programs can not always create the buy-in necessary

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for change achievement. This is a lesson that has been learned from campaigns for nuclear energy.

5. Identify and communicate a clear perceived benefit for acceptance of the change. An understanding of target audience motivations is essential here. Some of the strongest human motivations beyond basic needs are economic, education (status), health, and convenience (Schwartz & Ewald, 482) (Arensberg & Niehoff, 119). Use more than one motivation when you can. Senge emphasizes that people�s enthusiasm and willingness to commit themselves increases when they realize personal results from a change initiative. It reinforces their investment (Senge, 47). Public relations professionals have long understood the importance of clearly communicating key messages to target audiences. The lesson taught by this principle is the importance of research in understanding the motivations of target audiences. When the key messages for acceptance of change are in harmony with a target audience�s strongest motivations for the acceptance of the change, the perceived benefit for change will be the most clear. Knowledge of the strongest target audience motivations for a change as the result of research will also allow the public relations executive to suggest ways of strengthening the existing motivations. Stronger economic and status incentives can be built right into the organization�s reward system and effectively communicated.

6. Involvement of the target audience�s leadership in the planning and implementation of the change. This requires research identification of the target audience�s acceptable informal leadership. Ignoring target audience leaders results in a natural opposition because of lack of consultation and involvement. Involvement creates ambassadors. Schwartz and Ewald stress that there is probably no way to ruin the chances of an innovation to be accepted than to ignore the traditional leaders or to incorrectly choose the wrong ones (480). Arensberg and Niehoff also stress the importance of full participation in planning and working (175)

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The principle shows us that selection for involvement is not a guessing game as there is little margin for error. Selection should be based on a sound research process. The process need not be complex. Survey a sample of a target audience or a group of key informants asking that they name five to 10 of the influentials in their social environment. Then identify the frequency of repetition.

Again, as I look at business management models for forced change, I recognize that the high failure rate of change is probably due to lack of attention to the informal leadership within an organization. The theory tells us to bring them in early for consultation. Involve them in the planning of the development of incentives for the adoption of change. Use them for feedback and for the development of corrective actions. Of course it is more work, but if the management team is flexible in its acceptance of change, advancement will occur over failure.

Importance of Flexibility in the Achievement of Change and of Maintenance Planning

Two additional factors that need to be considered in the change process are flexibility and maintenance

Change theory teaches us that with any change by an innovator, there is always a reaction on the part of recipients and that the end result is some type of integration. Therefore, if we can preach the advantage of flexibility in the change process and outcome to management, we increase the chance for accomplishment of many of the most important management change goals while reducing the possibility of failure.

Finally, we can evaluate to learn if a change is in place through the measurement of behaviors. But we usually want to know the change will stay in place when the incentives end that were used in the change process to initiate the change. This means the establishment of patterns of maintenance for continuation of the new idea or behavior.

Arensberg and Niehoff (174) state �Innovations can be maintained if new skills are transferred, sources of needed new material are provided, and responsibility for continuance is established.�

Change Communication Guidance Back to top

Considerable discussion of communication needs has already occurred in the discussion of implementation steps and strategies, but the following summary of key points is provided as a check list:

Check List for Effective Change Communication

• Research of felt need for change • Clear identification of the change mission and its

value • Communication of needs personalized with clear

benefits to recipients for acceptance of the change • Use of target audience language and symbols in

communication

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• Use of target audience preferred communication channels

• Use of demonstration of the value of change as a communication tool

• Repetition of messages combined with �walk your talk� management performance

• Research of informal communication among recipients followed by corrective actions for miscommunication or misinterpretation of behaviors

• Enhance credibility of communication with supporting endorsements of change by target audience leaders, organizations, and respected experts

• Assure evaluation of communication process and flexibility in implementation of strategies based on results

Change Communication Core Principles (Leban & Stone 2008, 227-228). Shared by Seth Kahan, who managed the communication for a change initiative at World Bank, a global organization with more than 100 offices and 12,000 workers.

• Develop proactive communication strategies. Avoid surprising people. Save employee time by making assess to information easy.

• Fully involve senior management in the communication strategies: video stream appearances, �Town Hall� type meetings, question and answer sessions, e-mails from top, demonstration of clearly �committed� role models.

• Use outside communication professionals to support the internal communication team. Advantages: increases speed of response, guidance adds to communication team insight, quick assess to a professional network of vendors.

• Develop a detailed communication action plan and assure ratification by leadership. Advantages: Establishes common expectations and understanding of implementation process, assures leadership communication needs will be met, allows seamless implementation without constant review.

• Achieve a secure, pre-approved budget by presenting a line-item budget for approval when presenting the action plan. Prevents delays for step by step approvals.

• Align the communication team fully with the change management leadership. Assures clear communication and avoids miscommunication.

• Streamline the approval process by answering to one person, the change management leader. Agree

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on the time for feedback (hours, not days) and for approval on all decisions (by next day).

• Establish a clear graphic identify for the change. Use giveaways (mouse pads, polo shirts, posters, note pads, etc.) to allow people to visibly demonstrate their support of the change.

• Use multiple media in synchronized releases to create impact. Provides reinforcement of messages and helps avoid communication fatigue.

• Use surveys to study your own effectiveness. • Assure communication team attendance of all

project manager and steering committee meetings for the entire program. Allowed the communication team members to be the first contact when anyone in the organization wanted information about the change program. Allowed the communication team to be �in the loop� and �up to the minute� on the needs of the project.

• Extensive team building within the communications team. Allows cohesion and flexibility in responding quickly and effectively to changes in direction.

Typology of Communication Channels (Zaltman et. al. 1972, 181).

• Influence Channels

Media Influence Channels

Mass Media

Examples: television, radio, national magazines, newspapers, billboards, Internet news websites.

Specialized Media

Examples: specialized magazines, newsletters, annual reports, announcements, special interest websites and blogs.

Personal Influence Channels

Mass meetings

Examples: rallies, demonstrations, assemblies, programs, fairs, etc.

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Small groupExamples: negotiation teams, threat squads, boards and committees.

Individual visitations

Examples: lobbying, personal phone calls, team visitation of homes.

• Response Channels

Media Response Channels

Examples: telephone, mail, paid advertisements, e-mail

Personal Response Channels

Examples: visits to leaders, supporters, branch offices

References

Arensberg, C. M. & A. H. Niehoff (1971). Introducing Social Change, 2nd ed., Aldine - Atherton, Inc., Chicago.

Hipple, J. R. and F. Verdigets. (Spring, 2008). Transformers: The Five Elements of Transforming Corporate Culture. In The Public Relations Strategists. Vol. 14, No. 2, Public Relations Society of America.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. HBS Press.

Kotter, J. P. and Schlesinger, L. A. (1979, Mar-Apr), Choosing Strategies for Change. Harvard Business Review.

Kimball, Solon (1972). Class handout and notes.

Leban, B. and Stone, R. (2008). Managing Organizational Change, 2nd ed., John Wiley & Sons.

Martin, J. (1995). The Great Transition: Using the Seven Disciplines of Enterprise Engineering to Align People, Technology, and Strategy. AMACOM, American Management Association, NY, NY.

Schwartz, B. M. and R. H. Ewald (1968). Culture and Society, The Ronald Press Company.

Seitel, F. P. (2004). The Practice of Public Relations, 9th Ed., Pearson, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey

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Senge, P., Kleiner, Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G., & Bryan Smith (1999). The Dance of Change; The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations, Doubleday, NY, NY.

Spicer, E. H. In Spicer, (Ed.) Human Problems in Technological Change.

Zaltman, G., P. Kotler, I. Kaufman, Eds. (1972). Creating Social Change. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Ind.

Helping Management Stay Open to Change The Public Relation�s Manager�s Role and Responsibility

With all the responsibilities already placed on public relations in organizations, the question is why take on an active role in keeping the CEO and top management open to change unless it is mandated by management? Basically, what�s in it for public relations?

Here are three good reasons.

• The first relates to the performance of excellent public relations. Two-way symmetrical public relations performance requires, as the name implies, the ability for organizations to influence and be influenced by their social systems and the public within them in order to maintain long range stability. (Newsom, et. al.. 2000, 18.) Therefore, before two-way symmetrical public relations can be performed, organizational management must be capable of listening to the social environment and public relations management must work to assure it.

• The second relates to the achievement and maintenance of a seat at the management table and a voice in the strategic planning process. When public relations� research arm clearly contributes to the management team�s ability to change based on advance information on social trends and changes in public opinion and behaviors, then the public relations executive�s input becomes indispensable to the organization in making sound decisions.

• The third relates to an appreciation on the part of management teams for the value of public relations research. Nothing has greater value to an organization�s bottom line than research that affects the welfare of the entire organization. This point is driven home to management with greatest certainty when public relations research clearly contributes to management decisions not just the evaluation of

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communication and public relations performance effectiveness.

A brief examination of the three reasons aids in understanding why the public relations executive�s role in contributing to the openness to change on the part of an organizational management structure is not only key to sound long-range management decisions but to the ability to perform two-way symmetrical public relations performance.

The Relationship of Organizational Stability to Two-Way Symmetrical Performance

While two-way symmetric public relations does not claim that other public relations performance models are ineffective, it does recognize that the process of two-way communication, interaction and mutual adjustment provides stability protections to an organization that other forms of public relations performance do not assure. Grunig states that �symmetry in public relations really is about balancing the interests of organizations and publics, of balancing advocacy and accommodation� (Nelson, 2001, 16). This is the change adjustment that contributes to continued stability.

When we think of the problem of maintaining the stability of an organization within complex social systems from the viewpoint of systems theory, symmetry implies the ability to adjust harmoniously with the changes occurring in the social system�at least with sufficient harmony to survive without destructive cost to the organization. Two-way communication, mutual influence, accommodation, advocacy, the identification of mutual self-interest remain a part of maintaining balance and longevity. An essential component of the achievement of symmetry in the performance of public relations in organizations, however, is a management team with knowledge of changes and pending changes that will or are influencing opinion and behavioral changes. Only then is an organization capable of strategically planning defensive or offensive actions. But, as Curtin and Boynton point out, practitioners must convince management of the benefit of being able to adjust to environmental factors in terms of long-term gains (Heath, 421).

Public Relation�s Seat at the Management Table and What It Does for Management Back to top

In 1980 while holding an ALCOA Faculty Fellowship, I had a chance to observe an excellent corporate public relations program and to interact with the CEO and other members of executive management. From that experience and from my experience in being a part of executive management at the University of Florida, I developed three principles that an organizational management must recognize before it can fully support effective public relations performance (Black and Sharpe, 1983, 5) (Newsom et. el., 2000, 127).

Before truly effective public relations performance (two-way symmetric) can occur, executive management must recognize:

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• That the economic and social stability of an organization of any type depends on the attitudes and opinions of the publics within its total operational environment.

• That all people have the right to voice opinions in relation to decisions that will directly affect them and, therefore, have the right to accurate information about pending decisions relating to them or their welfare.

• That an organization�s management of communications is essential to ensure accurate and adequate feedback from both internal and external publics, in order to ensure the organization�s adjustment and adaptation to the changes necessary for longevity.

Understanding of all three of the principles on the part of managers with diverse backgrounds requires the education and nurturing that only a public relations executive manager can provide. But it is recognition of the third principle that in particular determines an organization�s ability to change in relation to changes in the social environment for long term survival. But please note that a management team�s recognition of the principles will not be automatic simply because members of organizational management teams are advocates of democracy, understand the value of U. S. Constitution First Amendment issues, support the United Nation�s Declaration of Human Rights, or have first class business school educations. They will understand them because you as a public relations manager have taken the steps to create awareness of the value of the public relations executive�s research input into the management decision process of the organization. This is why the internal management communication function on the part of a chief public relations executive is fundamental to sound public relations performance.

PR is the Best Radar for Avoiding the Social Change Icebergs

One of the problems we have in public relations is that our definitions of public relations are frequently vague, i.e. public relations is a management function, broad, i.e. reputation management or relationship building or descriptive ofperformance, i.e. marketing communication, press agentry/publicity model, public information model, two-way asymmetric model or two-way symmetric model. John Budd so accurately points out the problem when he identified the �disconnect - between what most PR/Communicators see as their role and what they are doing and how corporate hierarchies - and the public - perceive their activities� (2008, xx). �If CEOs and their consorts are to avoid, or minimize, the harassments of public arbiters, they need the counsel of those who study the swings of public moods, the fickleness of public approval, study the swings of public moods, the fickleness of public approval, analyzing its volatility� (45).

India�s brilliant practitioner, Anard Akerkar, a former president of the International Public Relations Association, described the public relations management need more than 20 years ago at the Second World Congress on Public Relations in Amsterdam: �The future of public relations, clearly, depends on staying ahead of management�s needs. The professionals must

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keep looking at the next area of concern, translating today�s issue of concern into future opportunities by injecting knowledge into corporate policy consistent with public opinion and interest� (Denig and van der Meiden, 1985, 19).

It helps when the public relations counsel and executive management both know that management teams can not change unless they can listen to their social environments. It also helps when it is understood that the two-way symmetric public relations performance model as described by Grunig provides the �research and dialogue to bring about symbiotic changes in the ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of organizations and publics� (Heath, 12).

Environmental Research Methodologies Back to top

Admittedly, one of the weakest areas of public relations research is research on the most effective methodologies for monitoring social change or on evaluating attitude and opinion changes or on the probable behaviors that may occur in relation to change.

We do know that Arthur Page was one of the first practitioners to recognize the importance of monitoring public opinion and it is believed that he deserves much of the credit for encouraging development of systems to gauge the changing moods of AT&T�s publics. His initiatives predated the work of George Gallup and Claude Robinson by about 10 years (Griese, 2001, 122). Influenced by what he saw being done in advertising, Page�s first public opinion research polls related to newspaper readers and AT&T customers.

In his landmark public relations research book, Stacks (2002) stresses the importance of research in monitoring and tracking trends. �Think of research (and data),� he recommends, as a continuous �feedback/feedforward function� to �help predict behavioral outcomes� (4-5).

Ron Actis (2006), a former General Motors public relations manager and author of an internal communications model to help make the transition from current beliefs/behaviors to desired beliefs/behaviors, suggests that before organizational change can take place, top management must see that the changes will help management succeed. Therefore he advises public relations managers to work to identify emerging issues allowing the management team to see the public relations roles as that of being the �eyes and ears� of an organization. He also makes the point that management�s openness to change is the result of a persistent and methodical approach on the part of a public relations executive to inform and educate a management team (77 & 79).

Public Opinion Polling/Surveying

Access to national and international public opinion polls as well as the conduct of public opinion surveys of environmental audiences is expensive. Yet this formal research methodology is the most effective means of acquiring the accurate data upon which to base management decisions. But public relations executives must build the case of the value to management by bringing relevant information showing trends and shifts in public attention to the attention of the management team on a regular basis before it will be understood. Help them weigh the cost of environmental research against the long range cost of inadequate information upon which to make sound management decisions. Build your case with evidence.

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Issues Management/Trend Monitoring

Moore (1979, 43, 45) defined an emerging issue as �a trend or condition, internal or external, that if continued, would have a significant effect on how a company is operated over the period of its business plan� (Heath & Nelson, 1986, 166)

Heath and Nelson, authors of the first in-depth study of corporate image and issues management, identify the issue monitoring process �as assessment of an organization�s situational environment to determine which factors will influence public opinion.�

Issue identification includes several stages: understanding the organization�s basic public policy positions; �monitoring social, economic, technological, and political changes; and identifying specific issue objectives/goals linked to corporate goals - all culminating in issue identification.�

Issue analysis, Heath and Nelson identify as �a determination of the origin of the issue with particular emphasis on the political, social, and economic forces relevant to issue formation� (164).

�Trend extrapolation assumes that media agendas change slowly, as do issue trends, therefore, current issues can be projected a few years into the future with a reasonable degree of reliability� (167).

Trend analysis is the process of tracking trends in the media using a system of measuring frequency of mention, the amount of media attention (space or time) given the trend, combined with a ranking of the emerging trends. Computer simulations allow data to be analyzed in relation to projections and scenarios identified by an organization as possibilities in its planning.

Benchmarking Changes

Benchmarking is a process of measuring public opinion poll or survey results, content analysis, results of Delphi studies or frequency of cases at a specific point in time so comparison can be made at later predetermined measurement points. Carefully conducted Delphi surveys of leaders on organizational management teams on an annual basis can frequently identify emerging trends that can then be examined through other informal and formal research methodology. Broad Internal management (field managers for example) and specialists opinions can also by analyzed annually as to the movement or the intensity of public opinion changes identified in a Delphi study by a smaller group of executive managers. When the survey is carefully worded for validity for use over a number of consecutive years, it will provide another valuable benchmark analysis.

Content Analysis

Content analysis is a systematic, objective and quantitative method for researching messages (Berelson, 1952). It is particularly useful for the analysis of newspaper and magazine article content, video content, focus groups, correspondence, websites, blogs, etc. The important rule in examining public opinion change is consistency in the sources examined and the methodology used. Units of analysis for use in tracking trends would obviously be public opinion trends, time and space measurements, a method for ranking significance (front page, editorial, etc.), source, frequency, and other factors identified by an organization as important in evaluating the data.

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Stacks (2002) points out the problem of achieving �validity� and �reliability when conducting content analysis (114-118).� The achievement of �Validity� requires that the question be asked: Are you measuring accurately what you want to measure? For example, have you identified the right sources for your content analysis? Have you been consistent in your methodology? Reliability relates to accuracy, or reliability of the coding. Have coders been consistent and uniform in the coding process? The secret to success will relate to the training of coders, the clarity and exclusivity of the units identified for coding, the use of uniform data recording systems, and testing to assure multiple coders would and are coding information in the same way.

Case Studies

Case studies are in-depth studies of particular people, organizations, events or even processes (Stacks, 71). For purposes related to environmental research, case studies of value will relate to identification of emerging issues, consequences related to lack of response to changes in public opinion, and lessons that can be learned from organizational failure to change. Stacks points out that the case study is the only research methodology that provides the advantage of hindsight in answering questions of policy (77).

Pauly and Hutchison point out that the case method has been most thoroughly developed and capitalized in graduate business schools, particularly the Harvard Business School (Nelson, 383). For this reason, management teams readily accept the case study as a qualitative research tool. But they also point out that the value of a case study depends on the way information is analyzed and written (385-386). Unfortunately, ethnographies as candid or revealing as those found in sociology and anthropology are not always available. This is due to the fact that organizations and industries are not always open to allowing the in-depth research probing needed by a case study researcher. In-depth interviewing and access to information are critical as well as an understanding on the part of the writer of the lessons inherent in data of value to a management decision process.

Nevertheless, do maintain files of cases studies with relevance and which teach needed change adjustment lessons. Circulate to or summarize for top management when they have value.

Pattern Analysis

Lukaszewski preaches the �power of pattern analysis� in allowing a top public relations manager to be a �window to tomorrow� to a top management team (Lukaszewski 2008, 133) This mission relates to what Harold Bursen defines as the �early warner� role of public relations performance.

�The objective of pattern analysis is to pay strategic attention to what the key elements, timelines, and repetitive events reveal and use those insights to anticipate the future,� Lukaszewski teaches. He believes �Such study and analysis yield significant insight into likely event sequences, actions, or decision schedules, and can expose the range of outcomes and the options available to change outcomes� (134). �If you understand patterns,� Lukaszewski says, �then you systematically discipline yourself to observe events and scenarios with an eye for analyzing event structure, timelines, and variables� (135). The following steps that have relevance in identifying behavioral trends and in preparing management to cope with them have been drawn from his recommendations in looking for patterns (142-148):

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• Recognize that scenario planning and pattern analysis are widely accepted management tools and use them to demonstrate possibilities and potential management reaction.

• Analyze the behavioral patterns of events and management reactions on the part of other organizations by building newspaper files on the events and actions.

• Preemptively translate relevant patterns and problems into useful strategic tools management can use. Do this by selecting the most damaging, dangerous, or destabilizing situations and translating them into hypothetical scenarios.

• Don�t overlook nonoperating scenarios. Many of the threats to organizational stability, reputation, and market share that cause damage difficult to repair are behavioral trends such as employee or community violence; web, blog and other uncontrollable attacks by antagonists, or unethical behaviors on the part of employees or management. Remember these behaviors are also behavioral trends.

Management Communication Methods

One on one communication with management will always be the best communication. But it can not be the only form of communication in creating awareness of change of opinions or behaviors or in identifying potential consequences of the changes. The circulation of case studies, research summaries, and magazine and newspaper articles can all be useful. What you do to help keep your management team open to change will depend in large part on your own management team�s preference as to how they prefer to receive briefings. Ray Bonta, a former General Electric Public Relations Manager, used to provide a daily digest of relevant media content to GE executive management. Ray maintained a direct role in the process by personally reviewing five or six national media sources before breakfast each day, clipping the articles out of their sources, and then directing their summation when he reached the office for circulation to his top management team. Staff recorded and coded the items for continued analysis of trends, but he educated an expectation on the part of his management team to receive a daily summary of information that they themselves may have missed. Today�s Intranet systems make this process easy.

You know, of course, that information delivery must be concise and relevant. But also keep in mind that managers are like everyone else. If you overload, they tune out. Some managers may need help to see the relevance of information you send them to their future management decisions. The management communication method you use may need some change from time to time to keep the process of communication fresh. It helps also when the CEO sees the information so relevant and timely that he or she mandates an expectation of readership on the part of other managers. This accomplishment is yours to maintain.

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Conclusion

Public opinion trend monitoring and analysis as a tool in keeping management teams open to change requires multiple methodologies and a commitment on the part of a public relations executive to the process. It requires the development of internal systems for the uniform identification and coding of trends, whether in the media or from feedback from the public. It also requires respect for use of formal environmental research and a commitment to the research function as a part of public relations performance.

Most of all, it requires communication between top management and the public relations executive that educates management as to the valuable role public relations has in assisting the management team in keeping itself open to change.

References Back to top

Actis, R. G. (2006). Management�s Last Frontier: A Communications System to Focus and Sustain a Culture of Achievement. Pearson Custom Publishing, Boston, MA.

Berelson, B. (1952). Content Analysis in Communication Research, The Free Press, New York. Also in Kerlinger, F. N., Foundations of Behavioral Research, 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, 1986.

Black, S. and M. L. Sharpe, ( 1983). Practical Public Relations: Common-Sense Guidelines for Business and Professional People. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Inglewood Cliffs, N.J.

Budd, Jr., J. F. (2008) Too Many Geese; Too Few Swans: PR Sovereignty Held Hostage by �Communications�, The Publishing Company.

Denig, E. and A. van der Meiden, (Eds.). (1985). A Geography of Public Relations Trends. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Griese, N. L. (2001). Authur W. Page, Publisher, Public Relations Pioneer, Patriot. Anvil Publishers, Inc., Atlanta.

Heath, R. L., ed., (2001). Handbook of Public Relations. Sage Publications, Inc.

Heath, R. L. and R. A. Nelson, (1986). Issues Management: Corporate Public Policymaking in an Information Society, Sage Publications.

Lukaszewski, J. E. (2008). Why Should the Boss Listen to You? The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor, Jossey-Bass.

Moore, R. H. (1979). Research by the Conference Board sheds light on problems of semantics, issue identification and classification - and some likely issues for the �80s, Public Relations Journal 35 (November) 43-46.

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Newsom, D, Turk, J. V., Kruckeberg, D. (2000). This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations, 7th Ed., Wadsworth.

Abrahamson, E. (2004). Change Without Pain: How Managers Can Overcome Initiative Overload, Organizational Chaos, and Employee Burnout, Harvard Business School Press.

Amis, J., Slack, T. & Hinings, C. R. (2002). Values and Organizational Change. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 38 (4), Dec., 436-465. The authors explore the way in which values may affect change acceptance or resistance. Change acceptance among members of Canadian amateur sports organizations was explored using a set of propositions and three methods for collecting data related to values held by the members and the structural changes the groups were experiencing. A conclusion was reached that the reaction to change depended on how closely the values held by individuals within an organization coincided with the changes being proposed. Models are used that may have application in learning the importance of the establishment of organizational cultures that support environmental research, two-way communication, or honesty of communication values on the part of organizational members in maintaining an organization�s openness to change.

Anderson, L., & Anderson, D. (2001). The Change Leader�s Roadmap. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Arensberg, C. M. & A. H. Niehoff (1971). Introducing Social Change, 2nd Ed., Aldine - Atherton, Inc., Chicago. Conrad Arensberg, Columbia University, along with Solon Kimball, University of Florida is recognized as one of the two anthropologist who provided �much of the theoretical and methodological groundwork for the development of applied anthropology.� (Eddy & Partridge 1978, 19.) (Kuklick 2008, 330). This book provides the process anthropologists have identified for the accomplishment of change in social groups. The process has been identified with field studies and carefully recorded observations. Current writers in anthropology confirm the process, motivations and strategies. Arensberg and Niehoff explain the process in an easy to follow narrative supported with examples.

Beckhard, R., & Harris, R. (1987). Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change, 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

Beer, M., & Nohria, N. (2000, May-Jun). Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review, p. 137.

Beitler, M. S. (2006). Strategic Organizational Change, 2nd ed. Greensboro, NC: Practitioner Press International.

Bennis, W. G., Benne, K. D., & Chin, R. (Eds.) (1985). The Planning of Change, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. Some 40 authors look at planned change; the conscious, deliberate, and collaborative effort to improve the operations of a human system. The book opens with examination of the controversial history of planned change, looks at theories and applications from many academic perspectives and concludes with the value dilemmas faced by managers of human systems in facilitating change.

Burke, W. W. (2002). Organizational Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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Budd, Jr., J. F. (2008). Too Many Geese; Too Few Swans. Turtle Publishing Co. Although not a book on the topic of change, Budd�s book is relevant in stressing the importance of holistic public relations importance and why public relations executives must move away from a marketing support mentality. He cuts to the quick in pointing out that if public relations is to have a strategic role on organizational management teams, public relations must be able to anticipate changes in public opinion and be able to add this knowledge to management decisions.

Cameron, E., Green, M., (2004). Making Sense of Change Management, London: Kogan Press.

Carr, D. K., Hard, K. J., & Trahant, W. J. (1996). Managing the Change Process. Mc-Graw Hill.

Connor, P.E., Lake, L. K., & Stackman, R. W. (2003). Managing Organizational Change. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Cummings, T. G.., & Worley, C. G. (2005). Organization Development and Change, SouthWestern Press.

Dube, S. C. (1992). Understanding Change: Anthropological & Sociological Perspectives. A excellent explanation of the differences in how anthropologist and sociologist have looked at change. Dube provides an understanding of change theory as it has evolved in the world and explains the differences and reasons for them. Dube adds to understanding as to why a universal theory of change is being gradually abandoned and why an understanding of the management of change enriches our awareness of the contemporary situation and strengthens our ability to control and manage our future.

Duck, J. D. (2000). Managing change: The art of balancing. Harvard Business Review - OnPoint, p.114.

Eddy, E. & W. Partridge (1978). Applied Anthropology in America. New York: Columbia University Press.

Eccles, T. (1994). Succeeding with Change. London: McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Galavotti, C., Pappas-Deluca, K. A., & Lansky, A. ((2001). Modeling and Reinforcement to Combat HIV: The MARCH Approach to Behavior Change. American Journal of Public Health, Oct., 91 (10), 1601-1607.

MARCH provides two key approaches to behavioral change: Entertainment-education through broadcast media and interpersonal reinforcement at the community level and program evaluation implementation. Case studies of the applications of strategy for social change are provided in African countries where patterns of personal behavior have been thought in the past to be unalterable. The authors found that structural and environmental impediments to behavioral change are necessary before change could occur and that the starting point in Africa is for recognition and belief by individuals that they are capable of changing their own behavior. A role model story telling communication strategy appears to have been the answer where the existing real life narrative was changed to a narrative that would allow individual empowerment in the achievement of the needed behavioral changes. This was followed with interpersonal reinforcement through community-level support.

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Gilley, J. W., et. al. (2001). The Manager as Change Agent. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.

Geyer, E. M., (2002). IT-Enabled Organizational Change: A Framework for Management, Journal of Library Administration, 36 (4), 67-81.

The author recognizes that Information Technology (IT) is an extremely influential force in the workplace and a major change force factor. Geyer concludes that IT-enabled change must be strategically driven, part of an enterprise-wide plan, system or environment and managed in the same context.

Greif, A. & Laitin, D. D. (2004). A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change. American Political Science Review, 98 (4), Nov. 633-652.

Using game theory and the histories of Venice, Genoa, Nigeria, and Estonia, the authors look at why and how self-enforcing institutions influence long term survival. In particular, the paper asks (a) why and how institutions change, (b) how an institution persists in a changing environment, and (c) how processes that it unleashes lead to its own demise. The research model has application in determining communication, research, and value needs in maintaining two-way symmetrical organizations capable of responding to rapid social change.

Gross, N., J. B. Giacquinta, & M. Bernstein (1971). Implementing Organizational Innovation: A Sociological Analysis of Planned Change, Basic Books, NY.

Hayward, P., & Voros, J. (2005). Creating the experience of social change. Australian Foresight Institute, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, Vic. 3122, Australia, 1-7. Retrieved Sept. 27, 2008 from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V65-4HTCW30-5&_user=2139813&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000054276&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=2139813&md5=9bd2f468e927d948f4c3ed25af773415

Two Australians provide cultural insight into theory originating in India as to how cultural change occurs. Application of the theory is explained in a classroom setting using a game experience. The mission of application is to help create the next generation of foresight practitioners with a recognition of a responsibility to serve broad social needs and not merely the needs of a dominant social class.

Hipple, J. R. and F. Verdigets. (Spring, 2008). Transformers: The Five Elements of Transforming Corporate Culture. In The Public Relations Strategists. Vol. 14, No. 2, Public Relations Society of America. Hipple and Verdigets outline and explain their process for changing corporate cultures.

Kanter, R. M. (1993). The Change Masters. New York: Simon & Shuster.

Kimball, S. (1946). In The Crisis in Colonial Administration. Applied Anthropology 5: 8-16.

Harrington, H. J., Conner, D. R., & Horney, N. L. (2000). Project Change Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Heath, R. L. (Ed) (2001). Handbook of Public Relations. Sage Publications. A valuable resource on symmetrical public relations and communication performance. Cyberspace use and information on trends relating to globalization are also covered. Everett also provides a chapter on the ecology of organizational change.

Heath, R. L. and R. A. Nelson (1986). Issues Management: Corporate Public Policymaking in an Information Society. Sage Publications. The first in-depth study of corporate image and issues management. The books provides information on issue monitoring and discusses need in the new corporate information environment.

Jackson, S. (2001). Leadership and Change Management: Leading Change. Cranfield University Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham.

Jick, T. D. (1993). Managing Change. Burr Ridge, IL: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Kotter, J. P. (1990). A Force for Change. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 73, pp. 59-67.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading Change. HBS Press.

Kotter, J. P., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1997, Mar-Apr). Choosing Strategies for Change. Harvard Business Review.

Kotter, J. P., & Cohen, D. S. (2002). The Heart of Change. HBS Press.

Kuklick, H. (Ed.) (2008). A New History of Anthropology. Blackwell Publishing. Merrill Singer, an applied anthropologist now working in the health field, provides a chapter on �Applied Anthropology� that builds understanding as to why applied anthropology has had difficulty in gaining academic respectability. Emerging as recently as the 1970s and 80s, Singer shows that acceptance of the accomplishment of change when applied to the health needs of social groups has been achieved but that many other social applications remain highly debatable in the academic community. Because public relations involves the change of behaviors and opinions of social groups, usually in the self interest of organizations, Singer allows us to understand why research on social change applicable to public relations has been slow in development. His review of the history of development of applied anthropology helps us understand why the ethics of �Public Relations� application continues to be questioned and will continue to be as long as the change goals of organizations and governments are viewed as being less related to the public interest than to institutional management interests.

Leban, B. & Stone, R. (2008). Managing Organizational Change. John Wiley & Sons.

This textbook explores concepts, theories and techniques that address the successful planning and implementation of strategic change across an organization. The authors, both management professors, look at how individuals, groups, and the organization can improve their ability to move through the change process. The focus is on employee change where change is needed in anticipation of future events, in response to actions of competitors, for fundamental redirection of an organization, or for strategic reactive change necessitated by external events

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threatening the existence of an organization. Easy to read and follow with good supporting cases.

Lippitt, R., J. Watson, and B. Wesley. (1958). The Dynamics of Planned Change, New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.

Luecke, R. (2003). Managing Change and Transition. (Harvard Business Essentials). Harvard Business School Press.

Lukaszewski, J. E. (2008). Why Should the Boss Listen to You? The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor. Jossey-Bass. Lukaszewski provides valuable insight into what top executives want and how public relations executives can improve their communication with management.

Martin, J. (1995). The Great Transition: Using the Seven Disciplines of Enterprise Engineering to Align People, Technology, and Strategy. AMACOM, American Management Association, NY, NY. Martin approaches change like an engineer in applying an orderly progression of tasks designed to change an enterprise. He sees the need to measure how the transition is proceeding followed by correction when it is needed. Both TQM and Value Stream Reinvention are a part of his strategies. Enterprise redesign is seen as the solution.

McGrath, C. & Krackhardt, D. (2003). Network Conditions for Organizational Change, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 39 (3) Sept. 324-336.

Because opinion leaders are viewed as the leverage points for change, the authors describe three different network theories of change and the underlying assumptions and implications of each model. Model 1: Dense Integration Through External Ties (E-1) is described as a strongly connected social network based on friendships allowing center managed change. Model 2: Viscosity and Isolation, is almost the exact opposite where change planted at the periphery carries less threat until a critical mass support is achieved for an innovation. Model 3: Variance in Ties and Structural Leverage, is based on a mathematical principle of networks that has seen some attention in sociology and marketing which assumes change is likely to result from diffusion of information about the change. The authors see the theories as less contradictory than they are complementary and feel they suggest that part of the dialogue in organizational change should be the shape and characteristics of the overall network before deciding on any strategy for change. The article suggests many research opportunities related to network communication analysis and needs and the effectiveness of methodologies.

McWhinney, W. (1992). Paths of Change: Strategic Choices for Organizations and Society. Sage Publications. A former president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology and a specialist in designing educational programs in management in human and organizational systems, McWhinney brings insight to the process of change that looks at the realities of behavior, leadership and follower relations, creativity, and the need for new modes in making choices in complex situations. He provides an examination of the changing needs for change, the process, paths of resolution, and the cultures of leaders and followers. His insight deserves the examination of both practitioner and scholar where the specialization is change.

Mourier, P., & Smith, M. (2001). Conquering Organizational Change. CEP Press.

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Murray, E. J., & Richardson, P. R. (2000). Fast Forward: Organizational Change in 100 Days. Oxford University Press.

Murray, E. J., & Richardson, P. R. (2003, March-April). Fast forward: a new framework for rapid organizational change. Ivey Business Journal.

Nadler, D. (1998). Champions of Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2006). Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Realities & Challenges, 5th ed. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.

Pasmore, W. A. (1994). Creating Strategic Change. John Wiley & Sons.

Pascale, R., & Milemann, M. (1997, Dec.). Changing the way we change. Harvard Business Review, p. 127.

Pettigrew, A., & Whipp, R. (1993). Managing Change for Competitive Success. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Potts, R., & LaMarsh, J. (2004). Master Change, Maximize Success. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational Culture. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Schwartz, B. & Ewald, R. H. (1968).Culture and Society: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, The Ronald Press Company, New York. Two anthropology educators provide an understanding of how anthropologists see human nature, culture and the application of anthropology. Two strong chapters address the processes of culture change using anthropology applications. While the authors outline the needs of cultural anthropologists in serving as consultants to organizations, it is clear that knowledge of anthropology and of cultures exists on the part of public relations consultants and managers when the goal is to advance change among employee, consumer or social groups.

Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G., & Smith, B. (1999). The Dance of Change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations, Currency/Doubleday. An encyclopedia of strategic planning, cultural change, discussion of innovation, assessment, credibility, and mistakes to avoid. To some degree, something for everyone with change responsibilities. The reason for lack of focus and repetition relates to the fact chapters have been written by the many authors rather than through collaboration. Yet, if you have formulated or selected a model for change and seek additional information helpful in planning, you will pick up valuable points in perfecting your plan.

Senior, B., & Fleming, J., (2006). Organizational Change. England: Pearson Eation Limited.

Siegal, W., Church, A. H., et. al. (1996). Understanding the management of change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 9, No. 6, p. 59.

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Stacks, D. W. (2002). Primer of Public Relations Research. The Guilford Press. Stacks provides information on the use of case studies and content analysis valuable in trend analysis and provides information of value in conducting public opinion surveying.

Worren, N. A. M., Ruddle, K., Moore, K. (1999). From Organizational Development to Change Management: The Emergence of a New Profession, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, (38) 3, Sept., 273-286.

The article describes the emergence of change management as a service offering on the part of consulting firms, compares change management with traditional organizational development, and argues that change management has the potential to become a discipline uniting different �thought worlds�.

Zaltman, G. and R. Duncan. (1977). Strategies for Planned Change. John Wiley & Sons. Zaltman and Duncan provide a strong chapter in their book on social change on the many reasons for the resistance to change on the part of social groups and a useful chapter in understanding the various criteria to consider in the effective use of persuasive strategies.

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