Executive summary

Maxis is Malaysia's leading telecommunications company and market leader with a total mobile
phone subscriber base of more than seven million, as at 31 December 2005. Maxis continues to
enhance how people communicate and live with an impressive array of innovative products and
services. Surpassing the seventh million mark has become a milestone in our list of
achievements. Maxis’ expansion into Indonesia and India is another milestone in our aspiration
to be a regional communications operator. The acquisition of a 51% stake in PT Natrindo
Telepon Seluler (NTS), Indonesia and a 74% equity interest in Aircel, India will provide
tremendous growth opportunities for Maxis. These acquisitions give Maxis a strong foothold in
two of the world’s most attractive high-growth, low-penetration markets, while diversifying our
market base.

Apart from that, Maxis was the first to launch 3G Connect Card, PC Webmail, Video Mail and
3G prepaid. They are having significantly increased the 3G service coverage since its launch in
July 2005, catering to more than 740 sites across Malaysia. Their growing high-performance 3G
network offers mobile telephony at broadband speeds enabling Internet access throughout
Malaysia. Both mobile phone and laptop users can now enjoy enhanced communication
combined with extensive entertainment and information on the go, such as video calls, live
mobile TV, games and wireless broadband Internet with transfer speeds of up to 384 kilobits per
second. The aim: affordable, instant access with real time-results.

Purpose of study

Maxis’s main challenge today, of adapting effectively to a rapid changing and often hostile
environment of telecommunication networking industry. Everything change too fast until the
company is unable to cope with rapid pace. The case study of Maxis tells us about the company
make a generation shifts at the top management (management team) in order to confront
changing business environment and global competition.

The paper aims to analyze the implementation of change in Maxis in order to deal with changing
market environment and to shift to the updated telecommunication technology, 3G. It is
questionable whether Maxis implement a generational shift that would help its organization to be
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competitive in global market. In this paper will discuss (a) importance of change and why is it
necessary to be competitive. (b) how successfully Maxis can manage the change process to adopt
to the new technology which they going to adopt (c) importance of organizational change in
Maxis and how the ways to successfully implement in Maxis are.

Introduction

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The proposed case clearly shows the need for Maxis to leap into the field of 3G technology in
telecommunication network in Malaysia so as to compete with its healthy partners. This is one
prominent way where Maxis can evolve into a greater customer segment on what it is having
right now. BY adapting itself into the 3G technology in its telecommunications world, which
offers services that allows for video streaming and other data-intensive service. Wireless
Industry felt that 3G was critical for them to be able to offer high-bandwidth services to their
customers, or risk losing them to their competitors. Third generation mobile phones (3G) are at
the introduction stage and lucrative trend. Maxis were able to achieve market leadership because
its constant efforts towards developing a corporate culture, which fostered innovation.
Maintaining market leadership in the ever-changing telecommunications industry isn't easy. But
with the vision and dedication of its key personnel, Maxis has a clear advantage over the
competition. Success and winning only comes naturally when the right people initiate and lead
the charge to victory. The vision and mission of Maxis played a very important role in fostering
innovation. As a company that aspires to be the best, we are driven by a set of values that: serves
as a guiding principle in all our relationships, internally and externally, unifies and motivates our
staff, provides clarity in our decision making, defines the way we conduct business to the
community (Maxis website, 2004).

Moreover, Maxis has been able build a good relationship with its suppliers, partners, clients and
even direct competitor. The most important factors contributing to Nokia’s success is its
willingness to listen to customers and focus all its activities on customer satisfaction. This fact is
apparent in its strategy, structure, resource allocation, as well as its products and services. This
contributes to its success in the long run.

The case will be describing on the importance of change in the management that Maxis should
implement in order to cope with the new technology which it is going to adopt for its competitive
success for its long term success. The first part of the case describes the importance of why
Maxis should go itself on the change for adopting with the 3G technology. The second part of the
report elaborates to the board of directors in Maxis regarding the ways where Maxis can carry
out a successful change in the organization in order to adapt with the technology, 3G. The final
part of the report explains on the various ways where Maxis can successfully create an

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organizational learning intervention in order to create more effective and efficient way of
operating along wit the technology (Wenger, 1998).

Company Background

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Maxis is Malaysia's leading telecommunications company and market leader with a total mobile
phone subscriber base of more than seven million, as at 31 December 2005. Surpassing the
seventh million mark has become a milestone in our list of achievements. Maxis continue to
enhance how people communicate and live with an impressive array of innovative products and
services. Maxis provide high quality voice and data services to more than seven million
customers. Its mobile postpaid and prepaid services are offered under the Maxis and Hotlink
brands respectively. Maxis also offer domestic fixed line and international gateway services. Its
broadband infrastructure includes fiber optic, microwave and VSAT technologies (Watkins,
1993).

To support the changing business landscape, we continually ensure that our employee
competencies are upgraded through ongoing training at the Maxis academy. In addition, safety
awareness is also a priority. Maxis implements progressive human resource policies to ensure
our employees' well-being. Finally, as we forge ahead, we will continue to focus on creating
value for our customers, stakeholders, employees and the community in which we operate, whilst
maintaining the highest standards of professionalism and integrity.

1.0 Change Management for competitive advantage

To excel in today’s business climate, organizations must continually deliver differentiated

products and services that provide high business value. Even the most successful enterprises can
experience failure because they unsuccessfully manage change in software development. With
more demand than ever for IT to quickly and accurately achieve and support corporate
objectives, IT organizations must cope with a continuous barrage of changes—changes in
product requirements, technology, development processes, and deployment environments. As a
result, telecommunication companies can only successfully deliver newer technology assets and
applications to their current customers and attract new customer base through proactive
management of change. The single, most constant factor in telecommunication companies is
change (Becher, 1989). Telecommunication providing organizations and project teams must deal
with rapidly changing business and product requirements, development methodologies, delivery
technologies, and application architectures.
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The case for recommending changes in successful firms is usually built on environmental
changes, such as changes in markets and technologies. Environmental changes can cause the
competitive strength of a successful firm to erode if it does not adapt. This argument is true, but
it is limited to highly dynamic environments. A more general case for changing successful firms
can also be made. Managers of successful firms may have ideas for how to press their advantage
so that the firm can become even more successful. The ideas may be untried and risky, but so are
changes done in unsuccessful firms. Why such ideas are often rejected in successful
organizations? The answer is that the same amount of risk is less appealing to managers of
successful firms than managers of unsuccessful firms. Later I will show that this risk aversion in
successful firms makes sense in some competitive environments, but not in others (Brown,
1995).

In this particular scenario, for Maxis, there are compelling reasons to believe that 3G will work
around the skepticisms surrounding the technology and succeed. The 3-G network is broadband
and 6 times faster than GPRS and three times faster than EDGE (Maxis Website). With its
abilities to deliver video-based services, it opens the door to a brand new communications
medium whereby the mobile experience is made more diverse, more interactive and more
enjoyable than its technological predecessors. With 3G in maxis, the telecom users will be able
to not only talk to each other but also to see each other face-to-face and share special moments as
they happen to us. We get access to content; especially live TV and video streaming that is more
diverse, richer and a lot more engaging. But the more compelling reason for adopting 3G is the
easy access to broadband connectivity on your mobile device and your laptop, anytime,
anywhere - and you don't have to look for Internet cables or phone lines ever again. I think that
this is truly a great advantage in favour of 3G at this point due to the low broadband service
penetration we have now. Above all, for mobile operators, 3G provides growth as the market for
voice telephony matures. Data is set to rule the communications industry of the future and thus,
3G would be a service to look forward to. Some of the major benefits that Maxis will be reaping
by the proposed change management would be:

• The need to reinvent the business as the business environment changes

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As the competitive pressures increase, the company needs to rethink his business strategy and
position in the value chain. One solution – contributing both to differentiation and cost leader
strategies – is to simplify the value chain and move closer to customers through mobile services
(Ollila, 2000).

• The need to be able to focus on the most differentiating activities

Most operators still want to differentiate with new mobile services, content and portals. All of
these require extensive efforts to develop, launch and market with increasing time-to-market
pressures. Being able to focus on these most differentiating activities is a significant benefit –
while the technological environment is becoming more complex (Moorehead, 1997).

• The need to improve operational efficiency

No matter of the operator's competitive strategy, there is a need to increase the cost efficiency of
basic technical operations. And after usual process optimization and competence development,
the main source for cost efficiency is economies of scale. For very large operators and
international operator groups it is possible to gain significant economies of scale in-house. Small
and medium sized operators should consider also whether a managed service provider could
deliver benefits for their business by creating higher economies of scale on their behalf
(Schermerhorn, 1997).

• The need to improve quality of services and operations

If Maxis manages the operations and network properly with necessary capacity increases and
modernization, the quality of service will be meeting the customer's expectations. However, the
quality is unlikely to be a differentiating factor as all the operators can deliver the same. But the
new mobile services and applications provide excellent possibilities for quality differentiation
and grabbing market share – in a certain time window (Handy, 1989). The operator should make
the most out of this with the chosen help of the experienced managed service provider.

• The need to manage technology and operational challenges

In traditional operator-vendor relationships, the operator has responsibility for deploying mobile
services - network technologies, billing and customer care readiness. This integration

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responsibility has a fair share of risk involved in it. Managed services contract can be set up in a
way to reduce this technology and operational risk, linking service provider’s incentives to
operator’s business objectives. The importance of these drivers differs from one operator to
another, so each of these drivers needs to be considered carefully. Since outsourcing of technical
operations is such a major change, it should be based on the correct and well considered reasons.

The change process can be thought of a process which stops the current process, makes the
necessary changes to the current process and the run the new process. It is easy said than
implemented. Stopping a current process in some industry is fatal for that organization. Hence it
has to be done in steps which have the minimal effect in the process. These changes can not take
place for a longer time in the organization since that may also be a disaster for the organization.
The involvement of the staff concerned is also very important for the change process to be
smooth. The change process could also be considered as a problem solving situation. The change
that is taking place could be the result of a problem that has occurred. You should know that a
problem is a situation that requires some action to be taken positively to handle that situation.
This positive action is known as problem solving. The change process could be problem solving
for a particular situation. In this process there is a move from one to state to another so that the
problem gets solved. The change process is leaving the current state and moving to the final state
through some structured organized process (Brown, 1995).

Hence change management plays an important role in an organization. This allows the
organization to give a reactive or a proactive response to the changes that happen internally or
externally. Knowing the change management and its process would help an organization and it s
processes to be stable. While management design and implement strategies that deliver
improvement in performance, they often neglect one key area for success. “Managing the
change” Change management is important because understanding this change and its effect on
the organization and its people minimizes disruptive aspects and enhances positive opportunities
in the change process. These opportunities can include containing costs, realigning resources and
respond more quickly to customer demands. The results of effective change management
produce greater clarity of strategic imperatives including organizational readiness; strong
organization alignment; targeted leadership development designed to support evolving roles and
responsibilities; improvement across several performance metrics with radical increases in
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employee satisfaction representing a key indicator of success. Provide your transition and change
teams what they deserve ... accelerated readiness and resistance response resulting in greater
value creation for all stakeholders. Change will happen faster, vulnerabilities will be much better
managed.

2.0 Fostering successful change management in Maxis

Managing the changes in an organization requires a broad set of skills like political skills,
analytical skills, people skills, system skills, and business skills. Having good analytical skills
will make you a good change agent. You should evaluate the financial and political impacts of
the changes that can take place. You should know that following a particular process at that
instant would fetch you immediate financial effects and start that process so that the change
process is noted by the management. The workflow has to be changed in such a manner to reflect
the financial changes that are taking place. Operations and systems in the organization should be
reconfigured in such a manner that you get the desired financial impact.

Successful management improvement efforts require the active involvement of managers and
staff throughout the organization to provide ideas for improvements and supply the energy and
expertise needed to implement changes. Employees at all levels of high-performing
organizations participate in--and have a stake in--improving operational and program
performance to achieve results. Our work has shown that high-performing organizations use a
number of strategies and techniques to effectively involve employees, including (1) fostering a
performance oriented culture, (2) working to develop a consensus with unions on goals and
strategies, (3) providing the training that staff need to work effectively, and (4) devolving
authority while focusing accountability on results. Employees in high-performing organizations
understand the importance of and the connection between their performance and the
organization’s success. The failure to constructively involve staff in an organization’s
improvement efforts means running the risk that the changes will be more difficult and
protracted than necessary (Becher, 1989).

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The various steps for a successful organizational change in Maxis can be carried out through the
following steps:

Form the coalition.

Once we create the commitment of what we want to our vision to be, the second step is to form a
coalition of all stakeholders. It's not only your senior management, but it is everyone that is
involved with your company as well. You must include both internal and external members of
your organization. Because we work as a turnkey asset management provider to independent
financial advisors, we needed their agreement to this commitment if we were going to move
forward successfully.

Don't underestimate the time you will need to form your coalition. All of us react negatively to
change initially. We all need time to digest and understand "what's in it for me." Each of your
stakeholders will be hearing it for the first time. You need to allow them time and provide them
with information to reach their own conclusion that it is not only in the firm's best interest, but
also in their own interest to help make this commitment a reality.

Envision the future.

Paint a picture of what the firm is going to look like when this journey and transformation are
complete. Many individuals who are part of your team will have difficulty understanding what
the changes you are attempting to incorporate into the business really mean. They are going to
ask how the change is going to affect the company and, more importantly, each individual within
the company.

We showed how, by offering these services, we would be able to grow significantly faster while
providing our clients with a much higher value service, and that this would create more
opportunities for each of our stakeholders. At the same time, if we didn't change, we were going
to fall behind in the industry, leaving fewer opportunities for employees, becoming a less
important partner in our financial advisors' growth, and not doing all that we could in assisting
our investors to achieve their financial goals. It was not a very tough decision for our
stakeholders once they had the information and time to confirm our vision (Aldrich, 1999).
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How do you see your future? Use your imagination to visualize what you would like your firm to
be in five years. Share this vision with your group. Visualization will help guide you to the
commitment that you will need to make to build the firm you want. It will also help your
stakeholders assist you if they share your vision of the future. Very few great things in life are
every created by a single individual, so allow your team to share in creating your new company
with you.

Begin the transformation.

To begin, put together a step-by-step action plan with dates, milestones, and who's responsible
for the achievement of each. It easier to paint a picture of your future than it is to get started
creating it. However, it is empowering to reduce the steps necessary to create the future into
manageable steps. Let's say that five years out you want to triple your asset under management
while providing your clients with continuously improved private client services. By the fifth year
you out, you want to deliver services that rivals what private banks offer. For many this
commitment might be overwhelming. But if you break down all the steps you need to take by
month, it can easily become a reality (Argyris, 1999).

Successful change is a real challenge because no one reacts well to change except the person that
is driving it. When change comes, we all tend to immediately put our hands up and try to figure
out how to avoid it. Behaviorists tell us that 80 percent of us are reactive thinkers who will do
anything to avoid change. Twenty percent of us are creative thinkers, meaning we initially try to
avoid the change, but then examine and judge whether it's a good change or a bad change. If we
think it is a good change we will incorporate it into our lives. If creative thinkers believe it is a
change for the worse, they will just figure out ways to go around it.

The only way to ensure that change occurs smoothly is to have a road map that outlines the
process that you will incorporate into your firm to make it work for your benefit.

Embed it in the culture.

Everything you're doing should be consistent with the commitment. In so doing, you create a
new culture. In our case, our commitment was to wealth management for private clients. We
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wanted to provide the best advice to private clients available in regards to their life management
issues. So we had to in effect destroy our old company and create a new company that would be
able to achieve the results we wanted (Becher, 1989). With every action we took, we asked
ourselves if it was consistent with what we wanted to achieve. It is so easy to get side-tracked in
our industry. Most of us are very tactical in our strategy so that we move from opportunity to
opportunity and never give ourselves the chance to reach the next level of success. You have to
establish systems in your organization that will embed both you commitment and vision of the
future in your organization. We have established meetings where each employee gets together
with their team leader and the team leaders get together with senior management to make sure
we stay on track.

Accelerate the pace.

Create a sense of urgency. It's important to recognize that most of us, in reacting to change, want
to slow it down; but if we accelerate it, we can move ahead. There is no shortage of reasons for
changing your firm. Help everyone see the increased competition and the need to differentiate
yourself from all the other firms. Let them understand the likely outcome if you don't make the
changes. Let them know that it is okay to be uncomfortable with change but that the winner in
business will always be the one who most effectively adapts to the new environment. The
rewards of winning are great. Asked them if they have every have been on a team that made
things happen, whether in business or in sports. Many will have and will know about the
excitement and the feeling of satisfaction that only a winning team can bring.

Continuously reinvent yourself.

Start the journey all over again, recognize that there is no "there." There is no final destination
for this journey; it's a continual process. The world is constantly changing. Think of some of the
largest firms in our industry only twenty years ago that are no longer here. They stop reinventing
themselves (Wenger, 1998). You owe it to all of your stakeholders to be all that you are capable
of being. These seven steps will help you make it a reality.

Because it is important to start with determining the business goal, it’s critical to establish
organizational priorities. The business goal ideally should be quantitative and time bound, and it
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needs to be a legitimate focus of the business. Additionally, some may be convinced that
something is the real business goal when they’ve really only stated a possible way to meet a goal.
These are instances where the goal stated actually implies or assumes other targets (Handy,
1995). One example is employee morale, a common issue for many organizations. Plenty of
organizations do an organizational climate study, a culture audit, or an employee survey and
discover that employee morale is low. Senior management is then mobilized to do something
about the morale problem, and that’s when someone usually gets called into the office of the vice
president of HR to find out that the new high-priority assignment is to improve company morale.

Clarity of purpose and terminology is an issue with any type of organizational change project,
but is particularly important for knowledge management. The terms used in this realm—
“knowledge,” “information,” “organizational learning”—are subject to varied use and
interpretation. The successful knowledge management projects we found had paid attention to
this issue, often by excluding some issues and concepts from their charters (Becher, 1989).

One way high-performing organizations can enhance employee involvement and gain agreement
on an organization’s goals and strategies is by developing partnerships with employee unions.
The U.S. Postal Service’s long-standing challenges in labor-management relations illustrate the
importance of having a shared set of long-term goals and strategies agreed upon by managers,
employees, and unions. As we have reported, labor-management relations at the Postal Service
have been characterized by disagreements that have, among other things, hampered efforts to
automate some postal systems that could have resulted in savings and helped the Service reach
its performance goals.12 Although there has been some progress, problems persist and continue
to contribute to higher mail processing and delivery costs. To help the Postal Service resolve its
problems, we have long recommended that the Service and its unions and management
associations establish a framework agreement to outline common goals. We have also noted that
the Results Act can provide an effective framework for union and management representatives to
discuss and agree upon goals and strategies (Watkins, 1993).

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High-performing organizations also seek to involve and engage employees by devolving
authority to lower levels of the organization. Employees are more likely to support changes when
they have the necessary amount of authority and flexibility--along with commensurate
accountability and incentives--to advance the agency’s goals and improve performance.
Allowing employees to bring their expertise and judgement to bear in meeting their
responsibilities can help agencies capitalize on their employees’ talents, leading to more
effective and efficient operations and improved customer service

3.0 Improve knowledge-sharing and management: Organizational Learning

In order for Maxis to out do its performance in this competitive environment, organizational
learning is the fastest and efficient way.

Definition: Organizational Learning

Organizational learning is the ‘activity and the process by which organizations eventually reach
th[e] ideal of a learning organization’ (Senge, 1990). Organizational learning is just a means in
order to achieve strategic objectives. But creating a learning organization is also a goal, since the
ability permanently and collectively to learn is a necessary precondition for thriving in the new
context. Therefore, the capacity of an organization to learn, that is, to function like a learning
organization, needs to be made more concrete and institutionalized, so that the management of
such learning can be made more effective (Dunphy, 1998).

Learning organizations [are] organizations where people continually expand their capacity to
create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured,
where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole
together. (Senge 1990: 3)

The Learning Company is a vision of what might be possible. It is not brought about simply by
training individuals; it can only happen as a result of learning at the whole organization level.
Learning Company is an organization that facilitates the learning of all its members and
continuously transforms itself. (De Geus, 1996)
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An important objective of the organizational learning process is to promote trust, dialogue and
networking among staff that can foster the formation of social capital and thereby contribute to
more dynamic communications, knowledge-sharing and management in the public service. Such
communication processes can either be facilitated or hindered by the existing institutional
structures in the public sector. In traditional bureaucracies, for example, institutional structures
and cultural characteristics are often not conducive to effective communications and knowledge-
sharing among staff, as mentioned earlier. Progressive and reform-minded organizations, on the
other hand, use technology and incentives in addition to normal person-to-person exchange to
encourage staff to share knowledge and to collaborate (Argyris, 1996).

Effective networking and teamwork may not only facilitate the timely completion of tasks but
also improve the quality of work. For instance, in cases when a long time may be spent in trying
to solve a particular problem, effective networking, collaboration and knowledge-sharing with
peers may reduce this time considerably and thereby contribute to organizational learning. The
most productive staff members in any organization are generally those with a very strong ability
to network and collaborate with both internal colleagues and external partners. The promotion of
a culture of networking, knowledge-sharing and collaboration is therefore an essential part of the
organizational learning process in the private as well as in public sectors.

There are significant hurdles to jump over in for public organizations attempting, particularly in
developing countries, to create an effective knowledge management system. First, staff often
have little incentive—financial or otherwise—to share knowledge with other colleagues. One
way to address this is to try to make knowledge-sharing an integral part of performance
assessment of staff. Another option is to recognize publicly the staff most active in knowledge-
sharing in the organization (Aguilar, 1967). Second, it is very difficult to capture the tacit
knowledge of staff. Doing so will require organizations to either encourage the more experienced
staff to mentor and coach the younger professionals or provide adequate opportunities for senior
public servants to document and codify their tacit knowledge. Third, resistance to change should
not be underestimated in any organization attempting to introduce knowledge management
practices. Many staff may be uncomfortable with sharing their knowledge with other colleagues.
Overcoming such resistance will require education and coaching of the staff concerned. Fourth,

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more openness and knowledge-sharing raise the question of how to create appropriate protocols
to handle sensitive and confidential information. All these issues need to be addressed in the
development of a knowledge management strategy in Maxis.
Various means of achieving organizational learning are:

Coaching

Coaching is a powerful teaching and learning process that can enhance learning and
effectiveness and help to achieve personal and organizational change. Coaching frequently is an
integral part of the process of planning and implementing other interventions, such as team
development, survey feedback, organization and process redesign, strategic leadership, and
large-group development activities. Coaching is defined as helping someone else expand and
apply his or her skills, knowledge, and attitudes. It generally takes place within a defined
context, such as a specific task, skill, or responsibility. Coaching might also be developing and
maintaining an ongoing developmental relationship with one or more of the organization’s rising
stars. In general, a successful coach helps others succeed through guiding, teaching, motivating,
and mentoring (Aldrich, 1999).

Promote mentoring programmes for staff

Organizational learning can be further facilitated in certain environments by fostering a culture

of mentoring among staff. Mentoring usually involves offering guidance and advice, particularly
when an experienced person imparts knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to a more junior
colleague in order to facilitate professional and career development. Mentoring relationships are
undoubtedly an untapped resource in the public service in many countries and the development
of such relationships needs to be facilitated (Argyris, 1978).

The use of mentoring as an instrument for organizational learning is by no means a new concept,
however. In some societies, the idea of mentoring is an integral part of the national culture. In
Japan, for instance, it is common practice, where the senior- junior relationship is an institution
in itself not only in the public service but throughout society. In other countries, the notion of a
mentoring relationship between a senior and junior person is not so widespread in society in
general, yet it is still well established in both the private and public sectors. It is also very
common in universities, where professors become mentors to their students. Providing career
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development through mentoring has also proven effective over time. Several countries (e.g.,
Singapore and the United Kingdom) have opted for fast-track programmes where high-flying
candidates are put on a path to senior management under the guidance and advice of mentors.
Sometimes mentoring by targeting the career development of a particular group within the public
service is able to serve several purposes.

Strategies for Improving Organizational Learning Capability

When starting to improve its learning capabilities, an organization may decide to focus on any
stage of the learning cycle -- knowledge acquisition, dissemination, or utilization. While it may
be possible or necessary to look at all three phases simultaneously, focusing on a single area is
more manageable (Argyris, 1999). The next task is to select an option for focus:

Improve on learning orientations. There are two reasons for selecting this option. First, the
organization may decide to shift its position on one or more learning orientations. Second, the
current pattern of learning orientations has resulted in identifiable strong competencies, so
improving or expanding them may be the best way to enhance the unit's learning capabilities.
This focus assumes that facilitating factors meet an acceptable standard and that more can be
accomplished by adding to the strong base established by the learning orientations.

Change both learning orientations and facilitating factors. An organization should select this
option when it sees the other variables as inadequate. This option assumes that large-scale
nchange is necessary and that changing one group of variables without changing the other will be
only partially successful (Hunter, 1996).

4.0 Conclusion

Each organizational unit or firm must make the decision to pursue one strategy or another for
itself. While there are no rules for making this decision, the three options are incrementally more
difficult to implement (i.e., one is the easiest to implement; three is the hardest). From the first to
the third options, the resistance to change within the organization increases significantly. It is one
thing to develop a plan for improving what is already done reasonably well; it is another to

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engage in nothing less than near-total transformation. It is one thing to stay within accepted,
assimilated paradigms; it is another to replace institutionalized models.

It could be argued that the notion of the learning organization provides managers and others with
a picture of how things could be within an organization (Senge, 1990). Along the way, writers
like Peter Senge introduce a number of interesting dimensions that could be personally
developmental, and that could increase organizational effectiveness – especially where the
enterprise is firmly rooted in the ‘knowledge economy. However, as we have seen, there are a
number of shortcomings to the model – it is theoretically underpowered and there is some
question as to whether the vision can be realized within the sorts of dynamics that exist within
and between organizations in a globalized capitalist economy. It might well be that ‘the concept
is being oversold as a near-universal remedy for a wide variety of organizational problems’
(March, 1999).

The models of organizational learning processes tend to start with knowledge acquisition, then
information interpretation and diffusion, to translation into action, and finally, storage in
organizational memory. The iterative nature of organizational learning processes is explicitly
recognized in some models, so the presentation of stages should not be seen as a simple linear
approach (see Pawlowsky, forthcoming). Although the current stage models of organizational
learning start with knowledge acquisition, when one observes the roles consultants play in
practice, additional preliminary phases become visible: the generation of an awareness of the
need to learn, and the definition of the problem to be dealt with. Consultants can be involved in
both content and process dimensions during these phases, in directive and non-directive ways.
They can share levels of activity with their clients to greater or lesser degrees of marginality and
centrality (Kofman, 1995).

References

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