Navigating Organizational Change: An Explorative Case Study in Acceptance and Success When Changing Operational Change

Abstract

Background:
Change is something all organizations experience, and in the fast-paced business-world that is today, the ability to change needs to be higher than ever. The problem is, individuals hate change, it is in our genes to resist it, which complicates how organizations can navigate the change-landscape. To solve this, new ways to work with change arise every day and the latest trend: change management. Words like complex, resistant, and successful is imprinted in change work, but how are they connected? And what happens with the individuals and their connectedness to the organization as an entity when organizations start changing change? This thesis question this in relation to change ability and acceptance, for large, product-focused organizations.

Purpose:
This thesis’ purpose is to analyze the situation of an organization’s changed way-of-working in regard to change, identify factors affecting the approach, and address the extent of which relevant factors affect acceptance and success within change, as well as, proposing how these can be strengthened by strategic adjustments in the future.

Research Questions:
RQ1: How is the current approach for executing change initiatives structured and supported within an organization?
RQ2: In what ways do an organization’s structural and cultural networks influence employees’ acceptance of their operative change ability?
RQ3: How, and to what extent, does acceptance affect change initiatives’ success within an organization’s operative change ability?
RQ4: How can the change initiatives’ approach be modified to further accommodate structural and cultural networks within an organization?

Delimitations:
This thesis regards a case study of a large organization, recently changing how they work with change. In studying this case, it addresses the entire organization, however limited to individuals having connections to the change work. It is further limited to the Swedish operations, providing a perspective of all level projects and change for different reasons. Lastly, it is limited to contributing success factors of change specifically related to having recently changed operations on change-work.

Methodology:
This thesis conducts a multi-strategy research approach, explorative case study that triangulates its findings from three distinct empirical collection methods: Archival document study, qualitative interview period, and quantitative questionnaire period.

Results:
Results include The Company feel dissatisfaction with how the current change-work is within the organization. Areas in need of improvement is marketing change, including follow-up of the change initiative, and going all the way with implementing changes. The Net Promoter Score of the approach is -15.3 overall, however, with significant differences in target groups and divisions. Finally, twelve critical success factors were statistically determined as most important and combined into the Pillars of Success- framework.

Conclusion:
The approach is clearly defined, with less support of the change work as a whole. Structural and cultural networks do highly affect acceptance through several mediums such as memory, marketing, relations, and specifically CSFs. Not only does acceptance highly influence success, but success does also highly influence acceptance. From this, the Hain-Fransson Pillars of Success framework is developed. Clear recommendations are given to strengthen the approach and way-of-working with change, accommodating structural and cultural networks focusing on adding a follow-up step to the approach and support activities surrounding the approach. The thesis fulfills its purpose to a high quality of research, proven by the validation of empirical findings. It further contributes largely to practical and theoretical situations, through the findings of RQ4 to The Company and development of new theory to academia. Suggestions on future research include testing and validating all developed findings.

Popular Abstract

Did Your Company Catch a Case of The “I Don’t Wanna Change”-Disease? Here’s How You Solve It.

The cure for change-o-phobia is here! Twelve Critical Success Factors encapsuling five Pillars of Success lets your change go from idea to reality. Turning the nay-sayers into yay-sayers, this framework is the ultimate solution.



Change is unsettling for humans, but it’s evolution’s entry fee, for people and for companies, for long-term survival. In a change-landscape, ghosts of the past come to haunt the living, in the shape of bad change-memories. Then, companies trying to modernize and change are often met with resistance. Much like catching a cold, the company hosting the “I Don’t Wanna Change”-Disease must prescribe medicine to cure it. The prescription is not a pill but the dedication of time and resources to enable the change initiative. To help are five Pillars of Success composed of twelve Critical Success Factors in change initiatives. Following three months of research, a framework to help companies navigate organizational change and reduce resistance and transform the change into a competitive advantage.

Before discussing the Pillars of Success further, what do they cure, what is change disease? Change disease occurs when individuals within the company don't want to change. They resist it and don’t see the point in changing. This leads to a disease spreading throughout the company of low proactivity, unconstructive culture, and low engagement. And spreading the disease is the employees. They influence each other and prevent the company from maturing, which negatively impacts profitability and competitiveness long-term.

In the world as we know it, technology and trends change fast and companies need to adapt with it to survive. Agility promotes success, but not many companies navigate it efficiently. There is a need for more efficient and effective change abilities to efficiently reach success. And change-success means company-success. Done by decreasing resistance and promoting acceptance to employees. Companies succeeding with adapting their operations can gain increased capacity and reduced costs. And one level up? Healthier employees, a more mature organization, and an improved bottom-line. Safe to say, the company is better off becoming adaptive towards change, curing the disease. But the question remains; how do we do this?

Now, the Pillars of Success enter. Illustrating the connections between people, the company, and how to utilize it for success. Each pillar is just as important as the other and companies should start acknowledging this. These Critical Success Factors ensure that no pillar is being neglected in change. Increasing the probability of having successful change at your company.

Sounds easy enough, right? How come it’s still so hard to create real change in companies? We would agree, it’s nothing more than packaging common sense as clearly as possible. This is what navigating change is; packaging common sense. And while studies have explored this tirelessly, seldom do they acknowledge that we humans miss things. After conducting research within a company, we identified twelve Critical Success Factors, three of them hadn’t been addressed in previous literature. Now, we’re not saying we’re not as dumb as the next guy. But would like to acknowledge that it’s easy to overlook the obvious. One element that we found to be missing was ownership. It’s the missing pillar in research and now the structure is complete. At least for now, until things change and we too fall victim to the fast-paced world we live in.

Utilizing the pillars enables for more successful changes. Successful change decreases bad change-memories that hinders people from accepting the next change. Accepting the next change increases the probability of it being successful. A wonderful loop of positivity for companies’ in change. Employee resistance is a major reason for why change initiatives fail. It highlights the need for putting individuals at the center of change, because in the end, it’s the people that create, drive and sustain the change. This study helps companies cure the “I Don’t Wanna Change”-Disease, and now you can too!

• author: Fransson, Samuel and Hain, Filippa
• supervisor: Ola Alexanderson
• organization: Department of Mechanical Engineering Sciences; Production Management
• course: MIOM05 20251
• year: 2025
• type: H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
• subject: Technology and Engineering
• keywords: Change, Change Work, Change Management, Change Acceptance, Change Success, Change Ability, Organizational Ability, Organizational Change, Change Resistance, Marketing Change, Implementing Change, Surrounding Change, Change Individual, CSFs, Pillars of Success
• other publication id: 25/5305
• language: English
• id: 9193514
• date added to LUP: 2025-06-17 16:34:49
• date last changed: 2025-06-17 16:34:49