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intends to achieve. In addition, respondent B further noted that, change is part of the strategy and that it encapsulates the composition of the bigger picture and all the resources required. Additionally, respondent B also supported the findings that, the company’s culture or way of doing things with regards to planning and communication of change is through meetings and informal discussions but all the strategic planning goes through board meetings. The involvement of staff in the planning of change suggests that the company values the input of the staff, and it also supports a view that leadership creates a conducive environment where everyone feels they are treated equally as important part of the company as their ideas and input considered valuable. This is in line with the study conducted by Malgas and Henrie Benedict (2017) who argued that it is important to involve all stakeholders in the communication of change process. In addition, leadership should not only convey the message of change, but they should also involve employees and seek their input before the proposed change is implemented. It is also essential for the leadership to clearly demonstrate that they value the ideas and input of staff (Malgas and Henrie Benedict, 2017). also add that, leaders are responsible for creating an environment that allows everyone to be involved and they should demonstrate their commitment and passion for change.
Moreover, respondent C further added his view by stating that planning of change begins at the top level although employees are included. In addition, responded A, B, C, D and E also acknowledged the importance of examining or scanning the external environment during the planning of change. Responded E and D also shared the same views that employees are part of the planning of change. It was clear that majority of the responded overwhelmingly shared the same viewpoint on the content and context of the planning of change. Responded B and D also pointed that management considers getting services from the consultancy if the company lacks the competency to develop some of the products.
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that, although participants had different viewpoints on some issues but overall, they shared a similar viewpoint on the majority of the issues. It was revealed, from the study that management or leadership of the organisation under investigation is responsible for ensuring that the resources are available for the implementation of change to be achieved. In addition, among the resources that were found to be essential for the implementation of change includes, financial resources, human resources and other equipment. In addition, literature support this view as Makumbe (2016) suggest that leaders should support change by ensuring the availability of human resources, capital and information. Furthermore, Wiedner, Barrett and Oborn (2017) explain that the deployment of resources is critical to the effective implementation of change.
In addition, the study also revealed that, when implementing change, if the organisation realises that it lacks the expertise required for implementation of change, leadership take and initiation to make use of consultancy with appropriate expertise from outside to provide the service or to produce the product. That is to say, implementation of change may be done internally or by an outside consultant who can render the service. In line with this viewpoint Korbi (2015) suggested that it is necessary in some cases for management team who are leading the change to seek external consultants for the resources they lack and for advice with regard to change implementation. In addition, in order to ensure that the implementation of change is successful, leadership use benchmarks to measure success and this is how leadership also track the progress of change. Moreover, it was also revealed and was apparent from the study that leadership at Riskflow Group play a key role in monitoring the implementation process to ensure change is accomplished. In relation to this viewpoint, Louw and Venter (2013) cite that organisational leadership monitor, control and management the implementation of a strategy and that the strategy should be translated in performance measures to aid employees to understand what they are supposed to do. Furthermore, apart from monitoring the process, leadership was also found to be more active and instrumental in continuously engaging employees to keep them committed and motivated throughout the process of change. Similar to the findings of the study, Elisabeth Nyström et al. (2013) revealed that change process comprises of the planning, implementation and monitoring
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to ensure that change is still on track and the leadership driving the change are responsible for ensuring targets are met.
In addition, with regards to the execution of change, findings of the study suggest that, the implementation of change is done in an orderly and systematic way and it follows a logical process. In other words, the study reveals that implementation is done in a specific and focused way to meet objectives and should not be haphazard but done according to the plan. This is in line with the study of Baesu and Bejinaru (2014) who proposed a change process model which helps to facilitate change and it includes the following;
planning stage, where the leadership provide explanation elaborate and identify opportunities for change; enabling stage, which include leadership’s influence on employees through empowering them; launching stage, which include the execution of change to accomplish the set objective; the catalyst stage, which consist of motivating and stimulating subordinates by providing necessary support; and lastly maintaining stage, where leadership to provide guidance and administer change to ensure its sustained.
Arimavičiūtė and Raišienė (2015) suggest that change is systematic and therefore it has an impact on all the components of the organisation. Additionally, the study revealed that there are a number of things that are put into consideration when the leadership implement change, and among other things includes empowering employees and ensuring they have the competencies, and that they are equipped and that is to say leadership ensures employees are provided with the required training to learn new aspects of change. In support of this view, van Dierendonck and Sousa (2016) emphasise that during the implementation of change it is essential for leadership to provide necessary support to subordinates, satisfy and meet their needs, provide the resources that are required and develop and train employees in order to keep them motivated throughout the entire change process. This further indicates that the implementation is a well-coordinated and a multifaceted process which incorporates many aspects of the organisation.
It was also established in this study that it is essential for employees to change their behaviour to adjust to the new way of doing to ensure the success of change. The findings
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suggested that if there is no change in employee behaviour to adjust to change may be difficult to achieve. According to the three-step model by Lewin (1953) it is argued that, to ensure that change is successfully implemented, management should reinforce the new behaviour and new way of doing things in the organisation and get it entrenched to ensure employees have embraced the new behaviour and new way of doing things so that they do not return back to the old way of doing things.
Moreover, employee involvement and participation was found to be one of the crucially important elements of change management and was clearly evident in all stages of change. This is also because, as suggested by the findings, to embrace change employees should be involved in planning and they are largely responsible for executing or implementing change as delegated to them by leadership. It was also found that apart from employee engagement in planning their continuous commitment and buy-in is essential during the implementation of change. The is aligned to literature as Alavi and Gill (2017) argue that the involvement of organisational personnel by the leadership to participate in decision-making process and consulting them to get ideas and input, can further strengthen and reinforce employee’s perception that the leaders are committed to change and that the reason for change is therefore legitimate (Alavi and Gill, 2017).
The discussion around the findings with regards to the significance of resources and the implementation of change above are supported by the respondents in their viewpoints as follows; respondent A argued that for the implementation, the resources play a vital for an organisation even a smaller company like the one being investigated and that they evaluate the resource available against the challenges faced by the company. In addition, respondent B also explained that the full composition of things they look at with regards to implementation includes, ensuring required resources are available. Furthermore, respondent C also noted in support stating that leadership evaluates whether the resources required to enable change implementation are available.
In support of the findings that relate to management’s decision to seek external expertise to help with implementation, the respondents stated the following, respondent B and D also pointed that management considers getting services from the consultancy if the company lacks the competency to develop some of the products. Furthermore,
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respondent B explained that the company might have an idea but decide to get an expert from outside to implement it since it is not possible to have all the expertise. In addition, respondent B stressed that the responsibility of management during the implementation of change is to monitor the process to ensure change is on track. Moreover, respondent B also pointed out that leadership monitors the change implementation to keep in track targeted objectives. Additionally, respondent E acknowledged that although change of behaviour is difficult for many people, it is one of the fundamental elements of change implementation. In addition, respondent E pointed out that it is important for everyone in the organisation to learn new competencies that are required and change the behaviour to adjust to the new way of doing things in order for change to be successful.
Additionally, respondent B explained that the implementation of change is specific, focused and planned. In addition, respondent B further pointed that the benchmarking is used to measure the progress of change implementation. Moreover, respondent B noted that leadership ensures that employees are equipped and capacitated to implement change, while responded E suggested that new competencies should be developed to drive change.