Need help please. Module 4 – Case MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Assignment Overview

Module 4 – Case

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Assignment Overview

Signature Assignment: Quantitative Reasoning, Introduced Level

Students’ Quantitative Reasoning skills will be assessed three times during the Leadership program. They will be assessed in a Signature Assignment at the “introduced” Level of Quantitative Reasoning in MGT401. The second time students’ Quantitative Reasoning skills are assessed is in the Signature Assignment for Quantitative Reasoning in LED402 at the “reinforced” level. Toward the end of the program, they will be assessed again in MGT423 at the “emphasized” level. Rubric criterion for the other two courses are included in their respective assignments.

For this assignment, first, do a thorough review of the required background materials and read up on each author’s discussion about Kotter’s eight-step model of change, Lewin’s three-step model, and the five phases of Action Research. There are also some videos on some of these models that might help as well. 

The table in this Case assignment is an example of one way to summarize the data acquired for this small research project about why profits decreased and potential steps to take to move them in the opposite direction. A table or graph are both good tools to use to display data that is easy to follow without being overwhelmed with too much data. You can read more about tools to display statistical data in the following optional reading:

Elliott, A., & Woodward, W. (2020). 

Describing and Examining Data
. (Vols. 1-0). In 
Quick guide to IBM® SPSS® Statistical analysis with step-by-step examples. SAGE Publications, Inc., 
Available in the Trident Online Library, SAGE Research Methods database.

Case Assignment

When you are done reviewing these models of organizational change, take a look at the following scenario, determine which of the three models of change would be most appropriate, and answer the questions below. You are required to use APA style of writing, cite at least three of the scholarly sources from the background readings (required and optional), and write 4 full pages (excluding title and references pages).

Scenario

Acme corporation has had recent problems with increased turnover of employees and decreased profitability. However, leadership is not sure exactly what the problem is or what to do about it. Senior managers have been arguing for many months about what to do, but it is clear that leadership does not have a strategy to get the company back on track. The company (prior to organizational changes) had 24 sales associates that averaged $423,000 in combined sales each month with a profit margin of 32%. This breaks down to a monthly sales average of $17,625 per sales associate.

Since the changeover, the employees are stretched thin and have become demoralized as management has been slow to respond to the turnover and has increased pressure to exceed monthly goals. The average monthly sales have steadily decreased for six months after the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) replaced the vice president of sales, two sales directors, and six sales managers with employees from another organization. The Vice President, directors, and managers have yet to establish relationships, are not very engaging or motivating, have more of a transactional style of leadership, and micro-manage every detail of the sales associates performance. The following table shows company sales performance since January of this year and includes month, number of staff, average sales, profit percentage and total profit.

Please use the scenario and the table above to answer the following questions (support each section with sources from the required and optional readings list):

a. Introduce your paper with your thoughts on the scenario and why it happened. This goes immediately  below the title of the paper at the top of page 2 but it does not have its own heading.

b. What could have happened in the months of April-June to see a large drop in profits after what was seen as a slowdown in lost profits (indicating a potential increase coming next) at the end of March?

c. Explain which organizational change model (Kotter’s Eight-Step, Lewin’s Three-Step, or the Stages of an Action Research Project) would be most suited for this scenario. Support your decision and response with a source from the required or optional readings list.

d. Provide a solution to the scenario and build a plan of action for this organization using the individual steps of your chosen change model.

e. Use and fill in the table below with your expected forecast potential to show growth in sales staff, sales, and total profit from July through December. Use the formula below the table (New Month Sales x 42% = ______), to calculate expected sales and profit percent for an increase in profit dollars for Acme Corporation.

Table 1: Expected Sales and Profit Forecast

· New Monthly Sales X Profit Percentage = Total profit

f. Conclude your paper to align with your introduction, a summary of findings from each section, and wrap up in a final thought. This section of the paper should have the heading Conclusion (bold and centered).

Assignment Expectations

Case Assignments are to be prepared in Microsoft Word, using 12 pt font, be at least 4 full pages in length (excluding title and references pages)  and include an introduction below the paper’s title prior to inserting an answer to the first assignment question. Every question requires its own short heading. Do not use the entire assignment questions as headings. As previously stated, include Conclusion as the final heading before the References list page begins. Always begin the reference list on a new page. There should be nothing in the top left corner of the paper and only a page number in the top right corner of all pages.

The paper should include the following:

· Title Page formatted per APA, 7th edition.

· Be sure to cite and reference (using APA Style) a minimum of 3 scholarly and peer-reviewed sources listed in the Course Materials and Bibliography (Module 4 Required and Optional Reading List), in the Module 4 Background Page: Required and Optional Readings, or in the Trident Online Library (peer-reviewed journal articles).

· Page numbers in the top right corner of every page and nothing in the top left corner of every page.

· The paragraphs must be left aligned (you should not see a right margin that is straight up and down) and indented ½ inch. 

· An Introduction, Body of Work, and Conclusion. Except for the conclusion, these are not the headings for the first of the two sections, however just descriptive of the content required there.

· Report content should include a brief introduction to the assignment, background information about the organization being studied, and your discussion of organizational structure in terms of the concepts or theories being applied in the assignment. Use subtitles, bullets, and tables to improve presentation values.

· References page (double-spaced, 12 pt. type, Times New Roman font) should be formatted per APA Style. See APAstyle.org or the APA Manual (7th ed.). 

· Attention is to be given to citing sources of information in-text as well as in the reference list at the end of reports. Citation and reference style instructions are available at 

Purdue OWL
 ( or the APA Manual (7th ed.). 

· Submit your report in the Case dropbox for this module on or before the date due, as indicated in the TLC Homepage.

· The paper should be written in third person; this means words like “I,” “we,” and “you” are not appropriate.

· Submit the presentation through the appropriate Dropbox by the due date. Your submission will be graded with the assignment’s grading rubric.

Your submission for this Signature Assignment will be assessed on the criteria found in the Quantitative Reasoning Signature Assignment Rubric – Case at the Reinforced Level.

Critical Thinking – Expressing quantitative analysis of data (factual information) to support the discussion showing what evidence is used and how it is contextualized.

Interpretation – Explaining information presented in mathematical terms (e.g., equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, words)

Presentation – Ability to convert relevant information into various mathematical terms (e.g., equations, graphs, diagrams, tables, words) .

Conclusions – Drawing appropriate conclusions based on the analysis of factual information/data.

Timeliness. 

The references found online via a tool like Google, the Trident Online Library, or even in the courses may not be in correct APA format. For this reason, you are expected to research how to correctly format references. Do not just copy citations and expect them to be correct. The basic format of references are:

Author, A. B. (2020, December 25). Title of the article. 
Title of the Academic Journal, 55(3), 23-28.  

· 55 is the volume number for this fictitious example of a perfectly formatted reference for a journal article. Article titles are never typed in italics.  

Author, A. B., Bolden, C., & Cheswick, D. E. (2023). 
The art of leadership. John Wiley and Son. 

· This is the reference format for a fictitious book. Book titles never begin every word with a capital letter, but they are always typed in italics. Notice the use of an ampersand before the last listed author. 

MacMillan, P. (2020). 
Modern paradigms of leadership [Video]. Alexander Street. Available in the Trident Online Library. 

· This is the reference format for a video. The video title is always in italics and is always followed by [Video].

Additional citation and reference style instructions are available at 

Purdue OWL
 ( and 

Trident University’s Introduction to APA Style
, 7th edition.

You will find the following useful as you critique sources:

Herring, J. E. (2011). Chapter 3: Evaluating websites, Figure 3.1, p. 38. In 
Improving students’ web use and information literacy: a guide for teachers and teacher librarians. Facet Publishing. Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Lack, C. W., & Rousseau, J. (2016). Chapter 4: What is critical thinking? In 
Critical thinking, science, and pseudoscience: Why we can’t trust our brains. Springer Publishing Company.  Available in the Trident Online Library, EBSCO eBook Collection.

Module 4 – Background

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Required Reading

A good place to start are the following two videos and articles about the Lewin 3-step model and Kotter’s 8-step change process. These resources will introduce you to two of the change models covered in this module:

Caulfield, J. L., & Brenner, E. F. (2020). Resolving complex community problems: Applying collective leadership and Kotter’s change model to wicked problems within social system networks. 
Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 30(3), 509–524. Available in the Trident Online Library

Clayton, M. (2022, August). 

What is John Kotter’s 8-step change process?
 [Video]. YouTube. Standard YouTube license.

EPM. (2022, March). 

Unfreeze, change, refreeze: Kurt Lewen’s 3-step model
 [Video]. YouTube. Standard YouTube license.

Kotter’s 8-step change model
. 
Minute Tools. 

Woody II, E. W. (2020). MHS genesis implementation: Strategies in support of successful EHR conversion.
 Military Medicine, 185(9-10), e1520-e1527. Available in the Trident Online Library.

Next, read the following articles as they relate to the five phases of Action Research:

Coghlan, D., & Shani, A. (2018). Components of Action Research. SAGE Publications Ltd, 


. Read the brief section entitled “Components of Action Research.” This article can be found within the Sage Research Methods database in the Trident Library.

Duesbery, L., & Twyman, T. (2020). 

What are the key features of action research I should remember?
 In 
100 questions (and answers) about action research. SAGE Publications, Inc., Available in the Trident Online Library, Sage Research Methods database.

The following Straker reference is a great website that has freely available information about a variety of leadership theories as well as numerous other disciplines:

Straker, D. (n.d.). (n.d.). 

Leadership theories
. 
Changing Minds. 

Optional Reading

Elliott, A., & Woodward, W. (2020). 

Describing and examining data
. (Vols. 1-0). In 
Quick guide to IBM® SPSS® Statistical analysis with step-by-step examples. SAGE Publications, Inc., Available in the Trident Online Library, SAGE Research Methods database.