Overall Aim:
To differentiate organisational change approaches in Saudi Arabia in comparison to the Western approaches.
Specific Objectives (Research objectives, tentative hypotheses/research questions):
• To investigate various organisational change approaches in Saudi Arabia in comparison to the western approaches based on literature findings.
• To discover the differences between Saudi and West in understanding change.
• To explore the process of identifying the need for change and the different ways of planning and managing change.
• To differentiate organisational change strategies used to implement change
• To review secondary data sources of organisational change approaches.
• To undertake a primary data collection in Saudi Arabian organisational change approaches.
• To compare the study findings (primary data) with published literature (secondary data).
Client Organisation (where appropriate):
Significance of the issue to the client:
This research could bring possible benefits to Saudi organisations with regard to best practice and finding ways of maximising positive impacts & opportunities and minimising negative impacts.
Details of access to organisational data, personnel and resources obtained: YES/NO
Project design and methodology:
This research project seeks to discover the opinion and experiences of professionals through discussion and interviews. Because the research uses qualitative methods it is important to recognise and understand the philosophy and theory that surrounds this. From an epistemological point of view the research design will be interpretivist because it is important for the researcher to understand the experiences of the respondents as closely as possible to the way they feel or experience it. The theory behind the research design is inductive, as according to Cresswell (2002) many qualitative researchers find the inductive approach provides a convenient and efficient way of analysing qualitative data for general research purposes. Having briefly set out the philosophical idea behind the research design, we now go on to discuss the method.
In order to achieve rich result on variety of literatures, this study will make use of both secondary and primary data.
• Secondary Data:
? Written materials i.e. reports, journals, newspapers and interviews about change management in West organisations.
? Non-written materials such as, TV and radio recordings including YouTube about change approach in West organisations.
? Statistics, government publications, books and journals about managing change in West organisations.
• Primary Data:
? Qualitative data by interviewing a cohort of managers and professionals who have significant change responsibilities in Saudi organisations.
? Quantitative data by a survey that will study and understand the impact of change on employees and how they would perceive change in Saudi organisations (employees who work and have experienced change).
The secondary data will be in the literature chapter and then afterwards the discussion chapter will compare the differences between the two cultures (West and Saudi cultures) by analysing secondary data in comparison to primary data which will be in finding and results chapter.
Literature/preliminary reading list:
Outline of contents:
1. Acknowledgments
2. Abstract 300
3. Introduction 1500
4. Literature review (Secondary data) 4000
5. Methodology (including ethical procedure) 3000
6. Findings and results (Primary data) 2000
7. Discussion (Comparison between primary and secondary) 3000
8. Conclusions and recommendations 1200
9. Reference list / Bibliography
10. Appendices
Organisational issues, anticipated organisational problems to be taken into account:
Anticipated research problems:
Gaining access to organisations and the consent to talk to managers and employees could be a potential problem for this research. This could be minimised by seeking early to find a significant number of organisations that give preliminary consent for an interview with managers / employees, and ones that are either forced to deal with change or bring it about themselves through efforts to improve or expand. The problem of bias will be minimised by encouraging interview respondents to talk without attempting to influence their opinions and feelings.
Research plan:
Literature review 1/5-14/5
Planning for interviews 14/-18/5
Preparing a questionnaire 18/5-22/5
Communication to potential participants 22/5-26/5
Interview focus groups 26/5-2/6
Survey employees 2/6-9/6
Analysis of data 9/6-23/6
Write up of analysis 23/6-7/7
write up final report 7/7-28/7
Personal learning objectives:
Other comments:
• How does Saudi Arabian organisations perceive change, is it important?
• What is the most prevalent style of leadership used to implement change in Saudi Arabian organisations?
• What is the process used to implement an effective change in Saudi Arabian organisations?
• How employees react to change in Saudi Arabian organisations?