eThesis - Kauppakorkeakoulun sähköiset gradut

The amount of change is greater than ever before. In today's turbulent working environment change is inevitable, and organizations' only way to remain competitive and satisfy their clients' needs. Organizations' competitive advantage no longer depends on its production facilities or financial strength but rather on its capacity to lead change initiatives. Thus the biggest managerial leadership challenge for organizations is to understand how to implement and manage change. In this study, the focus is on the concrete actions required for a successful change management. Approximately 70 percent of the change initiatives fail to achieve their expectations, fails together or make things first, thus it is important to increase knowledge about how to effectively manage organizational change. The objective of this study was to better understand the role of the Executive team in managing organizational change in a large multinational company.

The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. The object of the case study was to explore how the Executive Team of the case company sees the change process of the organization and their role in managing it. The data was collected by conducting two rounds of semi-structured interviews. A total of 14 interviews were conducted including the members of the Executive Team as well as three sales representatives. The data was analyzed through thematic content analysis.

The key findings of the study include identifying the required elements for a successful change process and, especially, the role of the Executive Team in managing organizational change. The analysis shows that that successful change management starts from creating a clear vision to get employees on board. The need for change must be fully understood by the employees to reduce uncertainty and enhance employees' commitment to change. Active support from the leadership team through example behavior plays an important role in creating trust and driving the change company-wide. Honest, multi-channel communication is used to make employees feel confident and hopeful about the change as well as to motivate them to support the change and to participate in it.

The findings also show that role of the Executive Team is tightly related to guiding, educating and supporting the employees during the organizational change process while also making sure that the business is taking care of. As a conclusion the role of the Executive Team is to drive change and get the whole organization on board.