Kotter “why Transformation Efforts Fail” Summary
Kotter (1995), in his article “Why transformation efforts fail”, argues that, the bad outcome of most change efforts is caused by the management’s failure to take the company through a series of important change steps. According to the author, these failures are caused by generally underperforming management rather, the researcher postulates that, there is little experience out there when it comes to organisational change processes and as he states; “Even capable people often make at least one big error”7. It is important to recall here that, one big problem identify with “The Airline” was resistance to change.
According to Kotter, successful organisation implementing change process needs to follow and adopt his eight-step model for transforming organisation. This model includes establishing a sense of urgency, forming a powerful guiding coalition, creating a vision, communicating the vision etc. Cobb Gnyawali ; Offstein (2006:315) argued that while effective human resource management and policies have, indeed, been linked to strategic outcomes, human resource management theory has yet to link human assets and HR practices directly to the building blocks of strategy and competitive behavior.
Accordingly, their model of strategic human resources links both micro and macro literature streams “The resource base view of the firm infers that firms create competitive advantage by implementing unique combinations of resources and business practices that are difficult (or impossible) for competitors to imitate” from this viewpoint, Human resource practices are key components of overall firm strategy.
In fact, the success of some well-known firms has been attributed attributed to their HR practices as a competitive advantage (e.g. Southwest Airlines and SAS)8. When faced with conflicting priorities and guided by the rational behind investment theory effective human resource policies need to be put in place to gain employees commitment, flexibility and for creating a “core resources” and competitive advantage to sustain performance9. According to Piercy (1995) the larger the gap between a company’s employees and customer’s perception concerning both service product and service delivery the smaller the probability of satisfying the customers.
If properly implemented, HR compliance is a process. It’s a way of defining proper individual and group behaviors, and assuring that laws and policies are understood and followed. This means you must know the laws and develop appropriate policies in relation to these laws. Compliance also means you and your managers need to communicate these policies to the troops, along with your expectations for adherence and the consequences for non adherence. The latter requires specific investigative and punishment procedures.
Effective HR compliance programs have been instituted in to the airline activities. Compliance has to start at the top and trickle down to all levels, so everyone in the company knows that the workplace must be kept safe and discrimination won’t be tolerated. So far, many researchers have been able to recommend the following methods as a pathway towards effective human resource development. * Keep abreast with the laws. Human Resource policies changes most often and to be on the safe side requires organisation to be responsive to current laws and their environment.
This will enable the organisation develop appropriate policies and facilitate communication with employees. At the Turkish Airlines, the routines procedures and values lay emphasis on this. * The next step will be for the organisation to hire Human Resource professionals with the skills and talents to forge ahead with compliance measures. In the absence of this organizations should contract with human resource consultants12. The airline has a strong human resource department, and do not make use of agency personnel.
Organizations are also called upon to develop a handbook that meets their respective human resource needs and which can be expanded subsequently. The human resource department should make sure new policies are reviewed with the lawyer prior to implementation13. Another important factor can be drawn from agency theory. Aligning the interest of the principal and the agents requires a fair play where neither the principal nor the agents are worst off. Cobb Gnyawali ; Offstein (2006:6) see strategic human resource planning and policies
as vital and primary to an organisations survival. To make this a success, these researchers on their work “A strategic human resource perspective for firm’s competitive behaviour” refer to human capital as a full range of knowledge, skills, and abilities an individual can use to produce a given set of outcomes and at the “upper echelon of the organization, human capital is usually deployed to scan the internal and external environment, process information, solve problems or recognize and seize opportunities”.
Drawing from Portals five forces framework, Cobb Gnyawali ; Offstein (2006) postulate how internal human assets and human resource practices of a firm help drive the specific competitive activities that result into market advantage. 2. 0 Conclusion and Recommendation The purpose of this paper was to investigate the human resource management strategies of Turkish Airlines. Judging the human resource management strategies of Turkish Airlines with the work of leading experts in the field of Human Resource Management strategies, we found out that:
At Turkish airlines management has created a conductive environment, with more workers participation, career succession planning, career relevant training, greater opportunities for higher roles, job satisfaction, trust and commitment to enhance employee commitment and satisfaction. If these findings are properly implemented by other organisations, a number of benefits could be achieved which include developing a set of shared values, reducing costs when the relationship finishes and increasing profitability as a greater number of end users customers are retain.
References
- Cobb T. A, Gynyawali R. D, ; Offstein H. (2006) A strategic human resource perspective of firm competitive behavior. Human Resource Management Review Volume 15, Issue 4, Pages 305-318. DeMarie,S. M. ;Werbel,J. D. (2005). Aligning Strategic Human Resource Management and Person-Environment Fit. Human Resource Management Review. Volume 15,Issue 4,Pages 247-262.
- Doty H. D. , ; Delery, E. H (1996). Modes of Theorizing in Strategic Human Resource Management: Tests of Universalistic, Contingency, and Configurationally Performance Predictions.
- The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Aug. , 1996), pp. 802-835. Gilbreath, B. , (2008). Creating Career-Conducive Organizations. A primary intervention approach. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 2008-10.
- Guilding C. ,Warnken J. , Ardill A. , and Fredline L. , (2003). An agency theory perspective on the owner/manager relationship in tourism-based condominiums. Tourism management 26 (2005) 409-420.
