Key factors in change — Edexcel A-Level Business
Test yourself on Key factors in change with PEARSON EDEXCEL A-Level practice questions.
7 days Premium · Then free forever · No card, no charge
Key factors in change explained
Culture is the set of shared assumptions that decides what staff do when nobody is watching, and it is why two firms with the same strategy get different results.
Read the full explanation
Handy's classification is the usual tool: a power culture with decisions at the centre moves fast but depends on one person, a role culture runs on procedure and resists anything the rule book does not cover, a task culture forms teams around problems and absorbs new ways of working, and a person culture serves the professionals inside it. Hofstede adds a national layer, though his dimensions came from one computer company's own employee surveys and treat a country as if everyone in it agreed. Habits and stories change slowly, so a programme that redraws the structure and leaves the assumptions untouched usually reverts within a year.
b) Size of organisation
How big a firm is decides both how much change it can fund and how far a decision has to travel before anything happens. A small business can be turned round by its owner in a week because communication is informal and the chain of command is short, but it may lack the cash, the specialists and the systems to make the new way stick. A larger one has reserves, scale and the depth to survive a failed project, yet layers of hierarchy, functional silos and formal consultation with unions and employee representatives slow everything, and the communication and coordination diseconomies that appear are exactly what Greiner predicts at each growth crisis. Say which measure you are using, whether headcount, revenue, capital employed or market share, because they can point in different directions.
c) Time/speed of change
Pace is a choice with a bill on both sides. Moving fast, sometimes called big bang, suits a crisis where cash is draining or a rival has already moved, and it shortens the period of uncertainty, but it leaves no room to train, consult or pilot, so error rates and resignations climb. Moving in steps gives people time to absorb each stage, allows a pilot in one store or one depot, and produces the early wins that Kotter's sequence depends on, yet it lets opponents organise and risks the market moving while the business is still deciding. Kotter assumes a leader can run eight steps in order with authority intact, which a business in distress rarely has. Match the pace to the urgency in the extract and to how much cash the firm has left to fund the transition.
d) Managing resistance to change
Staff push back for four reasons, self interest, misunderstanding, a low tolerance for uncertainty, or a genuinely different reading of the situation, and each needs a different answer. Kotter and Schlesinger set out six methods that trade speed against durability: education and communication is slow but builds acceptance that lasts, participation buys commitment at the price of a diluted plan, facilitation and support costs money and management time, negotiation buys agreement and sets a precedent for next time, manipulation is quick and destroys trust the moment it is discovered, and coercion works only where managers hold the power and will accept the loss of goodwill. Lewin's force field is the companion tool, since removing a restraining force usually beats increasing the push. Both assume managers can choose freely, which a recognised union or a hard deadline denies them.
Your focus
- a) Organisational culture
- b) Size of organisation
- c) Time/speed of change
Show all 4 objectives
- d) Managing resistance to change
Key factors in change exam tips
Marking Points
- Naming the type and evidencing it from the extract, for example that every decision routes through the founder, which is a power culture in Handy's terms.
- Explaining why those shared assumptions help or block this particular change, so layers of sign off slow a digital rollout while a team based firm absorbs it.
- Using Lewin to present the task as unfreezing existing habits, moving, then refreezing through new reward systems, promotion criteria and recruitment.
- Evaluating the model's limits, that Handy describes types rather than explaining how to shift one, and that most real businesses are a mixture across departments.
- Stating the measure used and evidencing it, for example four thousand staff across nine sites, rather than calling the business large and leaving it there.
- Linking scale to the mechanism, so a long chain of command lengthens decision time and distorts the message, while a wide span of control makes supervising new practices harder.
- Using Greiner to argue that these problems are predictable at particular stages of growth and that the remedy is structural, such as decentralising into divisions.
- Weighing resources against inertia and committing to which one dominates in this case.
- Judging pace against the urgency in the case, for example that a breached bank covenant or a cash shortfall removes the option of a gradual rollout.
- Explaining the mechanism, such as compressed training raising defect and complaint rates, or a drawn out timetable giving opponents months to organise.
- Naming Kotter or Lewin and using one step or one force rather than the label alone.
- Weighing the disruption cost of moving quickly against the opportunity cost of moving slowly, then committing to a pace and a reason.
- Identifying the source of the objection from the extract before prescribing a response, since fear of redundancy needs negotiation while a misunderstanding needs information.
- Naming Kotter and Schlesinger and selecting one method with its trade-off in speed, cost and how long the acceptance lasts.
- Using Lewin's force field to argue for weakening a restraining force, such as guaranteeing retraining, rather than applying more pressure.
- Evaluating the residue left by the fast methods, that manipulation and coercion make the next change harder because trust has already been spent.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Questions are usually framed around whether a change will succeed, so the shared assumptions are your evidence and the success of the change is your conclusion, not the other way round.
- 💡Pair this factor with size or speed from the same topic, because the strongest judgements say which constraint binds hardest for this business.
- 💡Where an extract names a merger, look for two sets of assumptions colliding, since that is where the examiner has planted the argument.
- 💡This is rarely a whole question on its own; it is a factor you weigh against culture, speed and resistance in a twelve or twenty mark answer.
- 💡A single sentence comparing the business with a differently sized rival named in the extract is an efficient way to show application.
- 💡If the case gives a growth figure, use it, because a firm that has doubled headcount in two years is the classic Greiner candidate.
- 💡Extracts often carry a deadline, a contract renewal or a launch date, and that constraint is the evidence your judgement should turn on.
- 💡A strong conclusion names the pace and the condition, for example fast in the loss making division and phased across the rest.
- 💡If you are asked to recommend, say what you would sacrifice, because acknowledging the cost of your own choice is what separates the top level.
- 💡Recommend and justify questions want one method chosen, the runner up dismissed with a reason, and a condition under which you would switch.
- 💡Read the workforce detail in the extract, union recognition, length of service or scarce skills, because those decide whether the coercive options are even available.
- 💡Where the case includes a previous failed change, use it, since a broken promise last time is itself the restraining force.
Common Mistakes
- Describing culture as staff morale or a set of perks, when it is the shared norms and assumptions that shape behaviour.
- Assuming the assumptions can be rewritten inside the time frame in the extract, when this typically takes years and usually needs changes to who is recruited and promoted.
- Labelling the business with a Handy type in the first line and then never using the label again, which is knowledge with no application.
- Assuming big always means slow, when a large decentralised firm can outpace a founder run business whose owner will not delegate anything.
- Confusing economies of scale with the capacity to change, since cheaper unit costs do not make a workforce willing to work differently.
- Ignoring the legal and contractual duties a large employer carries when restructuring, such as consultation periods and redundancy terms, which set a floor under how fast it can move.
- Writing that change should always be gradual so staff accept it, without checking whether the business has the time or the money to be gradual.
- Reciting all eight of Kotter's steps as a list, which describes a process instead of answering whether this business should move quickly.
- Missing the middle option, since a phased rollout piloted in one site often beats both extremes and is usually available in the case.
- Recommending better communication for every scenario, which achieves nothing when staff have understood the plan perfectly well and object to losing their jobs.
- Treating objections as irrational, when employees who can see a flaw the board has missed are a source of information rather than an obstacle.
- Naming all six methods without choosing one for this business, so the answer describes a model instead of applying it.