Abstract:
The business environment is changing at a rapid pace with the latest instance of rapid
change being the COVID-19 pandemic. The business environment constantly undergoes
change to enable organisations to respond to increased global competition, adapt to
market conditions, and adjust for technological advancements. Despite the advancement
of literature by academia and management consulting the failure rate of organisational
change management remains high.
Purpose and methodology
The purpose of this study is to investigate what change readiness initiatives change
agents use in addressing organisational change and how these measures are applied to
instances of rapid change. This will progress change management literature by
expanding on current change readiness models by viewing them in the context of
rapid change.
This research study was guided by an interpretivism philosophy that explained what
change readiness measures deployed by change agents to organisational change in a
rapidly changing environment. Data was collected from change agents across seven
industries in South Africa using 13 semi-structured interviews.
Findings and implications
The study found that change agents did apply change readiness measures during
instances of rapid change. These measures were similar to those used during normal
change instances and change agents relied on these change readiness measures to
bring about organisational change in response to instances of rapid change. This finding
was grounded with a sense of empathy that change agents showed towards change
members. This implied that role change of agents needs to be understanding of change
members when implementing organisational change.
