An investigation of the relationship between outcome measures and change implementation: A study of work group performance, organizational effectiveness, implementation attributes and change types

Change is chaotic and difficult to measure and implement. Organizations must change to remain competitive particularly in a time of complex information technology. Engineering managers are interested in change management because many change initiatives fail to meet objectives. Furthermore, engineering managers are often given the responsibility to implement changes in organizations.;There are numerous ways to define and investigate the outcome of change management. Focusing on the change implementation process, one method of measuring the outcome is to gauge the presence of change management attributes at multiple levels in the organization to include the work group and the broader organization.;An internet-based survey of knowledge workers in the aerospace field is used to gather employee perception data related to performance and effectiveness after the implementation of an organization induced change. Among the conclusions drawn from this research was that there is a perceived improvement in organizational effectiveness during a rapidly implemented radical change. Furthermore, there are common change management attributes between the work group performance and organizational effectiveness data that are deemed significant. Attribute 1 is concerned with management's use of positive language when discussing the change. Attribute 8 states that the organization is nimble and flexible to accommodate the change. These two change management attributes are statistically significant across both data sets. Regarding how to categorize the change, this research supports classifying change into both two level and three level classifications depending on which level in the organization the change is meant to affect.;In addition to providing evidence related to how knowledge worker employees perceive change, this research extends the change literature related to commonly cited change management attributes that are recommended for the implementation of change. Evidence uncovers that different groups of respondents perceive different change management attributes as important for improved performance and effectiveness. This research takes those change management attributes and analyzes them empirically. A summary of the research is presented as well as the methodology and areas for future consideration.