| Air traffic control towers (ATCT) are found throughout the United States. These towers are numerous and aging. The towers as a system are antiquated and are at the end of the system life-cycle. Implementing technological changes has the potential to improve operations. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) leadership envisages a new tower concept to achieve needed improvements. The application of effective change management strategies is important to achieve an effective tower transformation. Existing change-management practices may not be sufficient for a change of this magnitude. The problem addressed was that practitioners use change theories too late to gather information from personnel, which could improve the change concept. Lewin's change theory contained a taxonomy of unfreeze, transition, and freeze as the path for organizational and human change. Non-experimental quantitative survey research was used to explore the early applications of Lewin's taxonomy and evaluate whether a conceptual tower would have an effect on utility and relevance of existing tower tasks. Civilian tower controllers from the northern and southern regions of Air Force facilities were surveyed to determine whether they perceived any effect of a conceptual tower upon tower tasks when used during unrestricted and restricted visibility as well as during an emergency. A statistical test was used to determine whether the sample of 98 tower controllers perceived there was an effect and any statistical significance between the sample's mean and no effect. The use of a single-sample, two-tailed t-test (t = (chi -- u0) ÷ (s/ n )) with a predefined mean, which represented no effect, produced numerical results that showed there was a statistically significant difference between the predefined mean and the perceptions of the tower controllers. The p-value was .000 during both unrestricted and restricted visibility, and during an emergency. The p-value supported the rejection of the null hypotheses. The statistical results and the frequency counts were analyzed to support the conclusion of a real possibility for a decline in operational safety. The results of the survey provided information about using change-management theory through the cognitive abilities of subjects at a conceptual stage of an episodic change to better support the implementation of organizational change. |
