A case study on how leadership styles are applied to influence change recipient reactions

Sammanfattning: In a world that is characterized by constantly ongoing change, the ability to cope with both internal and external change is increasingly deemed an important one not just to survive, but to thrive. In order to implement change within organisations, there has been a growing realization in recent research of the importance of not just taking into account the actions and behaviors of those who implement change, but also the reactions of change recipients. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of leadership styles used throughout the change process, in explicit relation to change recipient reactions. This was done through an explorative case study, where both change agents and change recipients were interviewed at the local office of an international corporation that had recently implemented an office move. A framework was created that suggests that change initiatives go through four stages, where different leadership styles are best utilized. However, the findings indicates that changes of a smaller nature do not require the full implementation of the four stage model, focusing instead on the intermediate stages. However, changes of a larger nature would require successfully going through all stages. Rather than discarding the full model, we leave it to provide researcher with a framework for researcher and practitioners to investigate and utilize in order to provide a better understanding of change processes, leadership styles and their relationship to change recipient reactions. The study also touches on the role of information and resistance to change, and emphasises the need for researchers and practitioners to focus on the level of engagement created among change recipients, rather than the purely on the amount of information conveyed.