Employee Adaptation to Strategic Organizational Change at the Business Market Department of Telecom Kenya

Abstract

Employee adaptation to strategic change is a critical component when coming up with strategic change implementation strategies. Many change programs fail due to the fact that the affected people do not fully adapt to the new dispensations that emerge as a result of planned strategic organizational changes. The study sought to determine the extent to which employees have adapted to strategic organizational change within the Business Market department of Telkom Kenya. This study was based on a theoretical framework that identifies three key constructs used to study the level of employee adaptation to strategic change. The constructs include communication of timely and useful changerelated information, meaning-making resources, that is, psychological resources that help individuals cope with ambiguous situations during strategic organizational change, and individual willingness to change. The motivation for the proposed study was founded on the need to determine the extent to which employees adapt to organizational strategic change, based on the appreciation of the fact that the people component is pivotal in implementing successful change programs, a research area that is not widely explored, yet very critical. The context of study was within the very dynamic telecommunications sector in Kenya with a specific focus on Telkom Kenya, an organization that is undergoing continuous strategic change that has touched on acquisition, restructuring, modification to business processes, and modernization of network infrastructure through the adoption of new technologies. Literature relevant to the study was reviewed as a build-up to the actual collection and analysis of information. The study adopted a descriptive research design for exploration, and to gather and summarize information, present and interpret data. From the findings of the study, it was established that the employees of Telkom Kenya had, to a great extent, adapted to the strategic organizational change. It was also concluded that adaptation was made possible due to the enabling existence of organization-based resources, that is, change-related information communicated using channels of communication internal to the organization, and personal resources, which helps those affected by challenging and ambiguous situations like change processes. From the findings, the study also concluded that a small but significant portion of the target population (about 14%) had not adapted well to the changes. It can be concluded that this lot exists because some of the respondents found some of the new roles difficult to adapt to. This could also be attributed to what some respondents indicated as change information provided not adequately answering their questions about the changes. The study recommended that Telkom Kenya improves the effectiveness in communicating information related to planned strategic organizational changes to ensure that the affected persons get to understand and appreciate the need to implement changes in structure, network or business processes, and match their new roles to their key competencies for increased adaptivity to change. This study also recommended that further studies be conducted on the factors that influence willingness to accept and embrace planned strategic organizational changes.