Postgraduate Course: Leading Strategic Change (EMBA) (CMSE11229)

Course Outline
School	Business School	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate)	Availability	Not available to visiting students
SCQF Credits	10	ECTS Credits	5
Summary	As organizational environments become increasingly dynamic, with technological, economic, political and social, changes occurring at ever faster rates, so the transformation of organizational structures and practices has become arguably the most pervasive issue with which organizational leaders have to contend. Whether it be adopting a new technology, restructuring to improve efficiency, or expanding an operation to a new geographical locale, so being able to cope with, and lead, change efforts has become an ever more important part of the senior managerial role. Consequently, the purpose of this course is to develop your understanding of strategic organizational change processes. While scholars and practicing managers have spent a great deal of time discussing how change takes place, this has frequently been overlaid with implicit, and often explicit, accounts of organizational transformations taking place in an orderly, linear fashion. These accounts are usually presented as being heavily top-down oriented with the individuals who must enact change, and are most affected by it, being largely omitted. By contrast, this course will seek to fully expose the messy, non-linear ways in which change usually takes place, and the importance of change leaders understanding the contextual imperatives that will play a defining role in the contouring of the change process. These include internal issues of power, culture, interests and communication, and external imperatives including political, economic, and social dimensions. With these points in mind, the intent is to cover a broad gamut of issues that are associated with change in order to provide participants with a comprehensive appreciation of what to expect when encountering, or leading, organizational transformation.
Course description	Approaches to change management; Understanding why organizations change; Types of change: From incremental to radical transformation; Diagnosing change; Resistance to change; Change implementation; The visioning process; Communicating change; Sustaining change.

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites		Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered

Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding: ż Understanding of the major approaches to strategic change ż Appreciation of the internal and external contextual imperatives that help determine change outcomes ż Knowledge of the ways in which change tends to unfurl over time Cognitive and Subject-Specific Skills: ż Understanding how different change models and their underlying assumptions will lead to different ways of conceptualizing change ż Skills associated with creating a context in which change is more likely to be successful ż The ability to devise and implement appropriate change processes Transferable Skills: ż The tools required to explore, analyse, and critique different approaches to change. ż A practical understanding of how to initiate, implement, and sustain large-scale organizational change. ż The opportunity to further develop analytical, problem-solving, and presentation skills.