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This course project will help you utilize the concepts in this class, by doing a thorough analytical and in depth review and comparison of “change” in two companies. You will accomplish this project through in the course: If you find useful information from Wikipedia, triangulate your research and find other, more credible source(s) which provide the same (or better) information, and then utilize the information from that more credible source in your paper and reference page/bibliography. Your project will have five separate parts, due throughout the term. It will incorporate the learning of the course as we go through – and hopefully will cement the process for you. At the end of the term, your final exam will contain 4 randomly selected Change Management questions based on YOUR Course Project companies and research findings as related to the course content, as well as other questions (multiple choice and essay) which are not specifically related to your project (but are related to Change Management course content!). Thus, the initial “topic selection” where you pick the companies you will research throughout the term is critical for you to ensure you are interested enough in the material that it will keep you engaged throughout the term. These are simply illustrative – you can do research and find any of many companies and topics of change which could work for this paper – and you are encouraged to do so. If you have questions or need more ideas, please ask your Professor for help! Pick out your two companies and their change. In 1 double spaced page, please submit your company selections, with a brief write-up on the changes you will be comparing in the two companies. Pick two companies which have undergone some type of fairly substantial change in the recent past. Find the company and the change information online, using EBSCO, or using a company’s case described somewhere in our textbook. (See page 388 of the textbook index for page numbers and names of each of the cases described in the textbook.) Other ways to find information: utilize Google or Yahoo Finance, or Reuters, and look up Annual Reports of companies which interest you. Often reading the first sections of these reports (i.e. letters from CEO’s) will give you ideas about changes they have gone through in the past year(s). Be sure that: Your topic will be graded/approved and returned to you so that you know your topic will work for the course. You must get approval to move forward with your project. This section will be worth 25 points and must have . The “Images” section focuses on the six different images of managing change and how each “approach” to change effects all that follows in its implementation and continued support. Download the “Week 2 Project Images Grid” from doc-sharing. Pick three of the “images of change” explained in the Week 2 lecture from the grid, and analyze how those particular “images” would affect the ensuing diagnosis and implementation in your two selected companies on their change plans. This paper should focus on evidence that demonstrates how the management of the organization integrated one or more of the six images of managing change (Chapters 2 and 3) how effective the change was and what management could have done differently to increase the probability of successfully implementing the strategic change initiative. Again, this is a compare and contrast paper – so include information about both companies in your report. This paper could be as short as 3 pages or as long as 7. Use APA formatting (double spaced, decent font.) Include your references on the final page. You should have at least 4 additional/new outside references, ex

cluding the textbook. References should be scholarly. Select a Diagnostic Model (see Chapter Five) that you utilize to review aspects of change activities and actions that have been taken by the companies chosen. Here we are looking at the “parts” of the companies as well as their strategies, as surmised by your research in Part 1. It is acknowledged that this information will not be complete, as you are looking at these companies as an outsider; but a thoroughly researched paper will give enough data to allow some (well-defended) assumptions on your part. An important part of any change project is how the change is communicated to the organization, to the change agents, to the line workers, to the customers, and to the public. Along with media relations issues, communicating change (especially in a publicly traded company) can involve multiple legal and regulatory aspects, as well as personnel and management concerns. Perhaps the single most difficult piece of handling Kotter’s “establish a sense of urgency” is that too many inexperienced or immature change agents read this to mean “panic the troops.” Never do this. This project piece will have 3 parts: A. The main part of your project this week will ask you to pick ONE of the company’s change plan, and develop a communication plan for the company. This plan should be submitted by using an excel spreadsheet, setting out the Stakeholders, the timeline of the communication plan, the method of communication, the rationale for why you chose this method of communication, the purpose of the communication and identifying “who” will do the communicating. The grid for this project can be found in doc-sharing, entitled “Grid for Week 6 – Communication Plan.” B. Pick ONE of the communication pieces which you would have used which is listed in your communication plan, and write the communication in a Word document (either the text or the script, if the communication would have been oral.) Be sure to review the Week 6 lecture and the examples of communication plans and types there for more assistance on this piece of the project. If you use any form of communication from templates you find online or in a textbook, be sure to cite your source. Your instructor will grade this based on how well it relates to the audience/stakeholder group to which it is intended. C. The “real world” aspect of this project is that you will write a 1-2 page analysis of one of the media pieces about one of the company’s changes written (or provided via oral media) by the company. For this section of the project, please analyze any media, news, or other communications which explained the change going on in the organization. Explain in your paper how the company handled communicating the change to its stakeholders. More details about grading your excel spreadsheet: List of all of your references you used in the project to date (you should have at least 12 at this point) and create an annotated bibliography. Basically, for this assignment, you will use your reference list, in alphabetical order, and provide a 2-4 sentence summary (brief!!) of what that reference said. This is a summary style document! Your grade will be based on your ability to BRIEFLY summarize the important points in the document as well as the strength of your reference materials. (i.e. if you used mainly low-level reference documents like encyclopedias, online dictionaries, anonymous articles, etc. this will negatively impact your grade.) A. Use of at least 12 references, properly annotated: 24 points (roughly 2 points each) B. Strength of references overall: 6 points (roughly .5 points each.) C. Use of one of the 5 Keller-approved citation methods