Adopting a Pragmatic Change Management Framework: A Review of Critical Success Change Management Determinants

Abstract

Managing change is tough, but part of the problem is that there is little agreement on what factors most influence transformation initiatives. Several studies on change management show that in most organizations, two out of three transformation initiatives fail (Allport, 1954; Burke, 2011; Bansal et al; 2021). The more things change, the more they stay the same. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate present episteme on change management across organizations, highlighting challenges and opportunities; making it possible to construct an effective contextual based change management framework that organizations pursuing change initiatives can get insights and guidance. The framework is not a prescription perse but a recipe for dealing with critical success determinates. The paper draws its literature from various documents and past researches, including contemporary studies on change management. Having read through, assessed and analyzed existing literature on key success factors to change management, we conclude that there is no single best formula to manage change, and that experience is not a key factor to success. Every change comes as a new phenomenon and must be treated as such. However, the researcher has developed and identified a list of pragmatic and useful determinants or factors that managers and leaders spearheading change needs to embrace. We have in this paper coined the framework ‘Mapanga-Gwakwa Change Management Framework’ well explained in terms of its details in the body of this study. The study however, acknowledges its limitations and proposes further studies on limitations and constraints that hinder successful change management across sectors of the economy in both the developed and developing nations