CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIA ORGANISATIONS A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED FIRMS IN LAGOS STATE

Background to the Study

Uncertain economic climate forces many Organisations to make changes in order to survive. Organisations need to react quickly to the revolution in technologies and competition, not only at the global level, but also at the local and national levels, if they want to stay ahead of competition (Edmonds, 2010). According to Robbins and Judge (2009), the dynamic and changing environments, which Organisations face today, required adaptation, sometimes calling for deep and rapid responses. “Change or die” is the rallying cry among today‟s managers worldwide. In the same vain, Buono and Kerber (2010) posited that companies in every industry are increasingly challenged to both respond to, and anticipate continuously changing competitive, market, technological, economic and social conditions to the point where change is described as “the new norm.” Organisations of all kinds today have to deal with environments that are changing more rapidly than the Organisations themselves.

While the inevitability and benefits of effective change management are non-negotiable, the reality is that about 80% of changes implemented within Organisations fail to achieve the objectives for which they were set (Burnes, 2005). In a recent study, Choi and Ruona (2011), confirmed this assertion. According to the authors, “despite the increase in the perceived necessity of change and attempts at implementing Organisational change initiative, it has been estimated that, at least, two thirds of Organisational change efforts do not result in their intended aims nor do they foster sustained change.”

Nigeria, as a member of the international community, has suffered her share of the consequences of the economic meltdown in the forms of declining real output growth (slow economic growth), weakened financial systems (takeovers and bankruptcy), loss of

jobs, loss of confidence in the financial markets, leading to inability to carry out their intermediation role in the economy, rising inflation and weak consumer demand (Soludo, 2009). These negative effects have manifested in rising inflation, continued depreciation of the Naira value in the foreign exchange market, sagging consumer demand, changes in government policies as well as increased local and global competition. The above factors have made business operation in Nigeria most challenging. To meet these challenges, Nigerian managers have embarked on several transformation programmes to guarantee the survival and prosperity of their businesses. However, the success of these transformation programmes will depend on the effective management of the entire process.