Portfolio Project: True Local Overview, Diagnostic Methods

PORTFOLIO PROJECT
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Portfolio Project
Introduction
TrueLocal.com.au is an expanding online business entity in Australia. The organization operates under its functioning unit covered by the umbrella of News Digital Media (NDM). This fictional case study will detail the changes that occurred in TrueLocal and establish the effects of these shifts in a case where the management of the organization at the staff level is replaced. Organizational change is an aspect that occurs throughout a business’s life cycle and has an impact on the functions of the organization. In other words, change is increasing as a result of several forces that include globalization that is led by the increasing advancement in technologies, environmental resources, and cultural diversity. TrueLocal.com.au will be changed to Nomard.com. The primary rationale for the choice of this company is aimed at detailing the fundamental elements of change management and its impact on the organization. This paper seeks to synthesize and analyze data required in the fictional case study to meet the needs of the business executives and organizational development specialists attending a professional OD association meeting.
Illustrative Overview
The primary rationale for the choice of this company is aimed at detailing the fundamental elements of change management and its impact on the organization. As an independent subsidiary owned by the Sensis Pty Ltd, Nomad.com remains primarily responsible for its directory. In this case, Nomad’s mission is driven towards expanding its operations through the development of websites with the aim of initiating efficient consumer services that meet the modern trends (Carless, 2015). The rapid changes in the digital age have seen several customers demand online media that helps them in sourcing information, thus increasing the demand for products that are developed in a digital format. In consideration of this, Normad.com saw the need to decrease its newspaper production operations and grow its digital media content.
Since its establishment in 2006, Normad.com has immensely grown through the acquisition of several website operations. These sites are run as separate business units through Normad.com’s HR, Finance, IT, and Commercial Operations departments provided by its parent company. Given this, there is a need for Normad.com to ensure that its organizational culture, values, and structure are aligned to those of its parent company to meet its strategic business goals, an aspect that necessitated the element of change (Carless, 2015). However, the company encountered challenges in regards to its organizational culture and culture. The company arrived at a decision aimed at aligning its operations, strategy, and culture to concentrate on its performance and innovation, an aspect that would help it in achieving its goal as the number one provider of online digital content in the market. This resulted in the merging of its business units with its parent company.
Diagnostic Methods
Organizations culture is considered as an essential ingredient in establishing high performance within a work environment. In this case, an organization's prevailing attitudes, values, behaviors, and artifacts comprise of its culture and aid in the creating a sense of commitment, continuity, and order. Understanding the Normad.com’s organization culture requires a critical diagnosis that helps in defining its functions and the necessary information needed to design change processes (Carless, 2015). This process requires the collaborative efforts of the company, its members and the OD consultants in the collection of pertinent information needed in drawing a conclusion about the action plans required in developing effective change interventions.
In this case, the use of a diagnostic instrument that demonstrates the reliability and validity of the process would be developed in a bid to classify the organization in four cultural types that include: Collaboration (clan), Creation (adhocracy), Competition (market), and Control (hierarchy) (Oakland & Tanner, 2011).These different operational attributes correlate with an organization's various environmental qualities and factors. Assessing Normad.com’s culture, therefore, provides the OD with the foundation that would help in structuring the functions of the organization.
Normad.com’s culture necessitated the need to change its hierarchical management process that required a shift from its existing vertical and bureaucratic management structure to the horizontal structure. The change entailed divisions that created a corporate and professional environmental culture that was primarily focused on the needs of the company’s customers (Oakland & Tanner, 2011). The company’s existing culture was one that was based on casual attitudes towards the staffs dressing requirements including informal communication expressions, unrealistic start and break times. On the other hand, most of the company’s staff members were discovered to be friends with the existing staff members requited by friendship rather than competency and skills.
Some of the managers had their families and partners working within the organization in addition to the fact that there were no dressing codes among the staff members and employees leaving and attending work at their own time. In addition to this, the management of this company employed several unskilled staff members and failed to retain the experienced staff members (Oakland & Tanner, 2011). The company had to ensure a reduction in its management layers to enhance a more direct reporting method since the increase in the organization's size increased more interconnections that had a direct impact on communication between the employees and the management. Besides this, it is important to consider that the organization needed to examine the competition in the market. The rapid changes in the digital age have seen several customers demand online media that helps them in sourcing information, thus increasing the demand for products that are developed in a digital format. In order to remain competitive in the market, Normad.com saw the need to decrease its newspaper production operations and grow its digital media content.
Analysis and Feedback Methods
It is essential to realize that every system has its identifiable boundaries that represent their interaction with the environment. These limits are considered as permeable, but it is essential to ascertain that most of the change activities within an organization occur within the set boundaries and outside. In other words, the activities of an organization are mostly internal, with their relations with the environment considered as a fraction of the change processes.
Open systems have objectives and goals that determine the primary reasons for the existence and functions of an entity (Ofek, et.al.2014). These aims and goals may not necessarily exist in respect to the requirements and values of their environment, thus detailing the autonomy manifested in each system. For instance, an organization's output clearly gives a representation of its purposes in as much as these outputs may be accepted or rejected within an environment. Given this, Norma.com needs information to survive and perform its functions successfully.
In this case, the focus is drawn on feedback that can either be positive or negative. Negative feedback, in this case, determine the measure to which an organization's output corresponds to its goals and objectives. On the other hand, positive feedback clearly establishes the manner in which the aims and objectives of an organization cohere with the requirements and needs of the environment, a type of feedback that amplifies deviations (Ofek, et.al.2014). Given the situation of Normad.com, a lot of negative feedbacks were prevalent, thus necessitating the need for change. The functionalist system, therefore, focuses on the role of N...