7004CRB CREATIVITY, CHANGE, AND INNOVATION

COURSE WORK

STUDENT ID: 10695010

Case study: Newsprinters

(Word count:3706)

M.Sc. Automotive Engineering

Coventry University
 Contents
SECTION 1: Analysis of company’s current position
1.1 Company Overview………………………………………………………..….1

1.2 Drivers of Change………………………………………………………….....1

1.2.2 Strategic needs………………………………………..…………………….2

1.2.3 Leadership styles…………………………………….………….………….3

1.2.4 Organizational Culture…………………….……………………….……...3

1.2.5 Organizational Structure………………………………...………………....4

1.3 Critical Evaluation……………………………...………………..……………5

SECTION 2: RECOMMENDATION…………….……………………………….………5

SECTION 3: IMPLEMENTATION………………..…………………………..………….7

3.1 Theories and models……………..…………………………..……………7

3.2 Monitor and Evaluate……………..………………..………………………8

3.3 Potential risk……………..………………………………….………………9

3.4 Summary……………………………..……..……………………………….9

SECTION 4: REFLECTION………………………...……………………………………9

SECTION 5: REFERENCES……………………….….………………………………...10
1. Analysis of company’s current position
1.1 Company overview
Newsprinter is a newspaper manufacturing company that is part of a large
multinational company in the United Kingdom. The company has experience of 20 to 30
years and has a good name in the industry. They have a publication of 60%-70% of
general titles in the shops. They also print many other smaller titles for the local
newspapers on a contract basis. Advertisement is their main mode of income. But, since
the last few years, their sales of the newspaper have been fallen between 5%-8%
everyone year due to the shrinking of the industry with the network technology and digital
media development rapidly has changed the way consumer read. Newsprinters have very
good organization so they can overcome from this shrinking and also can be a good
competitor to other companies. They have invested in new technological equipment so
that they can print faster and can bring good products to the consumers. They aim to be
the last company to survive in this shrinking industry.
1.2 Drivers of change
Drivers of change are those which bring changes to the industries, these
force the industries to change their policy and their way of work. The forces can be internal
or external “with changes in the external environment considered the most important
factor in change” (CMI1). The most important drivers are strategy, mission, leadership,
and organizational culture (CMI1). The SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities,
threats) and PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental) can
be used to express the drivers of change of Newsprinters. From PESTLE Newsprinters
has to change only the social and technological aspects, they can use social media like
Facebook, Twitter, etc to increase their market by socializing and as invested for digital
inking, new technologies like digital printing, digital news, internet, etc can be great drivers
of change. As from the interview, lots of changes have to be carried out to become the
one-man standing at the last. Each change will be effective and each change of one
section or department may affect the other “The Burke-Litwin Model of organizational
Change and Performance diagrammatically represents the drivers of organizational
change, ranked in order of importance by layer. As each component is more or less linked
to each other, it represents how a change in one component can affect another” (CMI1).

1
For Newsprinters the most important and adequate change is the change in the
technology, this helps them to provide improved products through which they can attract
the consumers. Moreover, the major strength of the organization is their brand called the
Multinational company which can help them to overcome the decrement of sales in their
industry.
1.2.2 Strategic Needs

Strategy can be defined as the making of a detailed plan to achieve

success. In the case of industries, various strategies would be made and they adapt the
strategies to their environment for the growth of the organization. Newsprinters have
various strategies to increase their market. As Newsprinters is a part of big multinational
company 10 years back they have spent about 600 million pounds on three production
sites and invested in latest equipment’s so that they can come up with latest products and
can increase their market and can be successful, this strategy comes under the market
penetration and product development according to Ansoff’s Matrix, as market penetration
is carried out by increasing the market by introducing new equipment’s and tools the
existing market and product and with the help of the latest tools new products can also
be produced according to the consumers read. “The matrix allows marketers to consider
ways to grow the business via existing and/or new products, in existing and/or new
markets – there are four possible product/market combinations. This matrix helps
companies decide what course of action should be taken given current performance. The
matrix consists of four strategies: a) Market Penetration b) Market Development c)
Product Development d) Diversification” (CMI 3). Newsprinters was also keen about the
competitors, to deliver the latest products that the customer needs and to overtake the
rivalry industries, in that case, Newsprinters bought a new digital inking system as a
competitive strategy. This strategy is one of Porter’s five forces.” Porter’s model is
designed to help companies choose the most promising strategy for their business. It
does this by focusing attention on the competitive forces at work in the wider industry
scene, not just the company’s internal resources and operational efficiency. Michael E
Porter identified five factors affecting the competitive position of a company they are, The
entry into the market of new competitors, The threat of substitutes – similar competing
products, The bargaining power of buyers or customers, The bargaining power of
suppliers, The level of competition from existing competitors (competitive rivalry)” (CMI2).
In the future Newsprinters should make new strategies like being more advanced as the
world of printers, equipment’s and ideology gets advanced, to be the last man in the
industry.

1.2.3 Leadership Styles

Leadership can be defined as a skill to lead, motivate and influence a

group of people or organization to achieve a common goal. “Leadership is the process of
influencing activities of the organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal
achievement” (Stodgill 1950 cited in Buchanan and Huzynyski 2004:716). According to
Adair’s Action Centered Leadership, “A leader should be very aware of the common task
that is carried out and should be ready to develop and meet the needs of individual man
and also to build and maintain a team” (CMI4). Newsprinters should follow all the three
circles that Adair said to increase the market. The organization’s (Newsprinters) leader or
the team head should motivate, lead and influence the team members about the task that
should be carried out and make them achieve the common goal. Moreover, the leader
should take care of the members and should provide them what they need for instance if
the individual needs some rest allow them to feel relaxed, give them the apt salary with
incentives, provide the best equipment’s which makes their work easier, through providing
these facilities the leader can build a good team and can maintain the team healthy for
working conditions. By following this model of leadership it can be found where the
industry lacks its performance and where it does well so it can be noted and improved.
Newsprinters have to move with this model to not only sustain but also to be the top in
the industry.

1.2.4 Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is defined as a group of experiences, values,

expectations, actions of the organization. The culture of the organization can be found in
the work and environment of the organization. “A pattern of basic assumptions that the
group learned as it solved its problems of external adaption and internal integration, that
has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new
members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel concerning those problems”
(Schein, 1992). From the interview, it is clear that Newsprinters have a lack of innovation
and they do not have an innovative culture (woods CMI). There are four types of culture
clan culture, hierarchy culture, market culture, and adhocracy culture (Quin and
Rohrbaugh,1983). Clan culture means cohesion, participation, and empowerment.
Hierarchy culture means consistency, process control, etc. Market culture means
customer focus, productivity, etc. And finally, adhocracy means adaptability, creativity,
etc. From those four cultures, Newsprinters follow a culture of hierarchy culture,
Newsprinters are very controlled and consistent in their newspaper industry, by following
this culture, the organization ends in efficiency, timeliness, and smooth functioning. But
along with the hierarchy culture, adhocracy culture is also highly recommended to be
followed for the development in the industry. By following the adhocracy culture,
innovative or creative culture can be bought to the organization which will bring a big
growth in the market and will get a cutting-edge output. The creativity inside an individual
should be brought out and their creativity or innovation should be adapted in the industry.
Try to bring out the different styles of creativity from all and collaborate as a team and
make decisions and solutions for problems and support creativity and innovation.
“Adaption-Innovation theory (A-I theory) groups individuals by their style preference
towards decision making, problem-solving, and creativity. Adaption-Innovation is a
cognitive style that is the preferred manner of bringing about change adopted by
individuals. Kirton’s A-I model views these styles as a continuum. Individuals demonstrate
preferences towards being more adaptive and agents of stability or more innovative and
agents of change in their approach to problem-solving, decision making, and creativity”
(CMI5).

1.2.5 Organizational structure

“The structure of an organization can be defined as the total of how it divides its
labour into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them” (Mintzberg 1979).
Douglas McGregor’s theory of motivation or XY theory proposes that organizations follow
one of two approaches in their management of people. Theory X is known as “the
authoritarian management style”, as it states that the average person needs to be coerced
into working towards organizational objectives. Theory Y is known as “the participative
management style” - a theory Y organization’s view of people is in many ways the
opposite of an organization applying theory X (CMI6). The Newsprinters is a production
line where the theory X is implemented, the lower person in the organization is forced to
work by controlling, punishing, and threatening them for achieving the organizational goal
so that the average person wishes to avoid responsibilities, less ambition, and so on.
Newsprinters might need to adapt theory Y to bring the culture of innovation to the
industry. Through this theory, the person will be more committed to the organization and
the goal, the average person will be ready to accept the responsibilities, there will be
solutions for the problems, creativity and innovations will be produced.

1.3 Critical Evaluation

The PESTLE analysis is a more simple and easy use type of analysis,
it includes skills and experience, helps in the growth of the market, encourages the
strategic thinking of the organization, enables to identify and exploitation of new
opportunities, but some of the limitations are the analysis should be done continuously
where the continuous investment may become an issue and the information's may also
be oversimplified that is used to make decisions.

Douglas McGregor’s theory of motivation or XY theory helps the

industry to increase their market by adapting this theory. These theories are a good guide
for the industry to follow and also the organization understands what the person or team
needed. The limitation is that in this theory the team or the person is put into the two
extremes of conduct which is lack of reality. It makes the person over-generalize or over-
simplified in one way or another way.

2. Recommendations

Firstly, the main recommendation is that the Newsprinters should more

concentrate on the social and technology which may help them to increase their market.
They should little more rely on social media’s which helps them to advertise themselves.
By upgrading the technology as they invested in digital inking, they should improve more
in technology like digital news, internet, etc is highly recommended.
 Secondly, more strategies should be executed, having more strategies
alongside will be helpful for the future development of Newsprinters, each strategy can
be used whenever necessary, one of the best strategies that Newsprinters made is the
investment for digital inking. So planning of more strategies is recommended.

The next recommendation for the organization is about the leadership

styles, the style of leadership or leading should be more organized, from the way of
leading the other workers should feel motivating and should feel like the organizational
goal is not only an organizations goal but also their goal that is a common goal.

From the interview, it is clear that the organization has lack innovation
and they do not have a culture of innovation, so the innovation culture should be strictly
brought into the organization and should be implemented to withstand or to increase their
market, so the culture of innovation is highly recommended to the Newsprinters. As said
about organizational structure above, Newsprinters follows the X theory, hereby
recommending Newsprinters to adapt the theory Y but with some limitations, so that the
organization goal will be a common goal to an individual or a team. Both theory X and Y
are two extremes of conduct so should be some limitations when both theories are
executed.

Through bringing different changes to the organization it will support the

approach to leadership in many ways, the ethical and value-based approach will be
evolved from the organization’s changes. Ethics are normally based on values and there
are various categories of ethics like professional ethics, social ethics, and individual
ethics. From these changes in the organization, professional ethics may come into the
employees and they are required to follow them. This change makes the person or the
team accept responsibilities, avoids conflicts of interest, new creativities and innovations
will be produced and the leader will treat everyone equally and there will be no harm and
the person or team gets enough support and there will good communication between
them, this is how the organization’s Change Management program will support the
organization’s ethical and value-based approach to Leadership.
3. Implementation

Implementation is defined as an act or instance of implementing

something, the process of making something active or effective. Managing change
involves accomplishing a transition from position A to position B and handling any
problems which come up during the process. The process of change within organizations
usually results from interactions between four major elements: equipment (technology);
processes (working procedures); organization structure; and people. Change to any one
of these will inevitably lead to changes to the others, as organizations are complex inter-
related systems (CMI 9).

3.1 Theories and Models

Kotter identified that few change initiatives were genuinely successful,

and suggested that by using this program, organizations could increase their chances of
successful business transformation. The model is particularly strong in its emphasis on
the people and communication aspects of change management, and it also
acknowledges the role of the power of senior management (CMI7). From the
recommendations above many stages or conducts have to be implemented by the
Newsprinters to achieve the organizational goal, by using Kotter’s 8 steps to
transformation model those recommendations can be implemented. The first thing that
the Newsprinter organization should do is that they should bring the person or the team
to come out of their comfort zone and should work according to the strategy and should
make them clear about the strategy and the common goal and the need for change.
Should make a team with not only senior or higher staffs but also with the lower persons,
this team is to guide the change that is recommended, this team containing senior and
junior or lower staffs can provide new ideas and innovations. The vision or the goal of the
organization should be planned and proposed together for the implementation and the
common vision or the goal should be communicated regularly and not only during the
planning, which will make the team boost their concentration. The organization should
take care of the workers that they are comfortable in their working area and they work
without any hesitations or difficulties for the goal. The positivity from the team and new
ideas or innovations is already a positive sign to achieve the goal, and also some positive
outcomes of the goal early on. The small growth that is achieving a goal can be used to
make the goal even larger and bring new approaches and innovation again and again
and make this innovation culture of Newsprinters. But every change should have a limit,
no change or culture should be to the extreme of the conduct which may also affect the
organization. Above all motivate the employees, create good relationships and
communications, make them stress relief, make their work easy, ensure everyone's
participation, analyze everyone's ideas and innovations and help them to bring them out
and also help them to develop their skills, always maintain the momentum of the
organization and achieve the goal together.

3.2 Monitor and Evaluate

The results of the change program against the goal of the original
plan should be monitored and evaluated, whether the goal is still appropriate or should
be revised, some changes have to be introduced because the existing change will again
lead to the same situation if it is appropriate, all the measures that have been taken to
achieve the goal should be checked whether they are consistent with an organizational
goal, if not revise them. Should be honest, if there is anything to correct and be open if
there is any failure, alert and involve the employees for the new target or measures and
take corrective action with any.

One of the ways to monitor and evaluate change is the SAFe criteria
and techniques of evaluation. The SAFe criteria stand for Suitability, Acceptability, and
Feasibility. The suitability evaluation is evaluated by asking whether each strategic
change address the key opportunities and constraints the organization faces, some of the
techniques are using life cycle, ranking, decision trees, etc. The acceptability evaluation
is by checking whether the strategy meets the expectations of the stakeholders, the level
of risk in it, will it be returned, and whether the stakeholders accept the strategy. The
feasibility deals with whether the strategy would work in practice, availability of people,
and financial resources. Newsprinters should practice the SAFe criteria and techniques
for monitoring and evaluating.
3.3 Potential Risk

Risk is defined as the probability that actual results differ from the
expected results. So risk concerns the extent to which the outcomes of a strategy can
be predicted. The implementation of the above changes in the Newsprinters may have
risks and if there are any it should be handled carefully. There may be various risks in
making changes in the organization like financial risk, decrease in staff, etc. There’s a
risk and we are looking for a return on the investment and the change management
program will incorporate the need for investment; salaries will need to be paid
continuingly so that people that are putting forward the money need to be sure that it’s
worth putting the money into the operation. So these people, the stakeholders, expect to
receive a return on their investment. The risks can be analyzed by sensitivity analysis,
what-if analysis, financial ratios for example gearing and liquidity, break-even analysis.
Financial risk is the major risk when the organization comes down in the market there
will be some problem for investment, next risk is the shortage of employees, maybe due
to less salary, less motivation, etc.

3.4 Summary

In the interview, Steve said that Newsprinters do not have a culture of

innovation, he did not say that they do not have a culture of creativity. Creativity is defined
as the ability or power to create to bring into existence, to invest, and bring a new product
to the industry through imaginative skills. Innovation is defined as the intersection of
invention and insight, leading to the creation of social and economic value. The
Newsprinters need the culture of innovation to achieve the goal, as the Newsprinters are
in the edge of extinction, they have to bring innovations like digital newspapers and
changing the organizational structures of Newsprinters creative and innovative skills of
the employees can be bought out and can be used for the achieving the common goal.
The employees work as a team with new ideas and creativity to achieve together the goal.

4.Reflection

Reflection lies somewhere around the notion of learning and thinking. We

learn to reflect something, or we learn as a result of reflecting. Gibbs Reflecting Cycle
offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself
particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that
either went well or didn’t go well. It covers six stages they are, description, feelings,
evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. The qualities I feel that I have
demonstrated in this module that would support a consultative outlook on problem-solving
within an organization can be described using Gibbs reflecting cycle. Firstly, in the
description stage, the goal of the organization is understood and the problems they are
facing and learned how to describe a situation during the same situations. In the second
stage, feelings were not the same for all in the organization, so the feelings were learned
that feelings of every person should be concerned, in the third stage of evaluation, I have
learned how to evaluate the problems whether it may be good or bad, during analysis,
the analyzing problems in the organization is understood, in the conclusion what all things
should be changed for the better outcome is studied for the future. And finally, a new
action plan will be carried out for implementing them in the future during the same
situation. Through this module, that is from the case study of Newsprinters lots of
important conducts have been learned like drivers of change, leadership, organizational
culture, etc which can be implemented for my future working under an organization, these
are the critical reflections in me from this study.
5.References

CMI 1 (2021) Burke-Litwin Model of Organisational Change”.[Online]. Available from:

AULA

CMI 2 (2021) “Porters five forces”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 3 (2021) “Ansoff’s Matrix”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 4 (2021) “Adair Action Centered Leadership”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 5 (2021) “Kirton AL Model” ”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 6 (2021) “Theory X and Y” ”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 7 (2021) “Kotters 8 Steps TO Transformation” ”. [Online]. Available from: AULA

CMI 8 (2021) “Checklists040 Implementing an Effective Change Programme”. [Online].

Available from: AULA