Recommendations on Improving Change Management in the Case Organisation

Abstract

This thesis explores change management within the context of outpatient healthcare at Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County. There remains a continued need for reforms in this industry, and improving change management is considered essential. The nature of the thesis was to serve as a practical development project, with the objective being to generate recommendations for the case organisation on improving change management. The research approach, applied action research, incorporating triangulation, was selected accordingly.

The first research phase involved conducting literature research to determine the elements and related best practices for successful change management. These findings were summarised in the conceptual framework created by the author of this thesis. Subsequently, the current state of change management within the case organisation was analysed in each element, according to the conceptual framework, based on the data collected from the stakeholder interviews and the internal documents. The analysis was summarised to determine the weaknesses to be improved. In the third research phase, the initial recommendations for improving the identified weaknesses were formulated in collaboration with the group of stakeholders. The initial recommendations were informed by the collected data and the appropriate best practices in the conceptual framework. The initial recommendations were then validated during the final research phase through collaboration with another group of stakeholders. The outcome of this thesis, 12 recommendations for improving change management practices, was formulated based on the data collected during the validation process.

Additionally, this thesis includes a section of discussion and conclusions, providing, for example, an executive summary and an evaluation of the thesis credibility.