Peter Senge And The Learning Organization -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Peter Senge And The Learning Organization Answer: Introduction An alteration in companys strategy, organization or culture in response to changes environment, structure, technology or people is called organisational change. The forces of change can be internal or external to the organisation(Passenheim, 2010). Organisations undergo change due to forces like changing nature of workforce, Technology, economic shocks, competition, social trends and world politics(Robbins Judge, 2013). In this case, it is the advancements in Information Technology that have forced a newspaper to undergo technological changes. This case study examines how The Early Post responded when its reader base switched to online media due to technological advancements happening in publishing industry. The challenges The Early Post faced when it launched its mobile application and what steps it took are further described. Finally, the case study describes how the newspaper is performing after undergoing the change. Overview of Newspaper industry in Australia Advent of digital era brought with it the decline of print media. Printed newspaper circulation has shown decline over last five years as readers have switched to online news content. Subsequently revenues have also started to decline due to reduced reader base and shift of advertising to online media(IBIS World, 2017). Global Financial crisis which caused drop in advertising revenue and subsequent retrenchment of journalist and reporters in US had a parallel impact in Australia in 2007-2008(Papandrea, 2013). In 2016, 41% of Australian population read newspaper which was 4.3% less than 2015(Roy Morgan Research, 2017). Australia has seen a decline of almost 30% in print circulation in the year 2016(World Press Trends, 2017). Background The Early Post is a broadsheet newspaper published daily from their presses at Sydney and Brisbane. It has a circulation of almost 50,000 across Australia. The first edition of The Early Post was published on 1st January 1998. Daily sections include national news, worldwide news, sports and business news along with a dedicated section for local news for circulation in Sydney and Brisbane only. It has a staff of around 200 employees. In past few years The Early Post has seen a decline in reader base at an average rate of 9%. Their revenue has dropped by 12% due to plunge in advertising revenue. It has also downsized by letting go around 40 employees last year. The major problem identified by management is reduction in revenues from advertising. There is a lot of competition in international advertising space, additionally, social media and ecommerce sites driven advertisement expenditure organisations towards them(ABC News, 2016). In order to compensate for the lost reader base of print newspaper The Early Post decided to launch their mobile application. This application will be supported by all kinds of operating systems like android and iOS, will provide weather forecast of up to 4 days, live feed of local news and video news will be some of the features of this application. The Challenge When The Early Post decided to launch a mobile news app following were the challenges in front of them: Organisational Culture: Major challenge now for The Early Post was to successfully implement the technological changes in the daily operations so that both print newspaper and mobile application function smoothly for which existing organisational culture would have to make way for new culture where the changes are accepted. Most local newspapers still operate as per the core value of focus on tradition(Greenslade, 2012). New Workforce: In order to increase revenue from advertising on both application and print newspaper new positions for sales and brand strategy were created in the existing marketing department. Additionally, young journalists were recruited for newly created position of social media editor, whose responsibility was to keep an eye on social networks for identifying new news trends. Competition: Competition from global news websites which post news on internet 24 hours a day has built pressure on The Early Post to deliver news quickly. Social networking sites, blogs and YouTube are widely used platforms for distributing and sharing news, there is user created news as well. News aggregators like the Huffington post pose competition in front of news sites and apps. There are no barriers to entry and the content is mostly free print news is suffering as a result. What The Early Post Did? The Early Post retrenched some of its senior journalists and recruited journalists freshly out of college. Newspapers spokesperson said it was in order to cut costs but it was also speculated that newspapers decision to recruit young employees comfortable with technology and social media was the main motive. Further, journalists were now asked to write tweet sized news articles on what is hot on social media along with the regular in depth news analysis(Saperstein, 2014). Through its mobile application The Early Post tried to shift its journalism from what was traditionally reported to what was technology friendly like bite size news, targeted news to attract young readers etc. The human resource department was asked to focus on recruiting sales staff and fill the new positions created by mobile app segment of The Early Post. These posts were mostly technical in nature very different from the kind of recruitment that used to happen at their Sydney and Brisbane offices, which was of journalists. A dedicated sales team was recruited to make cold calls and do other promotion activities to attract advertisers. With a dedicated sales brand strategy team The Early Post now aimed at attracting the advertisers to its online platform. The Results As of now, The Early Post is offering free news content on its mobile application, but soon plans to charge subscription fee. But till it starts charging subscription fee, revenue generation is mainly done by advertising. There has been an increase in the reader base that The Early Post reaches via its mobile app but the reader base of print news have remained same on an average. Revenue from advertisements has increased but the rate at which these revenues are increasing is not enough to balance out the decline in revenue from print. The Early Post has been active on social media and has gained popularity in the age group 16 to 25 years. Conclusion There is enormous pressure on Newspaper industry which is facing global competition in the era of digitisation. Newspaper has withstood the advent of TV and Radio but Internet has affected the newspapers the worst. In the changing times newspapers are realizing that the methods which worked in past are not enough to produce results today. Newspapers not only need to innovate their journalism model but also focus on business, technology and marketing as well. In future, newspapers should not hesitate in experimenting new ways of revenue generation. What leadership style the owners at The Early Post adopt to facilitate change process? According to (Mathiasch, 2017), Democratic leadership style is one where subordinates are involved in decision making process. Active communication is an important feature of this style. As mentioned in the case The Early Post retrenched employees at all levels, this might have created an atmosphere of uncertainty and stress for other employees. At such times, clear communication of change vision will calm down the anxiety and stress in employees and help the management to build an atmosphere of trust and cooperation in the organisation. Drawing from Kurt Lewins change process, explain how The Early Post could have handled the change process differently? There are three stages in Kurt Lewins change management model: Unfreeze, Change and refreeze. Applying it on the case Unfreeze: The organisation and its people need to mentally switch from print to online and the journalists need to realize the importance of internet for the success of newspaper. In this case it was important to build a learning organisation. A learning organisation is the one where continuous learning is imbibed in the culture and helps it to continually improve to respond to changing demands of environment(Smith, 2001). Change: Once there is a learning culture in the organisation acceptance towards new technological changes will increase. There can be resistance from those who will be affected the most by the change. In this case the journalists who have been working since long on print format and reported news in traditional ways will resist the switchover to mobile platforms but conducting trainings in order to acquaint them with psychology will reassure them. Refreeze: The Early Post should now take steps towards making the change permanent. Now that the organisation is becoming comfortable with this new platform of delivering news, management can device reward systems where those reporters who are contributing the most articles on mobile app will be rewarded. Further, a feedback system can be developed, where employees can report about any problems they are facing. References ABC News, 2016. Profits plunge at The West Australian newspaper as circulation, advertising drop. 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