Pilkington is a multinational glass manufacturer, known worldwide for its superior quality. Even though Pilkington has traditionally dominated the float glass process, a number of internal problems...

Pilkington is a multinational glass manufacturer, known worldwide for its superior quality. Even though Pilkington has traditionally dominated the float glass process, a number of internal problems and pressures from overseas competitors has given rise to the need for change. Pilkington’s change process involved three distinct phases. The initial change process resulted in a significant redesign of Pilkington’s formal structure. Although substantial progress was made in the initial change process, many ‘problems’ resulted in a second round of changes, and finally a third attempt at organisational change. Not surprisingly the costs of the organisational change had been significant because the ‘rationalisation programmes were more widespread and the job redundancies greater than originally expected’.
Business Report questions:
1. What factors moved Pilkington towards change?
2. Discuss the change process phases at Pilkington. What was their focus? Were they successful?
3. Discuss the type of organisational culture problems Pilkington was facing? How did the management try to deal with it?
4. Describe ‘Motivation’ and discuss how was the motivation level amongst the employees of Pilkington? Was there resistance to change amongst them? Why?
5. Discuss the ways that an organisation can overcome resistance to change, and explain how it was handled at Pilkington.
6. discuss how Pilkington attempted to undertake change process by changing the organisatoinal structure. What was the relevant intervention and was it successful?
Reasonable assumptions are expected to be made. Where possible utilise industry data to validate assumptions.