Company president George Reed had built a successful toy company called Dandy Toys, which specialized in manufacturing inexpensive imitations of more expensive products. However, with increasing domestic and global competition, he became concerned that his cheap imitations would not be enough to maintain the company’s current success. George decided to call a meeting with all the company’s managers to express his concerns. He told them that Dandy Toys must change and become more innovative in its products. He told the managers that rather than just knock off other companies’ toys, they must come up with creative and innovative ideas for new and more upscale toys. “By the end of this year,” George told the managers, “Dandy Toys must begin making its own in-house–designed quality toys.” When the managers left the meeting, they were surprised, and some were even shocked, about this new direction for Dandy Toys.

Although a few of the managers suggested some ideas for new toys during the next couple of months, nobody really seemed interested. In fact, business pretty much continued as always at Dandy Toys, and by the end of the year not a single new in-house toy had been made.

Questions

1. Comment on the change process at Dandy Toys. What advice would you give the president about how to improve the change process? What are some of the things that might be changed at Dandy Toys as part of the change process?

2. Why wasn’t the innovation process more successful at Dandy Toys, and what can be done to improve it?

3. The relevance of organizational learning for change and innovation at Dandy Toys. What should the company do to improve learning? Will this help to create change and improve innovation?