Backround

1.2 Research Questions

• What kind of leadership strategies can be adapted to deal with organizational change during the global crisis?
• How was the KTH affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic?

ANALYSIS

As mentioned above, crises have serious consequences for the organization, leading to unexpected changes due to the defect in maintaining the old system(Weick, 1988. Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Since the pandemic is an externally driven factor, the organizational change plans are applied to achieve the organization's goals of overcoming the pandemic(Santos & Garcia, 2007). As shown in the results, KTH University made some organizational changes to deal with the current situation caused by the Covid-19, which explains how the leaders experienced organizational change during the Covid-19 at a high level; Such as the situation in the university was complicated for the first six months, and the leaders faced many challenges.

Shaw (2021)mentioned that developing and implementing new strategies in the public sector requires sensemaking to provide insights that help address ambiguous situations and focus on the main goal. KTH leaders believe that sensemaking plays an important role in organizational change to set their new strategies to overcome the crisis, and the results were at a high level.Weick (1988) and Maitlis & Sonenshein (2010)explain how sensemaking helps leaders and organizations think differently to reduce the damage caused by the crisis.

Crises cause many organizational changes that have dire consequences for individuals(Weick, 1988. Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). Furthermore,Weick (1988) and Maitlis & Sonenshein (2010)also mentioned that these unexpected organizational changes cause uncertainty and ambiguity. Also, according to(Shaw, 2021. Weick, 1988. Scott & Katherine, 2020), crises cause many pressures, stress, and lack of awareness among explorers because they do not know the problem they are facing until after facing it. So because these organizational changes and government restrictions can affect the performance and productivity of leaders at KTH, many leaders show that their productivity has been affected by organizational changes.

Crisis management requires the concept of sensemaking that plays an important role during a crisis(Weick, 1988. Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010). It also helps leaders use their experience to initiate new procedures that provide logical explanations and coordinated procedures that help control changes(Shaw, 2021. Weick, 1988. Scott & Katherine, 2020).

Also,Shaw (2021) and Weick (1988)describe how sensemaking also helps make a complex task simple and helps reduce stress, and raises awareness to capture a clearer picture of survival.

The change process requires an assessment of the organization's needs and desires for change and an understanding of pain points or symptoms in the current situation caused by Covid-19(Akingbola et al., 2019). Kuenzi (2021)pointed to the negative impact of Covid-19 on the public sector and employees and the difficulties leaders face in adopting new strategies. Hence, leaders at KTH have faced difficulties in making new strategies and transferring them to the employees.

Human resources play an important role in accepting these new strategies(Nachbagauer & Schirl-Boeck, 2019). However, suppose the employees are unwilling to accept these changes; in that case, this makes it difficult for leaders to implement the new strategies; at the same time, it can affect the performance of employees and the success of the change plan(Nachbagauer & Schirl-Boeck, 2019).

Some employees explained how the leaders had a great role in transferring the necessary knowledge by providing training courses to explain the new strategies. At the same time, one of them did not praise the role of the leader and indicated that without the employee's experiences and leadership skills, they could not make the leader's plan Successful.

On the other hand, most of the employees praised that even if the leader provided knowledge and support to them, without their skills to apply this knowledge in order to overcome the pandemic, the change plan could not be successful. Therefore in public organizations with a high level of complexity during organizational change, there is a need to make a change in line with the employee's values; it is important to increase the understanding of the employee within the organization to make them able to take the initiative and be leaders when needed. Therefore, understanding why it is required to change in the organization makes decision-making and problem-solving more effective(Nachbagauer & Schirl-Boeck, 2019).

Besides the organizational change process in the public sector, the authors choose to use the theory of Crisis Management; since the thesis delves into the organizational change and the role of leaders during Covid-19, crisis management is the application of new strategies designed by leaders in order to help organizations adapt to these crises (Caringal,2021). If a company is going through crisis management, the leaders must understand what the employees think; the more they understand the reason for the change, the more they will support and follow through with directives(Caringal, 2021).

The lack of the information and knowledge necessary to implement these strategies can affect the employees accepting these new changes(Morgan & Zeffane, 2003), as the results showed how the organizational change led to some impacts on the performance of employees by a high percentage.

An organizational change in the public sector leads to ambiguity of the role, tension, and insufficient motivation for employees to accept these changes(Health, 2020).

Also,Nachbagauer and Schirl-Boeck (2019)clarified that organizational change sometimes does not align with employees' cultural values, so they lack the initiative to implement them. Therefore, managers must convince employees that these changes are very important to recover from the crisis.

Leadership is one of the most important parts of successful organizational change; no organization can succeed in this step without good leadership(Burns, 1978).

Through the interview with one of the leaders, the authors were able to reach results that support the theory of management crisis and highlight the importance of the leader's role and its impact on the employees during the crisis; the Interviewee who felt disappointed and frustrated, because of the strategies that they adopt it and be used were not successful, the activities were not able to handle online, that led to the extent of the distance between the employee and the leaders which led to failure in applying strategies, disappointment, and lack of motivation. So the leaders face many challenges during organizational change, but the main challenge they face is how to make the essential change without creating chaos in the organization (Nica, 2013).

Also, some employees were using the same new strategies before, according to their type of work, such as working from home before and after the pandemic; however, when all the work was done from home, this negatively affected the employee and limited his creativity somewhat. Because before the pandemic, there were some informal meetings in which ideas were exchanged about the project that would improve work and lead to positive results in the end.

The leader also has a great role in influencing the performance of employees by motivating them to work enthusiastically and develop their vision to accept these changes. The leaders must have strong internal communication to foster collaboration; it is important to know how to get employees on board; there are different ways to achieve that, such as a meeting to corporate effectively and discuss shared goals.

The results showed a very high average score of how the motivation and innovation in KTH lead to good management and effective communication between employees and leaders to reach the desired goal. In addition, HR leaders could feel that managers and executives did not like working from home at first. However, one of the interviewees said that most of them accepted it. Many leaders have begun to demand flexibility in working hours. They were happy to continue working at her home twice a week and being at the workplace when the Interviewee needed to meet people and solve a problem (Nachbagayer & Schirl-Boeck, 2019). The HR department has to be present at all times since the lack of communication between the HR department and the rest of the organization might cause problems for the employees.

Kapucu and Ustun (2018)also explained how leadership has a role in the public sector when facing crises so that they facilitate the process of interaction and communication between employees and help them focus on the organization's goals for change.

The results clarified that leaders use an effective communication system with their employees. In their opinion, communication is one of the most important factors that play a role in the success of the organizational change process. Furthermore, a study(Nica, 2013. Harris, 2000)explained the importance of internal communication between leaders and employees to enhance cooperation between them. This is done through meetings and discussions to cooperate more effectively and define a common goal(Harris, 2000).

Therefore, the leaders at KTH University provide training programs for their employees to explain the new strategies that have been adapted. In addition, they meet with their employees periodically to clarify and transfer the necessary knowledge to them to better understand these new strategies.Caringal (2021)also explained that leaders must be available to employees and can be easily communicated with, as this helps creativity and innovation. In addition,Caringal (2021)states that communication between leaders and employees motivates them to deal with organizational changes, thus giving a higher value to these changes.

The results also show how leaders at KTH believe in their employees and see that employees have a significant role in the success of the new strategies.

However, most people were happy with the new way of working regarding staff efficiency. The president of the university was pleased with the results he mentioned. However, some employees were not satisfied with their performance and productivity. The same goes for the Vice President of Research, noting that flexibility increases efficiency. When it comes to people's acceptance, most of them were happy with the new way of working or preferred to work either at home or work, and getting the leaders to know that is a beneficial thing for the organization (Kuenzi et al.; 2021). However, some responded positively to this change because they liked it more than working in the office from 9 am to 5 am. Others complained about Zoom not being the best way to interact face-to-face, so they combined different strategies to meet each other instead of meeting each time on Zoom. There were different strategies used by organizations and employees to deal with situations differently.

In addition, they said that hence they learned a lot from those changes and the new strategies. However, the changes they introduced were not perfect.

Can you please write a conclusion from these two-part and answer the research questions based on the analysis?