Change Management and Consultants

Abstract

The research for this paper was done in 1999 as part of an on-going research project ‘The Management of Organizational Change and Resistance in SMEs — The Singapore Experience’ funded by the National University of Singapore (NUS Research Grant R-317-000-035-112). The study, which is conducted in collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI), is aimed at examining the adaptability, change readiness and change management practices o f s mall and mediumsized enterprises in Singapore vis-a-vis the rapidly changing external business environment and the corresponding effects of the Asian crisis, the process of economic globalization, increased competition, technology development and so forth. Other objectives include the identification of the determinants of effective organizational change management in local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based on Child‘s strategic choice theory and other concepts (Child, 1972, 1997; Wiersema and Bantel, 1992) and the transformation of the survey findings into policy recommendations aimed at increasing the change propensity of the local SME community and its receptiveness towards the supply of external management advisory services. The hypotheses about the relationship between small entrepreneurs and external change advocates developed in this paper will be systematically tested once the survey has been finalized (Menkhoff, 1993, 1998; Menkhoff and Kay, 2000a, 2000b).