The Blake At Gulf Breeze Case Analysis Assignment (Case Study Sample)

The Blake at Gulf Breeze Case Analysis
Student's Name
Institutional Affiliation
The Blake at Gulf Breeze Case Analysis
Introduction and Key Issues
Organizational change is inevitable because, at one point in time, the management needs to affect some transitions in people, functions, operations or systems to improve efficiency or otherwise. The case study centers on the effects of organizational change management plan that does not involve all the stakeholders. In the wake of a new demand to improve the quality of the workplace, Blake was considering implementing a stricter smoking policy by considering the overall effect of its then existing smoking policy. The key issues that the company considered included the health benefits of the intended new smoking policy against possible unintended consequences to its marketing goals. A major problem that the facility anticipated was that of a possible rebellion from employees who would feel disgruntled by the new policy and who would resist the intended change (Forsyth, 2012). The management was thus facing a real test here of whether it would be possible to get the new policy accepted and implemented across the entire organization or the policy would suffer a major hurdle due to backlash from Blake employees, both existing and prospective alike.
Analysis
There is no doubt that, in the case “The Blake at Gulf Breeze”, the facility is experiencing challenges of implementing the new smoking policy that would have a significant impact on the performance of the employees. Hence, the case study highlights the challenges all managements face across many organizations when they need to affect change, especially when such a change is likely to yield some unintended consequences (Mansfield, 2010). What is more is that the challenges the management at Blake faced were not limited to that of handling internal resistance to change, but also handling possible legal issues that would be triggered by the new smoking policy. Hence, the case also recognizes the complexity of policy implementation, which requires tackling both internal and external issues, even where some external environmental issues can be quite limiting (Hung et al., 2013). For example, it is possible that the change in the smoking policy that the facility intended to implement would be interpreted, legally, to mean denial of rights granted in the Constitution to employees. Employees, on the other hand, would be worried about what next the facility take away from them if they allowed the current policy in discussion to sail through. In short, the facility would need to achieve the delicate balance between its interest that include lower health insurance premiums, increase workplace safety, higher employee productivity, and the positive marketing and clean image the policy would provide to the interest of the employees and regulatory agencies.
Recommendations
Change management is a complex issue that calls for due diligence on the part of management. It requires efforts, expertise, and persistence. Otherwise, it can be very challenging as the case reveals. More particularly, the case abovementioned highlights how the three concepts of change, motivation, and decision-making work together to affect change in an organization. A study of organizational behavior in light of change management would a critical point for the facility to begin its journey. In particular, the organizational theory known as Nudge Theory advanced by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler(Kosters & Van der Heijden, 2015) would be important to the management at Blake. The organizational behavior theory finds application in economics and political theory but is also widely applied in behavioral science, the latter which can...