Change Management at Oticon

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1. Introduction: Oticon- Brief history: Oticon, a subsidiary of the William Demant Holding Group, is a Danish firm that was established in 1904 by Hans Demant. It is one of the world’s largest producers of hearing aid with its headquarters situated in Copenhagen. Oticon is a truly international firm who exports almost 90% of its produce to over 100 countries through strategic partnerships and agents. Oticon has always been committed towards the quality of its products. They achieved great success in producing a high quality behind the ear hearing device through superior engineering and product design. During the 70s Danish firms accounted for nearly 25% of the hearing aid produced and sold around the world (Oticon, n.d.). The company recruits over 1200 employees who mostly work in the Danish subsidiaries. The head office has a staff of 130 who are mainly involved in activities such as product research, product development and the marketing and promotion of both new and existing products. Oticon was a fairly successful international brand. As a private, well-established, and fairly profitable company, the organization had all the strengths and weaknesses of traditional, hierarchical organizations which included formal procedures, a conservative culture, employee loyalty, and consensus-seeking (or conflict-avoiding) behaviors. That was until things changed drastically towards the latter half of the 80s.The outcome was a radical innovation in the company which created a restructured organization; called the ‘Spaghetti-organization’. The Oticon case is a classic example of planned organizational change and its management. This assignment aims to analyze the key Organization behaviour issues that had an impact on the successful implementation of this change and whether they are consistent with used theories of organizational change. The most prominent feature
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