Managing Change in the UAE Renewable Energy Market – A Mixed Method Approach

Abstract

Change management (CM) has been a persistent issue subject among organizations. The genesis of basic arguments pertains to how and why organizations manage change. However, CM is crucial for the success and survival of an organization in both highly competitive local and evolving global markets. The general perception of the usefulness of change or the goals of CM varies among stakeholders, namely employees, top management, as well as customers and governments. In addition to exploring this issue, the present research identifies the motivators, enablers, and barriers of CM in the energy sector by focusing on different stakeholder categories: customers, employees, top management, and government. CM-related critical facilitating and barricading factors are explored with a structured method after taking into account the perspective of all stakeholders. A total of 75 face-to-face interviews carried out in four different pioneer energy organizations where information was extracted and they were coded in commonality analysis. The research used a well-known web-based surveying instrument to gather data in multiple-choice answers from stakeholders in the mass renewable energy, industry where all answers were summoned into formidable statistics of each answered survey question. According to the findings, all the stakeholders commonly perceive that Affiliate viability, Feasibility and satisfactory, Trust and evolving with future visions, and aligning perpetual change and Sustainability emerged as the top motives. Meanwhile, Engagement and Support, Alignment of Strategy, Resources and Capabilities, Flexibility, and Feedback were highlighted as enablers, whereas fear and negative perception, feeble communication, conflict of working force commitment, and uncertain objectives outlined as the highest factors of barriers. With due consideration afforded to each stakeholder, a wide-range commonality analysis shows all stakeholders’ perceptions of what drives, inhibits, and facilitates CM initiatives For energy companies, it would be more beneficial to balance all stakeholders’ anticipations to enable successful and sustainable CM to renewable energy. This study is among the first in the region’s energy sector to have a broad stakeholder perspective for motivators, enablers, and barriers of CM towards renewable energy.