Change Management and the Role of Leadership in Facilitating Organizational Change in Corporate Takeovers

Facilitating organizational change depends to a great extent on the ability of the management team to coordinate the amendments related to a recent merger with another organization or to the takeover of a medium-sized company by a multinational organization. Change management is one of the most discussed topics in the study of organizations; modern companies that are constantly subjected to significant changes in order to adapt to market requirements need a management capable of developing the capacity to solve atypical problems and improve performance across their enterprises. In this regard, change management is the organization's orientation towards continuous development to improve results. This paper focuses on explaining the managerial role in modern organizations through the conceptual definition of management and by defining the principal element in organizational implementation, namely leadership. An organization can be brought to a desired status - significantly different from the actual one- only through optimum management of the change process; change management can thus be represented as the process of adapting the organization to the requirements imposed by an outside entity - in this case, a multinational organization that requires a different set of rules and procedures. This can be achieved through the development of leadership skills in management, in order to facilitate the change process specific to any takeover or corporate merger. The paper seeks to circumscribe leadership as a central element in facilitating the transition of the organization by acquiring and retaining organizational commitment. The new directions of leadership research as a reference for conceptual change management is defined respectively as transformational leadership and transactional leadership (Riaz and Haider, 2010).