Strategic change management : a transformative approach for sustaining change in UAE law enforcement

Abstract EN

Change is an unavoidable part of existence.

The pace of change in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is evident and appears to be motivated by the leadership of the country to ensure that its public-sector provides high and quality service to all citizens, residents and investors.

Progress made in the country especially in the last two decades serves as evidence to impact of change and why change is important in the UAE.

While achieving purpose of change is dependent on several external parties and stakeholders, the UAE currently lacks strategy for sustaining the pace and quality of change the country is undergoing.

This problem has motivated this paper which aims to examine existing change management frameworks in order to develop a strategic change management model applicable in the UAE.

Through an extended literature review, elements of successful change management are identified, and evaluated against structure of the Ministry of Interior (MOI) to establish context for sustainable change management process.

Through in-depth interviews with MOI management, information on the three dimensions of change capacity: environment for change, enabling the organisation and sustaining change was elicited.

This was done to assess how middle and senior-level managers of the MOI are able to lead, empower and sustain the change process especially in the Law Enforcement Agency (LEA).

Findings reveal that strategic change management requires technology, legislation and finance as main drivers of change in LEA to accept, implement and sustain change.

Though a recommendation for practice, this paper reveals that practice of change management has strong theoretical underpinning that enhances understanding of strategic change management as a transformative approach for sustaining change in Sharjah police.

It is also recommended that management needs to be more involved in other change management dimensions.