Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow. Blackberry and the Impact of Resistance to Change As a retail manager in 2007, I can vividly remember the attachment that I had to my Blackberry device which combined phone, Internet, camera, navigation and chat features and had seemingly taken over the business world that I was exposed to. Blackberry was produced by RIM or Research in Motion and at this time had 10 million subscribers. The device was called the "Crackberry" in the United States due to its addictive nature and the brand was on top with no hurdles or competition in its sight (Hill, 2013). My Blackberry rarely left my hip during this time and I, like RIM, could not imagine a better handheld device. RIM failed to recognise the need for change as competitors were moving in rapidly and spending more on research and development. They also managed with an ethnocentric mind-set which drove negative results in the international market. This lack of anticipatory change and the ethnocentric mind-set of their leaders were contributing factors to the downfall of the Blackberry. Anticipatory change can be defined as being aware that an organisation's strategy has peaked and reached its limits to future growth (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). At this point, results are still positive, but growth has slowed. A resistance to change can be higher at this point due to the fact that negative results or losses are not present. This is what took place under the leadership at RIM. The Blackberry was prominent and while Apple and Google were in the marketplace, RIM did not see the possibility of their taking over 90 percent of the market share by 2012 (Hill, 2013). The competition was moving quickly by spending significant dollars on research and development. Apple and Google hired more and more research and development engineers leading to innovation while RIM remained stagnant compared to the competition. RIM did not respond to the need for change which allowed the competition to attack their market share. Another result of the resistance to change by the leadership team at RIM came from an ethnocentric mind-set. A leader with an ethnocentric mind-set believes that any strategy that has success in his or her own country will be successful in any other country (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). RIM's international mentality was the result of a lack of awareness and concern for the possibilities for the need to change product assortments based the location in which they are to be sold. This lack of awareness hindered growth and success in China. China has a government policy to censure its citizens' communications but the Blackberry technology was built with security software that would prevent the government from doing so (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). Rather than make changes to grow market share, RIM refused to do so and lost a huge future customer base that competitors were more than willing to take on. RIM clearly showed a resistance to change and the deleterious results that can follow. Eleven years ago, when I was typing emails on my tiny Blackberry keyboard, I couldn't have imagined that RIM and Blackberry would now be obsolete in comparison to Apple, Google and Samsung. RIM focused on the tens of millions of customers it already had and failed to consider and keep in mind the billions of customers that were soon to come ("The Rise and Fall", 2016). The competitive environment for a multinational enterprise is constantly changing, and the leaders must learn to adapt and change (Moran, Abramson & Moran, 2014). RIM showed a lack of adaptability and change in two ways that accelerated their downfall. First, the leadership of RIM failed to show the awareness of the needed anticipatory change when they were at the top of the industry. Their competitors were aggressively pursuing research and development to improve the technology while RIM was actually slowing down its pursuit of research and development by hiring fewer research and development engineers. The competition quickly caught up and took over RIM's market share. Secondly, RIM entered the international market with an ethnocentric mind-set and did not alter its product offering based on the different environments that exist in different parts of the world. China was huge market for a future customer base, but RIM refused to make changes to its strategy and lost this market share to its competitors. "Blackberry was a company that knew it had a lot of resources and benefits, and therefore displayed an averseness to embrace change and a consistent selfrighteousness about what it had already achieved" ("The Rise and Fall", 2016). Source:https://sites.psu.edu/global/2018/02/09/blackberry-and-the-impact-of-resistance-to-change/ Answer ALL the questions in this section.

QUESTION 1 (20 Marks) "RIM failed to recognise the need for change as competitors were moving in rapidly and spending more on research and development. They also managed with an ethnocentric mind-set which drove negative results in the international market. This lack of anticipatory change and the ethnocentric mind-set of their leaders were contributing factors to the downfall of the Blackberry" Examine the case study and provide a critical analysis of events, which contributed to the collapse of Blackberry and refer to relevant literature to evaluate the possible application of Kurt Lewin's three-stage model in managing change with limited resistance for organisations like Blackberry.

QUESTION 2 (20 Marks) "Another result of the resistance to change by the leadership team at RIM came from an ethnocentric mind-set." Drawing lessons from the case of Blackberry and application of relevant theory, critically appraise the sources of resistance to change and recommend possible solutions for contemporary managers on how to manage resistance to change in their organisations.