| Course | ORG 5003 Organizational Dynamics & Change Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 3 |
| Paper type | Change model comparison |
| Length | 1,220 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for ORG 5003 Module 3
Which Model Fits Eleven Branches and One Telephone? Comparing Lewin, Kotter and ADKAR Against a Title Firm's Diagnosis Rather Than Against Each Other
Student Name
American College of Education
ORG5003: Organizational Dynamics & Change Management
Module 3 Assignment
Instructor Name
August 3, 2025
The Change and the Criteria
Harborline Title and Escrow, the composite firm analyzed in the first two modules, intends to separate two kinds of work that its branch structure has always bundled together. Title searches, examination and settlement document preparation will move to a shared production center, staffed partly at the founding branch and partly by examiners working remotely from other branches, on a single production system. The 11 branches will keep their closers, their managers and the client relationships that bring orders in. About 90 of the firm's 248 employees will change what they do each day or where their work comes from.
Four criteria for choosing a change model follow from the diagnosis. The model must work where formal authority is thin and informal power is concentrated in a senior examiner and three branch managers. It must overcome the memory of a 2019 standardization effort that was announced and dropped. It must create urgency in busy branches that do not feel the firm's decline. And it must help individuals whose jobs change substantially, since most of the risk lies in examiners and processors learning a new system and a new way of receiving work. A change model is chosen for the organization in front of you, not for the one in the textbook.
Lewin Against the Criteria
Lewin's work is usually taught as a three-step model of unfreezing, changing and refreezing. Cummings et al. (2016) showed that Lewin never presented such a model in the form now attributed to him, and that the three steps were largely assembled by later writers from a few lines of his work. The work Lewin (1947) actually published offered a way of seeing a stable situation as a balance of forces pushing for and against change, and evidence from group experiments that people who decide on a change together in a group are more likely to carry it out than people who are told about it.
Against the criteria, Lewin's ideas are strongest on the first and second. A force field of Harborline's situation shows the driving forces, the revenue decline and the cost of idle examiners, against the restraining ones, branch identity, the 2019 memory and fear for referral relationships, and it directs attention to reducing restraints rather than pushing harder. The group decision principle fits a firm whose informal leaders must own the new design. But Lewin offers little on sequence or on the individual transitions the fourth criterion requires.
Kotter Against the Criteria
Kotter (1995) described eight steps for leading change, beginning with urgency and a guiding coalition strong enough to lead, moving through a vision that is communicated widely, the removal of obstacles and early visible wins, and ending with building on those wins until the new approaches become part of the culture. He found that many transformations fail when leaders skip steps, especially by declaring victory too early. Against the criteria, Kotter's sequence is strongest on the second and third. Short-term wins are the most direct answer to the memory of 2019, and urgency is the step busy branches most need.
Kotter's weakness here is its implicit assumption of top-down leadership. At Harborline, a coalition of the executive team would be the coalition that announced the 2019 checklist. The coalition must therefore include the senior examiner and at least two of the three branch managers whom Module 2 found hold the power the change depends on. With that adaptation, Kotter supplies the organizational sequence that Lewin lacks.
ADKAR Against the Criteria
Hiatt (2006) described change at the level of the individual as a sequence of five outcomes: awareness of the need for change, desire to take part, knowledge of how to change, ability to carry it out and reinforcement to sustain it. The model's strength at Harborline is on the fourth criterion. An examiner moving to the production center needs to know why, want to go, learn the new system, perform on it under real deadlines and see the change rewarded. Each role group, examiners, processors, closers and branch managers, will be at different points in that sequence at different times, and ADKAR offers a way to see where each group is stuck.
ADKAR says little about power or organizational sequence. Used alone, it would treat the change as a training and communication problem at a firm whose main obstacles are identity and influence.
The Alternative Not Taken
A fourth option deserves a fair hearing because some members of the executive team prefer it: a directed change, in which headquarters designs the production center, sets a conversion date for each branch and requires compliance. Its advantages are real. It is faster, perhaps six months from decision to the last branch converted, against nine for the combined approach. It is cheaper in management time, and it avoids months of workshops in which the design could be pulled back toward each branch's current habits. In a firm losing money on idle examiners, speed has a price of its own, roughly $28,000 for each month the old structure continues.
It fails the criteria for reasons the diagnosis makes plain. A directed change relies on formal authority, which Module 2 found to be thin below the chief operating officer. It repeats the pattern of 2019 in form as well as substance. And it gives the senior examiner and the three high-volume managers no stake in the result, which leaves the people with the most influence free to wait for the change to fail. Three months saved at the start would probably be lost several times over in a conversion that staff quietly work around.
The Choice
No single model meets all four criteria, so the approach combines them with a clear division of labor. Kotter's sequence is the spine of the plan, adapted so that the guiding coalition includes the senior examiner and two of the high-volume branch managers alongside the chief operating officer. Lewin's group decision principle governs the design stage: the new production process will be designed in workshops led by the senior examiner with examiners and processors from every branch, including the shore offices, so that the people who will run it decide how it runs. ADKAR is used to plan and track each role group's transition, with a short check of where each group stands at each stage.
The combined approach has a cost. It is slower than a directive rollout, adding perhaps three months, and it hands influence over the design to people who may prefer to keep parts of the old way. That cost is worth paying because the alternative, a faster change designed at headquarters, is the one this firm has already watched fail.
What the Choice Leaves Open
Two questions remain for later modules. The first is how to answer the strongest objection, which Module 2 suggests will come from the branch managers whose referral relationships depend on fast, local service. The second is how to communicate with groups that will read the same announcement very differently, the founding branches, the acquired branches and the shore offices. Module 4 takes up the first, and the communication and implementation plans that follow take up the second.
References
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T., & Brown, K. G. (2016). Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin's legacy for change management. Human Relations, 69(1), 33-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726715577707
Hiatt, J. M. (2006). ADKAR: A model for change in business, government and our community. Prosci Learning Center Publications.
Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59-67.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674700100103
ORG 5003 Module 3 instructions, in plain terms
ORG 5003 Module 3 asks you to compare change models and choose one, or a combination, for a specific change. Most prompts expect the change described, criteria drawn from your diagnosis, each model judged against the same criteria, adaptations needed, a choice with reasons and what the choice leaves open. Many sections warn against summarizing each model without testing fit. A model comparison usually runs five pages with a comparison table. The ORG 5003 Canvas page states which models to compare and whether the change must be the one diagnosed in Modules 1 and 2. Set the criteria from your diagnosis before describing any model.
Inside the ORG 5003 Module 3 example
The comparison begins with the change: consolidating title production from eleven branches into one shared center while branches keep closings and client relationships. The criteria section sets four tests from the earlier diagnosis: handling branch identity, working through informal power, sequencing a multi-site change and supporting individual staff through new roles. Lewin is judged on the criteria, with a note that his model is often taught in a simplified form. Kotter is judged next, with the adaptation that the guiding coalition must include the senior examiner and influential branch managers. ADKAR is judged for its individual focus. A section considers and sets aside an emergent, bottom-up approach. The choice combines Kotter for the organizational sequence and ADKAR for individuals, and the last section names open questions.
Reading the ORG 5003 Module 3 rubric
Model comparisons are graded on fit, not summary. Criteria credit requires tests drawn from the diagnosis. The model rows usually carry the most weight: each model judged on every criterion with the adaptation it needs. Graders give credit for using primary or critical sources, such as the critique of Lewin's popular version. Alternative marks reward a serious option considered and set aside. The choice row rewards a justified selection, including a deliberate combination. In ORG 5003, the final points go to open questions, a comparison table and APA 7. Reviewers also reward giving each model in a combination a defined role. Graders also reward naming who must sit on the guiding coalition.
Common ORG 5003 Module 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Model comparison papers most often describe Lewin, Kotter and ADKAR in turn and pick one without testing it. Another frequent weakness is criteria invented after the favorite model is chosen. Students also ignore the informal power found earlier. Draw criteria from your diagnosis. Judge each model the same way. Name the adaptation each needs. Consider an alternative approach. Choose and explain. Say what the choice does not solve. If your change is a merger, a new system or a restructuring, the desk can prepare a change model comparison for it. Give each model in a combination a defined job, and say which one leads when they conflict. Cite the original sources where you can.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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ORG 5003 Module 3 questions, answered
What does ORG5003 Module 3 usually ask for?
ORG5003 Module 3 often asks students to compare change models such as Lewin, Kotter and ADKAR and to choose the one that best fits a specific organization. Your classroom's instructions decide which models and which case.
How do I argue that a change model fits an organization?
Set criteria from your diagnosis of the organization's structure, culture and power, then test each model against the same criteria. Name what each model would miss and adapt the chosen one where its assumptions do not match the case.
Can I combine change models in one plan?
Yes, if each has a defined role. Using one model for the organizational sequence and another for individual transitions is common, as long as the paper explains why each is used where it is.
Where can I find a free ORG 5003 Module 3 sample paper?
It is on this page. Read "The Change and the Criteria" first, then "ADKAR Against the Criteria", then "What the Choice Leaves Open"; the ORG 5003 Module 3 reference list closes it.
What is the ADKAR model?
Hiatt's model describes five outcomes individuals need to change: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement. It is often paired with an organizational model that sequences the change.