Page 21 - FREN-C2021 PROCEEDINGS

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE DURING THE OUTBREAK OF COVID-
19 PANDEMIC AND THE IMPOSED OF MOVEMENT CONTROL
ORDER (MCO): A CASE STUDY IN INTAN EASTERN REGION
CAMPUS (INTIM)

1*
Ariffatri bin Mohammad , Dr Wan Asri bin Wan Ab Aziz

1 Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Dungun Campus, 23000 Kuala Dungun,
Terengganu Darul Iman, Malaysia

*Corresponding author: ariffatriuitm@gmail.com

Abstract
This paper aims to look at and analyses the organizational changes in INTAN Eastern Region Campus
(INTIM) in 2020 during Movement Control Order (MCO) resulted from the outbreak of the COVID-
19 pandemic. This paper will also look into how INTIM strived to cope up with the changes and
regards the changes as new norms. The paper is written according to the article on organizational
changes in General Motor case that was presented in ASEE 2014 Zone 1 Conference, University of
Bridgeport, Bridgeport, USA by looking into the theoretical information including the introduction of
organizational changes itself, factors that constitute toward the changes in INTIM changes forces,
resistance to change, organization changes managing approach as well as reason and forces to change
in INTIM case. This study discovered that INTIM has transformed its normal operation into online
and hybrid approaches creatively as its new norm. Resistance to change is more related to the
readiness of INTIM employees and training participants to adapt to the changes. In the end, this paper
attempts to identify the type of changes that happened in INTIM during the outbreak of the COVID-
19 pandemic and the imposition of MCO throughout Malaysia. Besides, it will also look into how
INTIM managed to overcome the resistance to change until it successfully becomes one of the best
public training institutes with a multi-channel training delivery system in Malaysia.

Keywords: Organizational Change, factors, response, online, delivery, training

Introduction
Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019 (WHO.int. (2020), a lot of
organizations have faced challenges and problems especially in dealing with their operation which
regards communication and coordination of works (Kniffin et al. 2021). With the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of governments around the world have imposed Movement
Control Order (MCO) to control the outbreak. Due to that, many organizations have faced challenges
and issues in maintaining customers as well as business suppliers to continue their business. In
addition, some of them have to cease operation temporarily to cope up with the MCO’s requirement
(Bartik et al. 2020). Besides regular industries that are affected by the pandemic, training and
education services especially among training providers that consist of companies and training
institutions have also being affected by the pandemic. At some point, many of them have faced similar
challenges in sustaining the requirement to fulfil their training needs for their employees to serve their
customer’s expectations (Ken Taylor, 2020). There are certain areas in training and courses offered
that have become a standard requirement for the organization to achieve in offering courses to
employees. These standard requirements include the level of understanding of subject matter,
improvement in skills and knowledge, increased confidence in performing the work entrusted as well
as efficient use of resources among employees. In a normal situation, all of these requirements are
achievable based on standard operating procedures that are produced as a guide for the training
module delivery itself. Standardization in operation is key in finding a solution through the habitual
application of certain procedures or actions (Isin Akyar, 2012).

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