Analyzing An Organizational Change Process Using the HPO Framework: the Case of A Rwandese Bank

Over the past decades, the financial industry has been affected by sustained liberalization and synchronization of the financial markets as well as new developments in information technology. This caused the banking industry in emerging markets to become more competitive due to increased bank sizes caused by acquisitions and mergers while they did not necessarily become more profitable. In this article the organizational restructuring process of a bank in Rwanda is investigated on its effectiveness. The high performance organization (HPO) diagnosis was applied, consisting of a questionnaire containing questions on the quality of the organization and interviews with top management. This diagnosis established the HPO status of the bank. The questionnaire was also applied at three other banks in Rwanda for comparison purposes. The HPO Diagnosis clearly indicated the reasons why the restructuring efforts of the case company had not resulted in better organizational results and in fact had led to under-par performance compared to the other three banks. The diagnosis also yielded multiple improvement possibilities for the bank to make its restructuring efforts successful after all. The research findings will make it possible for Rwanda Bank to improve its performance to the benefit both of its clients and stakeholders. The findings will also benefit other Rwandan banks in their efforts to achieve higher organizational performance.