CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN UKRAINIAN EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES AS A DRIVER OF DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Extractive industries (mining and quarrying, in particular) is a strategically important part of the primary sector of Ukraine. The current state of the extractive industries is characterized by a certain revival, however only in a few sectors. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights to the extractive industry performance and identify the main factors of change that will ensure growth in the primary sector. The analysis showed that as of today the extractive industry companies demonstrate low performance efficiency (a slowdown in production growth rate, fluctuations in cost effectiveness and profits, a significant share of unprofitable businesses), their technical and production capacity fail to meet the global trends which is underpinned by ineffective opportunity management in the given sector. For extractive industries, change management gains critical importance subject to their high environmental dynamism. Changes in the business environment in the mining and quarrying sectors are generated by the factors of space, time, consumer, safety, products, price – all of which initiate external changes; reduce (curtail) lag changes; trigger changes in the market infrastructure and the range of related services; promote government support extension; yet again prove the need for changes in extraction engineering and technology, raw materials processing and enrichment; assign changes in approaches to cost control and pricing methods. The key messages that make companies move forward to change should be: increasing difficulties in confronting the entropic effects of the external environment; crisis phenomena within companies; deterioration of market environment; company management or any stakeholders’ (their groups) initiatives of changes; contact group information on certain requirements for products, prices, resources cost, etc. The research findings have revealed the following headwinds that hamper changes: the lack of effective management and professional managers capable of implementing the entire cycle of changes; inefficient organizational structure, the presence of conflicts in the organization; resistance to change; undeveloped corporate culture of the enterprise.