Abstract
The paper provides discussions on change management for multiple stakeholder groups in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), using the COVID-19 pandemic as our key case study. The key theory that underpinned our study is the Kubler-Ross Change Curve. Drawing from two sets of focus groups consisting of 20 participants across five selected stakeholder groups in UK HEIs – students, lecturers, faculty/school executives, professional/admin staff and learning technologists, our findings revealed that the selected stakeholder groups experienced all the stages of the Kubler-Ross cycle but in varying degrees. Among all the five stakeholder groups, students appeared to be the most impacted stakeholder group by the sudden unprecedented change that arose from the pandemic, given that their responses on shock, denial, anger and depression consist of 53% of the responses of the entire sample size. On the other hand, faculty executives, whose responses on integration constituted 33% of the responses of the entire sample size, appeared to have integrated faster with the sudden change, compared to other stakeholder groups, given their roles as change managers in this situation. We conclude by recommending an extension to the Kubler-Ross change model, arguing that integration is a continuous process, which should be broken down into sub-stages.