This article assesses the effectiveness of management of the organizational change process and in a Brazilian family business in the healthcare sector. The business is undergoing a succession process and wants to improve its professional profile. The study consisted of a field research and a quality analysis that compared the data obtained and the concepts identified in a selected literature. Data was collected through informal interviews, analysis of the company's documents and through participant observation, from July 2005 to January 2006. This article shows if the organizational change process has succeeded or not, also considering the model proposed by John P. Kotter for the efficient implementation of changes in organizations, comparing the eight-stage change process proposed by that author to what actually happened in the company. The analysis of the change process led to the conclusion that it was unsuccessful. It suggests that Kotter's model is applicable to the situation studied since it shows that several stages mentioned by the author were not followed and this fact has caused problems in the organizational change process.
organizational change; change management; family business
