The concept of organizational change within management theory - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Business Contemporary Organizational Change An Exploratory Paper Introduction The concept of organizational change within management theory and practice has evolved in importance ever since its inception, from one of numerous prospective approaches to management to a major strategy of organizational survival and success. The emphases have evolved from an individual’s strategic decision to one of irrefutable external factors that organizational actors have to predict, respond to, and deal with. It is argued in this paper that organizational change as an indispensable force has turned into a major management subject area today. Organizational change is a paradigm for addressing the impact of new external and internal forces, changes in culture and structure within an organization (Mills, 2003). Basically, organizational change deals with the change management’s human aspect. A methodical organizational change is favorable when change necessitates all the people in an organization to gain new skills, practices, and knowledge (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). By appropriately establishing expectations and goals, using instruments to enhance communication and information dissemination and dynamically pursuing means to avoid misunderstanding, stakeholders are more predisposed to accept a change at the onset and remain steadfast to the change despite of any difficulties accompanying it. Meanwhile, if one were to look deeply after monitoring and examining several organizational changes, an array of goals would appear to exist. These goals could be implied or formally stated, or they could be embedded in the decisions and responses of the management (Kamoche, Cunha, & Cunha, 2002). To the outsider, the general goals can be grouped under such categories as reduced turnover, reinforced innovation, new strategies, enhanced teamwork and cooperation, strengthened motivation, etc (Kamoche et al., 2002). Organizational changes are usually intended for these several common goals. Fundamental to these more apparent goals are generally two underlying purposes: (1) changes in employees’ behaviors and attitudes, and (2) changes in the adaptation level of an organization (Kezar, 2001). The first objective of organizational change, to realize transformations in patterns of behavior, becomes evident if one identifies that the adaptation level of the organization is not strengthened except if a large number of its people behave or act differently with regard to their tasks and their relationship to each other. An organization does not function mechanically; it operates through its people, and every organization possesses distinctive approaches to decision making (Kezar, 2001). Hence, any organizational change, regardless if it will be established through a training course or a new structural plan, is fundamentally trying to encourage employees to accept and implement new behavioral patterns and rudiments for performing tasks and relating to each other. Likewise, organizations are constantly trying to adapt themselves strongly and effectively to their immediate internal and external environment. Due to the fact that organizational management has no power to totally control its environment, particularly the external one, they are persistently obliged to initiate internal changes in the organization which permit them to deal more successfully with new challenges and problems of the external environment, such as difficult social demands, technological advances, heightened competition, and new government regulation (Murray & Richardson, 2002). Organizational changes are normally launched in ‘response’ to demands from the external environment. Nevertheless, in several instances, changes are initiated in ‘expectation’ of future demands and problems. What Provokes Organizational Change? A fundamental fact of the twenty-first century is that managers and organizations as a whole are confronted with insistent pressures of change. Organizations are ever more provoked to predict and act in response to constantly evolving social, economic, technological, market, and competitive environments (Tidd, Bessant, & Pavitt, 2001). However, in spite of this and an implicit burgeoning of managerial and scholarly interests given to theorizing and systematically verifying an array of change management processes, effective organizational change usually remains difficult to attain. According to McKinsey’s global business analysis, as mentioned by Mills (2003), very few organizational change programs were perceived as effective by their leaders. Generally, managers have become more and more at ease with planned change as they, rather than outside experts, have assumed ever more dynamic roles in making it happen. Certainly, a large number of managers are becoming increasingly capable of responding to the external environment, theorizing a desirable future condition, and executing the consequent program for realizing that definite goal (Mills, 2003). Basically, there are six general motivators for organizational change. First is structural change. Organizational change emerges when novel administrative procedures are launched (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). Take for instance the repercussions of consolidating a documentation procedure employing information and communications technology. Outmoded procedures are replaced by new technologies and employees are obliged to learn operating them. Second is strategic reorientation. When the organization transforms its internal operations to implement a new model or system, organizational change happens (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). Take for instance the dilemma of an organization that alters its strategy from a product-oriented to a people-oriented paradigm. Emergent production requirements, innovative marketing, and a modification in inventory procedures provoke a change response all over the organization. Third is process modification. Adjustments in an organization’s operations can bring about organizational change (Kamoche et al., 2002). For instance, if an organization was accustomed to permitting divisions to be independent, then a modification to a consolidated operation will generate changes in the structure of the organization. If a newly formed division has been assigned to deal with an organizational requirement, the organizational structure should adapt to have room for the newly formed division. Fourth are adjustments in government legislations or policies. Government employees can witness current policies terminated when an adjustment in government occurs (Murray & Richardson, 2002). The consequent reorientation of objectives that comes about as an outcome of the new government policies and legislations can generate a revolutionary change in the departments’ operations. Fifth is job repetition. Manifold CEOs and managers in a company may generate the demand for change (Murray & Richardson, 2002). Employees can become disgruntled or discouraged with attempting to gratify numerous executives and managers, or employees may discover means to exploit conflicting opinions by different managers to obtain what they require. When workers experience manifold management tasks, the organizational structure has to be modified to remove the unnecessary functions and align divisions with the appropriate manager. Sixth are changes in the market. An organization’s structural requirements change alongside changes in the marketplace (Tidd et al., 2001). For instance, as prices of oil increase, consumers may start to buy more fuel-saving automobiles. Hence, a car company may be forced to change their priority to this kind of vehicles. This involves hiring service personnel and sales employees trained in operating and trading these automobiles. How is the Organizational Change Best Carried Out? An imperative initial measure in developing effective organizational change is to upgrade the knowledge of the members of the organization about change and the different techniques to effectively cope with it, with the objective of improving their readiness and capacity to change. Organizational change is best carried out through various approaches. From a theoretical perspective, there are basically three rudimentary, interconnected models of executing effective organizational change (Mills, 2003): (1) guided change, (2) planned change, and (3) directed change. A quite unusual model is guided change, which is an evolving mechanism that can begin at any organizational setting. It is rooted in the dedication and input of members of the organization to its objective (Mills, 2003). In the point of view of the coinciding changes that are common to the highly competitive business world nowadays, this model tries to maximize the creativity, knowledge, and skills of organizational members, restructuring current approaches and practices and experimenting with innovative concepts and techniques. Guided change is a constant mechanism of preliminary design and analysis, innovation and execution, gaining knowledge from the change attempt, and afterwards communicating that knowledge all over the organization, resulting in continuous re-evaluation and reconstruction of the change as required (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). The consequent series of development, improvement, and learning reinforces the stable progress of current change attempts as well as the capability of creating innovative solutions and adjustments. Planned change, on the other hand, may emerge from any organizational level but is eventually backed up by the top. Initiators and executors of change demand participation in and dedication to the change by comprehensive application of particular actions and decisions, determined through experience and knowledge, which reduce the expected opposition and inefficiency linked to directed change (Buono & Poulfelt, 2009). Fundamental to majority of efforts towards planned change is the ‘Lewinian three-stage process of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing’ (Buono & Poulfelt, 2009, 71): (1) unfreezing or releasing the organization from its current patterns, (2) transitioning the resulting, more malleable, organization from its current patterns to more adaptive ones, and then (3) refreezing the organization into a new set of patterns by weaving them into the fabric of the organization. Rather than merely building and introducing a change, the model of planned change offers a ‘blueprint’ (Buono & Poulfelt, 2009). It tries to develop the circumstances for major stakeholders to become further engaged in the development and execution of change. In the meantime, directed change is initiated from the organization’s top levels and depends on compliance, influence, and legitimacy. Leaders build and introduce the change and try to persuade members of the organization to recognize it on the basis of business need, leader’s reliability, rational decisions, and emotional exigencies (Mills, 2003). Directed change is a rapid, critical technique of launching change. Apparently, each of these techniques has strengths but each has limitations too. For instance, once directed change is employed incorrectly, members of the organization are compelled to deal with the common responses of the receivers of the introduced change, such as loss, depression, resentment, and denial (Mills, 2003). Likewise, although planned change generates a vital capacity in current organizations, employed incorrectly it can still lead to substantial productivity losses, discourage employees with its intricacies and difficulty, and estrange major stakeholders as an outcome of inadequate involvement and power over the process. Another weakness of planned change is the absence of flexibility (Buono & Poulfelt, 2009). Ultimately, inappropriate use of guided change can lead to organizational disorder, as constant adjustments and changes discourage and perplex (Mills, 2003) rather than inform members of the organization and other major stakeholders. Therefore, since each of these models of change management has strength and limitation, building successful organization change entails the capacity to opt among them as required by the condition. When choosing a suitable model to execute organizational change, the main motivator of the transition from ‘directed’ to ‘planned’ change is enlarging organizational intricacy, while the transition to guided change is motivated by the level of socio-technical ambiguity. General Guidelines to Organizational Change Although organizations normally focus on implementation, forecasting, and stability, a change-oriented culture holds learning, integrity, flexibility, and openness. Separating from organizational routines and traditional operating procedures and policies is, apparently, difficult. Certainly, the strength of status quo and tradition support cultures that preclude the forms of changes, particularly with regard to flexibility and dexterity, which members of the organization have to accept in unpredictable settings (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). Concurrently, a change-oriented culture understands that more conventional models of change may continue to be suitable in particular situations. Hence, it is vital that all members of the organization become further enlightened and updated about the weaknesses and strengths of various models of change as well as the wider environment for the proposed change as they create a collective perspective for analyzing and discussing it. Essentially, the organization should endeavor to build a common goal reinforced by a shared understanding of change. As a requirement of this mechanism, managers should be persuaded to espouse a stakeholder perspective that stresses sharing of information and learning, welcomes suggestions and experimentations, respects other opinions and accepts errors for the sake of learning (Kezar, 2001). An emphasis on merely accomplishing tasks, and performing correctly the first time, can immediately dissuade the kind of thinking and innovation that is ever more imperative to survival in today’s drastically evolving, competitive environment. A similar aspect that influences the success of organizational change concerns the organization’s strategic model. Kamoche and colleagues (2002), contrary to conventional models, underline the significance of establishing strategic process as the common situation. This model requires logical and active thinking, prioritizing the future, and consolidating a chain of temporary strengths, instead of trying to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. While a change-oriented culture definitely needs a common goal to give a general path, according to Tidd and colleagues (2001), techniques for attaining that common goal can transform all of sudden based on situations concerning potential advantages, competitors, and markets. Organizations should build a common knowledge and awareness through which their people are motivated to think rationally and methodically so that processes can adapt promptly, are encouraged in their attempts to reflect about potential advantages, competitors, and markets, and are empowered to include future situations into current actions. Generally, a fundamental objective is to build and convey a change-oriented culture (Mills, 2003), externally and internally. Putting into effect organizational change to strengthen organizational vision and mission poses numerous difficulties to attain organization wide recognition. Adopting a comprehensive model of change management can help organizations espouse the appropriate attitude and way of thinking at the onset. There are basically four general guidelines to organizational change. First is modifying processes to make room for a change. Organizations that execute organizational change usually fall short in sufficiently evaluating the effect that changes can bring about on current practices (Murray & Richardson, 2002). New technologies and processes are usually needed to reinforce new changes. This involves educating and training employees to correctly operate the technologies. The process of change management should involve a review of current processes to determine sectors for weaknesses before implementation. Second is recruit professionals and acquire knowledge of most effective practices in the industry. Experts in change management have extensive business knowledge and familiarity and can determine issues and weaknesses (Murray & Richardson, 2002). Using the expertise of satisfactorily trained and experienced employees who can evaluate organizational needs, modify change efforts and assess the stage of implementation offers a chance for organizations to prevent major errors. Experts in change management can broaden the organizational vision by bringing in the most favorable practices in the industry and applying appropriate examples from the industry. Third is adopting a cumulative model of change. The phase of evaluation for executing organizational change enables an organization to design or modify the developed change mechanism, capacity, and strengthen the outcomes and develop a feedback system (Kezar, 2001). Putting into effect organizational changes in cumulative phases offers the chance for direct observation, assessment, and constant improvement. By encouraging the participation of the members of the organization in the course of action, those who are most vulnerable to the effects of the change can give inputs for the determination of the outcome. When organizational members are drawn in, mindsets can immediately transform from opposition to recognition. Fourth is management-to-employee model. It is important that top level managers accept and espouse organizational change and stay responsible during the entire process (Kezar, 2001). Effective and firm leadership promotes the goal, openly communicate the positive aspects of the changes, and aid in building motivation and mitigating defiant attitudes. Successful organizational processes oblige organizations to take up a flexible perspective of evolving consumer inclinations and markets. As organizations restructure, merge, or confront new competition, executing organizational change is imperative to remain successful and competitive. When a redirection of fundamental business goals occurs, it is crucial that a paradigm of change management go together with the new organizational orientation (Poole & Van De Ven, 2004). This can significantly help an organization to attain its new goals. Conclusions Organizations are fairly able to develop a sustainable groundwork for executing change if they concentrate the needed resources and priority on improving their change ability. As argued in this paper, this attempt necessitates processes rooted in culture, structural issues, and members of the organization. It has been proposed in this paper that when members of the organization learn the different models of change and the notion of successful organizational change, they are fairly able to identify the suitable change model-- guided, planned, or directed change-- if provided the assistance, chance, and motivation. Inopportunely, organizations are quite often limited by existing processes, cultures, and structures that are anchored in the necessity for certainty and control rather on the indispensability of a drastically evolving external and internal environment. Nevertheless, organizations and managements nowadays cannot merely depend on improvised strategies or models that are constantly manipulated from the top, fundamentally producing self-incriminating problems that weaken their capacity to successfully initiate important organizational changes. The solution is to help and motivate managers to widen their change management horizon by forming a shared knowledge of the processes and nature of organizational change, developing a change-oriented structure and culture, and shaping and strengthening a change-oriented organization. Even though effective organizational change may appear to be an extremely difficult and complex endeavor, the capacity to implement change on a firm and stable way is attainable if organizations are willing to focus on building change-oriented cultures. References Buono, A. & Poulfelt, F. (2009). Client-Consultant Collaboration: Coping with Complexity and Change. New York: Information Age Publishing. Kamoche, K., Cunha, M. & Cunha, J. (2002). Organizational Improvisation. New York: Routledge. Kezar, A. (2001). Understanding and Facilitating Organizational Change in the 21st Century: Recent Research and Conceptualizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mills, J.H. (2003). Making Sense of Organizational Change. London: Routledge. Murray, E. & Richardson, P. (2002). Fast Forward: Organizational Change in 100 Days. New York: Oxford University Press. Poole, M.S. & Van De Ven, A. (2004). Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Tidd, J., Bessant, J. & Pavitt, K. (2001). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More