Organizational Change And Development - Essay Example

? Organizational change and development Introduction “There is a mindset and fixed assumption that a market is the best known form of society, and therefore whatever occurs in accordance with its requirements is bound to be the best we can hope for” (McMurtry, 1998, p.13). However, current global market is not the same as it a couple of decades before. Huge changes are taking place in all segments of human life and business world is also not an exception. Since the society and market are highly interconnected, any changes happening in the society may affect the market and vice versa. Organizations are undergoing numerous changes over the last couple of decades because of globalization, liberalization, privatizations, advancements in science and technology and the increasing awareness about the necessities of protecting our environment with sustainable business practices. Organizations in the past were concentrated only in profit making whereas current organizations are particular in protecting the community in which they operate. Internet related communication technologies are growing day by day and as a result of that many of the traditional organizations principles are undergoing huge changes now. “The ability of organizations to manage and survive change is becoming increasingly important in an environment where competition and globalization of markets are ever intensifying” (Amgoh, 2008, p.1). Globalization has brought revolutionary changes in the organizational world and because of that international business or cross cultural businesses are growing rapidly. Outsourcing and offshoring like business strategies were not in the distant dreams of the entrepreneurs three to four years before. Now, all the prominent organizations in the world are doing everything possible to exploit cheap labor available in global market. Cross cultural business brought many changes in organizational world. The development of diverse workforce is one among them. Diverse workforce brought many opportunities as well as challenges so that organizations forced to redefine many of the existing strategies for the smooth functioning of the company. In short, organizations are undergoing rapid changes at present. This paper analyses different perspectives on organizational changes. Different perspectives on organizational changes According to Grieves (2010), “The phrase change intervention refers to change actions taken at strategic level to help an organization become more effective” (Grieves, 2010, p.7). Competition is growing day by day because of various reasons and it is necessary for the organizations to device new methods to counter competition. An organization which fails to implement adequate changes in its structure and functioning may struggle to survive in this heavily competitive and highly advanced organizational world. For example Nokia was the leader in the Mobile phone market up to a couple of years before. However, they are not so at present because of the intrusion of smartphones from Apple, Samsung etc. In other words, Nokia failed to implement timely changes in its product ranges and as a result of that they lost considerable market share in mobile phone market. It should be noted that even in normal situation, goal conflict exists between firm (owners) and its employees, but the magnitude and intensity of this conflict is very low and so it is hidden, we call this ‘goal difference’, and both parties (firm & employees) accept each other’s goals. In a strategic and major change program, firms alter their goals, which result in shifting and increasing their focus towards new goals. The shift in focus and increased commitment of firm towards attaining its new goals, increase the magnitude and intensity of goal conflict and it become very difficult for both parties to accept each other’s goals (Khan and Rehman, n. d) The interests of the organization and that of the employees are always travelling in opposite directions. Employees want to reduce their workloads as much as possible whereas the organization wants to provide the employees as much as workloads possible. Same way, organization likes to reduce the salaries of the employees as much as possible whereas the employees like to have higher salaries. It is difficult for both the parties to accept the needs of opposite party and therefore organizational conflicts may often arise between employees and the employer. It is necessary to fix some norms with respect to the working conditions of the employees in order to avoid conflicts. As organizational principles and business philosophies and strategies are changing day by day, it is necessary to make desired changes in the organization periodically to avoid the clashes between the interests of the organization and that of the employees and other stakeholders. Earlier, markets were dominated by sellers whereas at present markets are dominated by the buyers. In other words, current buyers have more choices and options so that they can bargain much to force the seller to reduce the price of a commodity. Customers are accepted as the most important resource of an organization according to the modern principles of scientific management of business. Organizations should undergo drastic changes so that all the customers approaching the organization for some kind of services should return happily. For example, after sales services were negligible earlier; however, at present organizations give more importance to after sales services because of their awareness that it is important to keep an existing customer satisfied along with attracting new customers. Mouth publicity is believed to be the most important advertising channel for an organization. A dissatisfied customer may spread wrong messages about an organization and it is easy for such customers to attack the organization with the help of modern communication channels such as social networks. In short, organizational changes become unavoidable at present because of the entry of modern business philosophies and changing business climates. “Structural functional perspective is the oldest approach to organizational design. It contains a variety of theories such as hard systems, system dynamics, soft systems, cybernetics, critical system heuristics and postmodern system thinking” (Grieves, 2010, p.4). System thinking is the process of identifying how one parameter affects other parameters in a system. System thinking is necessary to the current organizations for better performance. Peter Checkland has introduced the concept of hard systems and soft systems in organizations. “Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) has in general proved powerful as a systemic approach to organizational change”(Mathiassen & Nielsen, 1989, p.274). Soft system methodology is used to analyze, design and change organizational strategies to suit the needs of the modern business world. It deals with organizational parameters which cannot be measured accurately. For example, it is difficult for an organization to analyze the motivation levels, organizational culture, organizational politics, opinions of individual employees and their interactions accurately. It should be noted that all these factors can affect the functioning of an organization in one way or other. Hard systems normally deal with system engineering. Measurable problems can be solved with the help of hard systems. Hard systems make use of computer related technologies for solving problems. For example, internet related technologies are developing rapidly and therefore it is necessary for the organizations to make adjustments in its functioning. It is no more feasible for an organization to use electronic type writers for typing documents or using fax machines for sending and receiving messages. All these functions can be performed more efficiently with the help of computer and internet based technologies. Instead of typists, the needs of the current era are data entry operators in organizations. Cybernetics is the study of structure and regulatory systems of an organization. “Practitioners of cybernetics use models of organizations, feedback, goals, and conversation to understand the capacity and limits of any system; technological, biological, or social” (Pangaro, 2011). In modern organizational world, cybernetics is getting more popularity because of its usefulness in connecting information, control and system theories. The perspectives of multiple constituencies evolved in 1960s to challenge the native rationalism of the structural functional perspective by arguing that an organizational is not equivalent to a biological entity and therefore the organic model is inappropriate to organizations (Grieves, 2010, p.7). The effectiveness of an organization cannot be measured based on any single parameters. The effectiveness of an organization is currently measured based on its performances on multiple constituencies. For example, organizations concentrated only on the profit making aspect in the past. However, current organizations need to look for sustainable business practices along with profit making objectives. Corporate social responsibility is an important term in the organizational world nowadays. People all over the world like to establish contacts with organizations which follow sustainable business practices. Current organizations are undergoing three kinds of changes; developmental, transitional and transformational (Types of change, n. d., p.13). Developmental changes deals with the correction of existing drawbacks or deficiencies of the organization whereas transitional changes are intended to attain desired state at the expense of the existing state. “Transformational change is radical or second order in nature. It requires a shift in assumptions made by the organization and its members” (Types of change, p.13). “Process always involves reference to some sort of whole: whether it be a matter of words in a language, episodes in a story, or “goods and services” on the market” (Graeber, 2005, p.57). Different processes are necessary for the efficient functioning of an organization. Even if an organization produces high quality products, it is not necessary that these products may excel in the market. Effective advertising and sales promotions like processes are necessary to boost the sales of a product in the market. When all the processes of an organization combine well, the organization will function efficiently. Individual brilliant performances may not help an organization. As in the case of team work, all the components and processes of an organization should work efficiently to make an organization an efficient one. Organizational changes: values and valorizations Another type of organizational changes taking place at present is with respect to values and valorizations. According to McMurtry (1998), “A value program rule invariably alters the lives of different individuals and classes in different ways. Some become wealthy beyond limit, and many more starve” (McMurtry, 1998, p.12). The above principle is true in organizational world also. Many of the small and medium scale industries are struggling for survival t present because of the tougher competition from multinational companies. Cross cultural business or international business is growing day by day and as a result of that it is easy for bigger companies to enter any overseas countries easily. In other words, bigger companies are swallowing smaller companies under the label of merger and acquisition like modern business strategies. The ultimate result is that smaller companies are collapsing whereas bigger companies are increasing their wealth. Valorization is a concept created by Karl Marx which deals with an object, process or activity which generates value or money. "Valorization" [Verwertung] designates the complex process through which capital is able not only to put people to work, but to do so in such a way that the process can be repeated on an ever greater scale. Technically, valorization involves all of the steps included in Marx's circuit of productive capital: the process of production, wherein people are put to work producing products which exceed their own requirements for living, the sale of those products at prices which permit the realization by the capitalist of surplus value, and finally the reinvestment of that surplus value such that people will, once more be put to work. To label this process "valorization" is to emphasize the enormous transformation capital achieves by reducing the diversity of human productive activity to a unified mechanism of social control (Cleaver, n.d., p.8) Karl Marx argued that the true value of a product depends on the labor needed to produce that product. In other words, products which need more labor for production can be highly priced whereas products which need less labor for production should be lowly priced. Marx’s theory of value and valorizations were acceptable to the business world until recent times. However, as per the modern business and economic concepts, prices of a product should be fixed based on the demand and supply rather than the labor involved in the production processes. For example, crude oil prices have come down to around 50 dollars per barrel few years before because of low demand. At the same time, crude oil prices reached even 150 dollars per barrel at another point of time in the recent past. It should be noted that the labor needed for the drilling, extraction and purification of the oil remains the same during these fluctuations in oil prices. In short, prices of commodity is not only depends on the labor involved for its production, but also the supply and demand of that commodity in the market. “Marx was not particularly interested in coming up with a model that would predict price fluctuations, understand pricing mechanisms, and so on” (Graeber, 2005, p.24). “While self-valorization has its problems, it provides a useful concept to draw our attention to struggles that go beyond resistance to various kinds of positive, socially constitutive self-activity” (Cleaver,1992, p.18). Organizations need to respect the services of hard working employees irrespective whether they are doing a simple job or a complicated job. The utility of a peon may not be the same as that of a manager for an organization. However, it is necessary for the organizations to respect and value the volume of work completed by a person rather than the nature of the work completed. “The Dutch Innovation Platform defines valorization as “the process of value creation from knowledge by making it suitable and/or available for economic and/or social use by translating it into competitive products, services, processes or new commercial activities” (Valorization, n.d., p.221). For example, Apple Inc. struggled for survival in 1980’s and 90’s because of the huge competition from arch rival Microsoft. However, they managed to push Microsoft far behind at the beginning of 2000 with the help of innovative “i” series products such as iMac, iPhone, iPod, iPad, iTune, etc. For the first time in the history of mobile phones, people realized the potential of smart phones with the introduction of iPhone from Apple. At present many other prominent mobile phone manufacturers are trying to develop their own versions of smartphones to stay in the market and to compete with iPhones. In short, Apple tasted success because of their abilities to create value for their products with the help of new technologies. In other words, Apple was able to transform new technologies into useful products which helped them to push their competitors yards behind. Social role valorization (SRV) Wolf Wolfensberger, PhD has introduced the theory of social role valorization in 1983 which is completely different from the value and valorization theories put forward by Karl Marx. Social role valorization deals with human relationships and human services. The definitions of SRV have been changed many times since its introduction. The most recent definition given to SRV by Wolfensberger says that SRV is “The application of what science can tell us about the enablement, establishment, enhancement, maintenance, and/or defense of valued social roles for people" (Osburn, 1998). Science and technology is undergoing tremendous changes over the past few decades. Based on the advancements in science and technology, all human life segments are also undergoing huge changes. For example, computer related communication technologies were successful in rewriting many of the traditional organizational principles. It is not necessary for the executives of an organization to travel longer distances to attend business meetings now. Videoconferencing is one of the most popular methods of business meetings at present. The major goal of SRV is to create or support socially valued roles for people in their society, because if a person holds valued social roles, that person is highly likely to receive from society those good things in life that are available to that society, and that can be conveyed by it, or at least the opportunities for obtaining these (Osburn, 1998). SRV is intended for the wellbeing of two types of people; lower class in the society and the people who are on the verge of getting devalued in the society. It should be noted that the major objective of globalization is collective growth. In other words globalization should help poor countries to mobilize their resources properly and attain development. In short, the objectives of SRV and that of globalization are travelling in parallel directions. Organizations should make proper changes so that the objectives of globalization and SRV will be met with ease. The awareness about the necessities of protecting our environment is growing day by day. Industries and organizations are playing causing huge problems to the environment. The toxic material emissions from industrial units and automobiles are causing atmospheric temperature rise or global warming. If organizations fail to implement drastic measures to reduce carbon and other toxic gas emissions from their units, our environment may not survive long. It is impossible either for the organizations or for the living things to survive on earth if the atmospheric temperature goes beyond certain limits. Under such circumstances, it is the duty of a socially committed organization to fulfill its commitments to the society. As said earlier, curren5t generation values the efforts of socially committed organizations very much than other organizations. They try to establish relationships only with the organizations which have a good track record of exhibiting social responsibility. Conclusions Periodical changes are necessary for the organizations to survive in an ever changing market. Structural, functional, developmental, transitional and transformational changes are necessary for the organizations to cater the needs of the changing business world. Many of the traditional business and organizational principles are no longer effective under the current system of business. Because of the huge advancements in science and technology and the subsequent developments in human life, the needs of the needs of the current generation are entirely different from that of the generations in the past. Only those companies which are able to cater the needs of the present generation may survive in the market. In short, organizational changes are unavoidable for an organization which tries to stay in the present heavily globalized market. Values and valorizations are important terms in the corporate world at present because of the increasing awareness about the public about sustainable business practices. It is impossible for a current organization to exploit community resources as much as possible and provide nothing in return to the communities. Current generation knows the importance of protecting our environment and they deals only with the companies which have good track record of exhibiting social responsibility. References 1. Amgoh F. (2008). Perspectives on Organizational Change: Systems and Complexity Theories. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Volume 13(3), 2008, article 3. 2. Cleaver, H. (2001). Reading capital politically. AK Press, 01-Jul-2001 3. Cleaver, H. (n.d.) The Inversion of Class Perspective in Marxian Theory: from Valorization to Self-Valorization [Online] available at: https://webspace.utexas.edu/hcleaver/www/Inversion.pdf [accessed on 05 January 2012] 4. Grieves, J. 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