Organizational Change - Coursework Example

Organizational change Introduction: Organizational change is the alteration of work environment in an organization. It implies any change in the technology, structural arrangement, job designs and people. This essentially necessitates a new equilibrium. In a competitive environment, organizational change becomes a continuous process. Some changes are minor which are easily absorbed by the organization, but some are major changes, which need a great deal of effort to be effectively incorporated into the existing system. Here we are taking the example of Fakhoora fund raising company which adopted technology services to improve their performance. Resistance to change: “Change is difficult to define because each organization will face its own challenges and, therefore, its own rationale for change. Equally, each organization has differing resources, company culture and personal dynamics. The leaders of individual organizations have varying aims. Among all differences, one point remains intact and that is change. Change is the only permanent thing that modern day organizations of varying businesses, sizes and ethnicity have to adopt in order to survive and sustain.”(Ahluwalia, & Joshi, 2008). Changes can occur due to both external and internal factors. External factors include technological changes, changes in the market condition, social changes as well as political and legal changes. Internal factors are brought about by changes in the managerial position and deficiency in the existing organization, mergers and acquisitions, etc. A major change requires careful planning because it involves a transformation of all aspects of the organization that are closely interrelated, like technology, task, structure and people. Changes will also take place in the organizational structure. “Significant technological change will alter existing work patterns and social relationships, and these changes frequently will be resisted by people who fear some kind of loss.” (Penderghast, 2004). Whenever there is a change, there will be resistance to change. To overcome resistance, employees should be educated or provided extensive information and knowledge about the need for change and about the change itself. Participation and involvement by all of the employees to the change on a regular basis is necessary. Gaining employee’s commitment is another step to overcome resistance. This will bring about an agreement between the change-agent and those who resist the change to take active part in the actual mechanics of the change. Leadership also plays an important part in bringing down the resistance to change. Since a manager cannot always use his formal authority to get support for the change, he sometimes relies on his personal skills, qualities and other characteristic traits to influence people for accepting the change. Motivation is always needed for an employee to increase the efficiency in his performance. It can be provided through words or through monetary benefits like incentives, rewards etc. “Resistance does not always happen. However, when it does, we often consider the resisters to be unreasonable and stubborn. As a result, we tend to support the technology change with data and logical arguments and pronounce the change more loudly and forcibly.” (Halley, (n.d). Here we are discussing about a non profit organization called Al Fakhoora Fund. Its major aim is to support the educational sector in the Gaza. It collects funds through various ways. They earn money through television channels. They use this money for rebuilding the schools at Gaza and for helping students through by allotting scholarship. Al Fakhoora allot many scholarships for the Palestinian students. Major parts of these students are studying in abroad especially in Qatar. Political and social situation in Gaza is not safe. Gaza is the largest city in Palestine. It is a riotous area. An Israel air raid is common at this area. At that time people were injured. Al Fakhoora organization uses this fund for the medical purposes for the injured people especially for injured students. They collect money through charity appeals, by direct contact with peoples and through the e-mail and SMS. A lot of people from various part of the world sent money to them for their service. The online article Sheikha Mozah Launches Al Fakhoora Fund quotes the words of Sheikha Mozha that “QR32.7m was raised through Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) towards the Al Fakhoora Fund. “This is the first installment of donations that was raised through the emergency campaign by ROTA”, she said.” (Sheikha mozah launches al fakhoora fund, 2009). Adoption: - Al Fakhoora faces a lot of resistance by different ways. Most important problem is that the shelling against the Al Fakhoora schools. Many students are either injured or lost their lives by this shell attack from the Israel. Many Al Fakhoora schools are either damages or completely destroyed due to this kind of attack. In that situation they build temporary schools and give education to the students from this schools. The attack against the educational institution is a major problem faced by Al Fakhoora. For preventing the attach against the children and the schools the cooperation from the whole world is essential. UN and UNESCO should take care in this case. (Sheikha Mozah meets UNESCO panel on Iraq, 18 Thursday January 22, 2009). (Qatar tribune nation, 2009). Like any other non profit organization people works related to Al fakhoora may have a lot of resistance for collecting funds for the above mentioned purposes. Some of such resistance may be faces are the Difficult in finding suitable funds raiser. Here already mentioned the different ways to collecting funds for this organization. For finding the people who has the money and mental power to give money to the Al Fakhoora is a difficult task. Some times the money may be diverged with its aims. It is a charitable institution. They spend their money mainly for educational purpose. How they confirm the scholarship and other things they given to the suitable students. Lack of coordination is another problem faced by many non profit organizations. So this problem may also come into the Al Fakhoora. Support from the staff also come into this organization. (Nonprofit organizations, 1997). To overcome these problems organizations needs good management. In case of the organizations like Al Fakhoora people associated with the organization should be dedicated in their job. Including professionals and experiences people will helps to reduce the resistance due to lack of coordination and lack of support from the staff. Then develop a website for collecting funds from various parts of the world. If Al Fakhoora has a proper monitoring system then they can prevent the fund divergence. By the help of this monitoring system they can distribute their scholarships and other things for the suitable children. Technology used in Al Fakhoora Use: - To improve the performance of the Al Fakhoora fund raising and its distribution different technologies like Television and World Wide Web are already exist in this organization. A lFakhoora has a satellite television channel. This channel is broadcast from Doha at Qatar. “Al Fakhoora television, which broadcasts via the Arab Satellite, has launched an appeal to viewers for contributions to its mission. The money raised will be used to help rebuild schools in the Gaza Strip.” (Qatar: Al fakhoora collects QR22m for Gaza, 2009) This channel broad cast a clear picture of the people in the riotous area. By watching the programs from this channel people from different part of the world can understand that what happened in Palestine. It will create pulse of the people in the whole world in the Israel-Palestine issue. If the channel shows the reality and it is informative, people in the world will watch the programs which they telecast. If they give information without solid evidence it may have negative effect. Because in this modern era solid evidence for what we say is am important factor. Another technology used by the Al Fakhoora is Internet. They have a web site. One can gather various information related to Al Fakhoora by their web sites. Today Web site is very common. By publishing different information related to the fund raising and distribution of the funds will helps to improve the publicity of the organization and through the improved publicity they can earn more funds. People can easily communicate with each other through the e-mail and by chatting. If people who wish to help the Al Fakhoora ion their service can contact the organization through this web site. Web based communication and information gathering can have a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Probability for the misuse of this technology is very high. To Avoid the misuse Web site by editing the information in the website or by hacking the secrete information related to the Al Fakhoora, provide high security. Hackers may collect information related to the details of the persons or organizations that gives money to the Al Fakhoora and may cheat them. Also frauds may hack the information related to the Bank details of the Al Fakhoora. To avoid all these types of misuses administration should take necessary steps. By continuous monitoring, and changing password, are some methods will helps to avoid the misuse of the technology. Model for organizational change: Any planned change needs change-agents. Change-agents are the persons who initiate change in the organization. The objective of the change-agent is to bring desired changes in the organization. The organization can seek the help of external consultants or experts to bring the desired change in the organization. It can also implement changes through internal change-agents. They are usually the CEO, departmental heads and other managers who act as change-advisors. The managers are known as change-agents because they are the persons who generally implement the change. Managers usually understand organizational and individual behavior and are better equipped to manage and oversee the required change. After people use already existing technologies like television channel and Web site in the proper way. Al Fakhoora collects a huge amount of money through their television program. According to Emad Dahdr "We have received funds of QR22.4m during the first four days of the campaign and hope much more will be collected by the end of this campaign." (Qatar: Al Fakhoora collects QR22m for Gaza, 2009). Model for organizational change is planned to evaluate and understand the key organizational structures within a company in order to judge its potential for valuable change. These changes are divided into two types. They are hard elements and soft elements. Hard elements consist of company strategy, structure and system. While soft elements are referred as changes which are influenced by surroundings, individuals, and culture. The effective organizational change is best understood in terms of the complex relationship between strategy, structure, systems, style, skills, and staff and shared values. Strategy is the means to achieve organizational purpose. Structure is an addition to the organizational tool kit. It is comparable with super structure of an organization. This indicates that to what extent the activities are specialized and the ways in which the organizational tasks are integrated and coordinated. Systems encompass rules, regulations and procedures which complement the organizational structure. Staff refers to the way organizations induct young recruits into the main stream of activities and the manner in which they manage their careers as the new entrants develop into managers. Skills denote the organizational and individual capabilities. They refer to the distinctive competence which reflects the dominant skills of an organization. Style explains how managers lead and motivate. It determines the effectiveness of efforts put in for organizational change. Shared values or subordinate goals refer to the fundamental ideas around which a business is built and which constitute its main values. “The central theme of the model is that the seven elements are interconnected and interdependent upon one another. In order to achieve business success, each of the seven elements must be aligned and mutually reinforcing each other. Effecting change using this model involves the assessment of all areas, simultaneously taking into accounts their nature and effect on each other.” (Management tools: LMC explains the 7-S Model for organizational change, 2008). The organization changes are three types. They are process change, system change, structural change, organizational change etc. In the organizational context, the technology will provide accuracy, accountability, improved performance, transparency etc. In the national level, technology adoption is the indication of progress and standard rising. At the same time it will initiate the best practices and standards. Here from the case analysis, we can understand the adoption of the new technology has satisfied all this part well. (Blandford & Adams, 2008). Conclusion: The technology adoption will facilitate the democratic change in the organization. The introduction of this new system will be accessible to all the people in the organization participate in the decision making. By using technologies in the Al Fakhoora fund raising organization can become more transparent. It helps to improve the co-operation of the people from various part of the world. Reference Nonprofit organizations: Groups faced with lack of qualified coordinators. (1997). Trends in Japan. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://web-japan.org/trends96/honbun/tj970203.htmlSheikha mozah launches al fakhoora fund. (2009). Supreme Education Council. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.english.education.gov.qa/content/resources/detail/7155 Qatar tribune nation. (2009). Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.qatar-tribune.com/data/20090122/pdf/nation.pdf Qatar: Al Fakhoora collects QR22m for Gaza. (2009). Zawya. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20090130064524/Qatar:%20Al%20Fakhoora%20collects%20QR22m%20for%20Gaza%20/ Read More