Organizational Change and Innovation - Assignment Example

Organizational Change and Innovation Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name and Code: University: Date of Submission: Organizational Change and Innovation Introduction It has come out to be evident that today’s organizations are keeping themselves much more open to continuous innovation, so as to survive in today’s world that is full of stiff competition. The business world, has really opened itself to embrace newer technologies and newer ways of doing things and this has really increased competition (Singh 2004, p.51-58). Most business organizations have been forced to embrace certain changes and innovation practices, so as to keep relevant in today’s business world that is quickly evolving (Dehning & Stratopoulos 2011, p.34-42). It is evident that external forces, such as globalization new information technologies have played significant roles in transforming today’s business practices. Globalization has increased the sharing of knowledge between sellers, as well as, buyers and thus, this has influenced both the buying decisions that consumers make, together with the selling decisions that producers make. Organizations have been compelled to embrace certain changes that are necessary for them to survive in today’s competitive edge. Often these changes and innovation are carried out by the organization, so as to create a competitive edge with respect to their core competitors (Brownand &Vessey 2011, p.41-57). Therefore, change and innovation remains to be part of the key function of human resource managers, for they have to come up with new policies and/or innovations that are aimed at improving the quality of work processes and boosting the output of the organization. Human resource function of an organization is talked to embrace relevant changes, in its policies and strategies that should be able to increase the efficiency of an organization. This efficiency is arrived at when there is the use of minimal cost to get the maximum output that can be arrived at through embracing innovation, and change that will make the products be attractive to customers thus, increasing sales (Oliva 2008, p.45-53). It is evident in today’s business practice that without sufficient strategies to outdo competition in the market; then the business can run out of the market. This is why the human resource managers would not just embrace change and innovation just to progress the organization, but they would do so for the survival of the business amidst tough competition from competitors. The global business practices are evolving due to the impacts of factors, such as globalization, new marketing avenues such as the social media, which is picking shape, e-business trade and other new forms of business practices that are as a result of the change in times, and in the needs of the people. Today an organization particularly the business organization cannot survive without giving priority to key external factors that eats up the business, such as competition. There are so many ways that managers can use to deal with competition, however, one of the most efficient ways of dealing with competition is through embracing innovation and effecting necessary changes, such as change in technology so as to outdo the competitors existent in the market. It has become very important for human resource managers to embrace changes that would boost the organization to the next level, amidst the challenges that it may encounter. Notably, innovation as well as organizational change plays a vital role in today’s business practices; whether it is the new product formulation, the introduction of an upcoming new service, embracing a technological invention that will change the business processes or putting in place of a new administrative practice. It is evident that innovation and organizational change shapes a company’s strategy and structure. A number of industries expenditure budget is greatly biased on innovation strategy as compared to others. The variance in the degree of embracing innovation and change may depend on the existing structural factors which ultimately influences the industry. A number of industries as well as companies have been able to allocate funds for innovation and organizational change this is often in response to the competitive pressures that the organizations face, as well as, the likely duration of the product life cycle of the organization’s products. Research has revealed that the software, health as well as the pharmaceutical industry invests higher percentages of resources into the research and development for new product creation. The competitive pressures that organizations face to develop new solutions to meet the needs of changing consumer preferences, in addition to the intense nature of the competition that organizations face at times forces the companies to stay highly responsive to the market needs. This must be observed so as to avoid losing the market share to competitors who often differentiate their products that gives customers priority; or at times the competitors offer superior solutions that may be a threat to the good performance of the organization. In the event of such increased competition, then business organizations and human resource managers with this regard get to be involved in embracing innovation and change that is necessary so and the businesses can survive in the market full of competition. For instance the automobile and airline industry are among the industries that invest heavily on innovation research that are aimed at improving their products and services as well as making their processes simpler. It is evident that technological advancements plays a great contribution to the product development; thus it also plays a great part in innovation and organizational change (Cook & Macaulay 2004, p.38-46). From the past experiences, it can be said that the challenge that business organizations face with respect to innovation and organizational change has close relation with the implementation of the changes as well as the workers or employees response to the new imitative that were introduced. This calls that when new technology has to be implemented by any company then there is need to evaluate as well as plan how to best implement such processes. The processes of communicating and effective management of innovative organizational change require the existence of strong leadership that has the capacity to embrace and implement the initiatives. Such initiatives are successful when there is the unifying company resources and involving personnel who are most affected by the change. This approach promotes participation in the process. Strategic plans and policies for organization undergoing change An Organization cannot develop the strategic plans and policies when its undergoing change before per harps asking itself relevant questions such as ‘what can it do to survive and grow?. Today’s business world is rapidly changing due to the newer market demands, the new technologies that get into the market, the new marketing avenues that are introduced by businesses so that they can be able to perhaps do well in the competitive market. To add to this confusion, existent are the hundreds of thousands of techniques, solutions and the methods that are believed to improve an organization’s productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. Notably, a company’s CEO or business owner has many choices in these buzzwords; whether it is Total Quality Management, Customer Satisfaction, Re-engineering and/or Teambuilding. In response to the need to employ innovation and change in organization, often a number of managers fear4 making wrong decisions, some make a number of changes often which at times does not result to increase in the production or productivity. When there is lack of order to how innovation and change is managed often leads to a whipsaw effect where there is mass confusion among the employees. This is why organizations have to employ some strategies of how innovation and or change can be embraced by the organization. Often the human resource managers would come up with feasible work plans, and policies that give the organization some direction with respect to what is being expected. Implementation of change or innovation with no clear focus of what it is done often will lead to little progress or return to meeting the expectations that is awaited (Minoli 2010, p.34-39). A number of organizations develop strategies that clearly focus on technical problems, as well as on improving what they had. Such strategies often are initially successful, but ultimately would become victims of their own success. This can be referred to as an improved and planned incremental approach. Their initial planned quality improvement teams may be successful to a point that they rapidly create more teams. However, without the qualitative organization changes that are necessary to sustain permanent effort; then the employees may be wear out as they implement such processes. It becomes necessary for organizations to move beyond just the buzzwords of deciding what actions they need to perform, so as to grow and develop. It is important for organizations to come up with a policy framework or strategy for their organizational change long before, the organization makes up its mind to implement the changes. The major Strategic plans and policies Instead of running for the latest technique, the organizations may need to go through a formal policy making process. There are four major strategic plans and policy that should not be left out in the process of implementing change and innovation. These are: (i) Policies and Goals In this regard may be the levels of organizational change are perhaps the most difficult policy to make; with regard to what "level" to start. Essentially, there are four levels of organizational change that are supposed to be looked at while making such policies, these are, Policy 1- shaping and anticipating the future This is the level where organizations start out with few assumptions about the business itself; what it is best at, and what the future should be like after embracing the changes and or innovation. Here management may be compelled to generate alternate scenarios of the future human resource managers, may define opportunities basing their views on the possible futures. They may assess its strengths and weaknesses and make changes in their mission, and measurement system. Policy 2 - defining what business (es) to be in and their "Core Competencies’ A number of attempts at the strategic planning begin here; it all begins by either assuming that first the anticipated future is at least predictable. Secondly, the said future is embodied in HR managers ‘vision for the future’ and three; the management doesn't know where else to start the process from and lastly through considerations that the only mandate management has is to refine what mission already exists. This will call for the mission to be defined and the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of the organization is perfectly completed. After this the organization can then define its measures such as goals, strategies and so on (Bohlander & Snell 2009, p.35-44). Policy 3 - Reengineering (Structurally Changing) Your Processes This step comes in either as a consequence of the first two steps or at times as an independent action. Here the focus is on fundamentally changing how the real work or progress is accomplished, as innovation and change are appreciated. It rather has a focus on the modest improvements. This step encompasses policies on making the major structural changes to innovation with the goal of substantially improving the quality, productivity, efficiency, and/or customer satisfaction. Policy 4 - Incrementally Changing your Processes This is the fourth phase of policy implementation that is focused on making many small changes within and without the existing work processes. Often times, a number of organizations have put in considerable effort into getting the entire employee to be involved in making these small changes. A number of organizations have had a more positive experience with the incremental approach, for through this the team management existent may reduce the initial quality defects. The challenges of such an incremental approach may include the avoidance of structural and system-wide problems that may come with change and innovation; as well as it assumes that the existing processes will need modest improvement. In addition, using incremental approaches can be frustrating to employees and the management of an organization particularly if it does not catch on in the organization. As a result of this challenge often many organizations come to experience a high risk of failure in innovation and change management in the long run. Policy 5 –Keeping to the Goals With regard to whatever kind of work management and employees are doing, the opportunities that are existent need to be evaluated so as to determine the one that is best suited and has existing and future capabilities in terms of improvement in the organizations measures of success with regard to change and innovation (Morgan 2006, p.35-43). The goals need to have to be backed by resources and the support human resource management function so as to yield success (Kramar, Bartram & Cleri 2011, p.542-546). Goals also would need to be SMART that is: being specific; which involves taking step-by-step actions that is needed to make the goal succeed. Measurable; meaning that the results from the goals of innovation and change should be observable after the goal is accomplished. Attainable; this implies that the goal should be both possible and should be done at the right time with the required attention and use of appropriate resources. The goals also need to be Realistic implying that as innovation and change is embraced; the methodologies used to get to the goals and the goals itself should have a high degree of being feasible given the resources and skills that are applied in the process. Finally, the goal should be time bound implying that the goal is should be able to be achieved within a specific time line (Delahaye & Brian 2005, p.56-70). Issues to address The key issues that are to be addressed while implementing innovation and change processes related to the resistance that is often fronted by the personnel involved in the process. Change and innovation processes are not very easy management processes due to the resistance that they often face. The kind of resistance that employees may front may include: (a) The fear of loss of status or job security in the organization they work in. When an organisation wants to make changes or certain innovation; employees as human beings are not of the nature to make the changes that they perceive would harm them in the long run. An employee(s) would want to retain a good status and be secure in his/her job therefore any effort to destroy this would be thwarted with undivided commitment (Azari 2011, p.67-78). Change management is a tricky exercise because unlike the past that is known, the changes may bring forth what is unknown (Mehdi 2001, p.37). Employees would tend to be inclined to their job security first and may fully resistant to change especially when they perceive that the results of these changes may cause them either to lose their status or even their entire investment in the job. It is not human nature for one to make or be involved in implementing a change that one views would be harmful to his/her current status or position (John 2006, p.23-35). This in the organizational setting would imply that employees as well as managers may be resistant to be involved in technological and administrative changes that are perceived to result in the reduction or elimination of their roles in the organization. In other words from their perspective is that the change that the organization fronts is harmful to their place in the organization. This call for the leadership of the organization to come up with an effective and thoughtful change strategy to address this area; if this is not done then there will be high likelihood of strong resiastance3 as well as high turnover (Bohlander & Snell 2009, p.43-54). Existence of rewards Systems that are Non-reinforcing: from the common saying in business, those managers would get what they reward; it can be seen that the stakeholders of the organization will resist change when they perceive that the change they are involved in has no reward at all. Essentially, when the reward for involvement in the change processes is lacking then the employees lack the motivation needed to support the change in the long run (King 2005, p.23-31). This means that organizations will need to tailor make their organizational reward system so that it can support the change that management intends to implement. The change implementation process does not have to be very costly; the management just needs to ensure that there is motivation to the members of the organization (Oliva 2008, p.45-52). Rewards will sustain the change management process for it will give the employees the motivation that can keep them going and focus to implementing the change to a point that is becomes successful. The fear of the Unknown & Surprise: The members of the organization will becomes more and more fearful of the change that is to be implemented based on the knowledge they have about the change to be implemented and the impact that the change has to them. For organizational change to be successful it needs that it is not done through springing surprises to the members of the organization. The members of the organization need to be prepared in advance for the change that is to be implemented (Minoli 2010, p.23-33). When the two way communication lacks between leadership and other members of the organization then the organization will be filled with so many rumours which ultimately would sabotage the efforts made towards realizing success in effecting organizational change (Stranks 2007, p.34-41).). Existent Peer Pressure at the work place: Employees are first human beings then employees of an organization. As human beings then they have feelings, emotions, beliefs and this affects how they perceive things. All these can be influenced by the people around them (their fellow workers and other persons). The employees whether introverted or extroverted they are all social beings (Hiatt & Timothy 2011, p.37-44). The stakeholders of the organization may go forth to resist change so that they can protect the interests of their group members. For instance employees may adversely resist change so that they can protect the interests of their co-workers. On the other side, the managers would resist change so that they can protect their work group. The attitude of collective responsibility in the protection of the interests of the workers will make a number of them to resist organizational change particularly if the change is perceived to have negative implication to the work of the workers or members of the organization (Budd & James 2005 , p.43-57). The Climate of mistrust: This is one of the key reasons why members of an organization can resist change. The existence of mistrust between the leadership of the organization and the members will make the members to resist the change to be made with little regard to if it has good or bad consequence to them. Often the climate of mistrust is created by the past experiences that the members of an organization have gone through. For instance, if in the past the organization leadership has consistently not been honouring its promises then the employees may be reluctant to trust the leadership even if good promises are made with respect to the changes that they are to implement (Stranks 2007, p.23-32). If in the past, there were other organizational changes were made and employees were victimized by those changes; the current employees would be unwilling to go through the same experience no matter the rewards they are given; instead they would resist the change. Essentially, there can never be meaningful organizational change where the climate of mistrust is existent. Trust in this context involves employees having faith in the intentions of the leadership towards what they want to achieve from the organizational change they intend to implement. Existence of mutual mistrust dooms an otherwise planned change initiative and makes it to fail (John & John 2006, p.24-31). Recommendation on key HRM plans and policies that would facilitate change and innovation There are also several steps to be followed systematically for change or innovation to be successful. They include; 1. Management as well as leadership of the organization should be able to discuss, as well as, reach to an agreement for the ongoing support of the organization towards change and innovation with respect to the company's direction and initiatives. In other words change and innovation needs a strategic alignment amongst senior management and human resource managers. 2. Secondly, there may be need to link the strategic initiatives for change and innovation to into tactful execution, through proper planning and communication among the stakeholders concerned. Existence of open communication helps with iterative refinement in innovation and change management. 3. It is important that innovation and changes that are implemented be connected and aligned to performance management, the training processes and also to the incentive compensation in a manner that will yield optimal results (Kotter 1996, p.35-40). 4. The forth recommendation in change and innovation process implementation is that the process should emphasize on rewarding, developing and retaining the top talent as a key driver of sustaining the changes or innovation that are implemented. Prior to implementing innovation and change initiatives, management’s understanding of the 'end effects' of process changes on the workers should be analyzed. This helps human resource managers to formulate better innovation and change policy in a manner that will make them avoid many potential pitfalls and organizational change challenges (Hiatt & Timothy2011, p.37). Conclusion In conclusion, it is crucial to outline that change as well as innovation are only successful when an organization has good employees and this begins with the process of Recruitment and selection. The kind of employees that an organization recruits determines if the organization; will meet its objectives or not with respect to change and innovation initiatives. It determines if the change will sustain itself for a longer period or will collapse along the way, it further determines if will increase its output from the employees or will stagnate or have diminishing returns. This function of human resource management determines the scope of change and/or innovation that the organization will be able to handle, and finally, it is an effective tool for management to gauge the likelihood of success levels of change and innovation initiates. Often organizations would have recruitment and selection policies that would guide them in the practices of recruitment and selection practices along the way. Change and innovation are essential tools that today’s organizations have embraced so as to survive in the market even with increased competition (Baker & Doran 2002, p. 23-35). List of References Azari, R 2011, Current management & ethical issues of technology and change management, Idea Group Inc (IGI), London, p.67-78 Baker, J. R. & Doran, M. S 2002, Human resource management, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Md. Budd, W & James G 2005, Human resources and industrial relations, Cornell University Press, Chicago. Bohlander,G. & Snell, S 2009, Managing Human Resources, Cengage Learning, London. Brown, C & Vessey, I 2011, Managing the Next Wave of Change Management in Enterprise System, MIS Quarterly Executive, 2(1)41-57. 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