Critical Review and Application in HP Company - Essay Example

?Running head: Critical review and application in HP Company 28th April Introduction Organizational developments (OD) entail the strategies that are adopted by firms with an aim of improving the organizational effectiveness. In order to ensure that the change undertaken by an organisation is effective in producing a sustainable profitability and growth, it is essential to apply a concept of diagnosis. This entails the use of the appropriate and specialized procedures to collect important information, analyzing the information and designing an organizational intervention that best fits the situation facing an organisation (HR Intelligence Report, 2011). In their efforts to diagnose an organisation, diagnosticians view an organization as an open system that comprises of input, outputs as well as throughputs. Argyris (1970) argues that key the importance of organizational model includes understanding of an organizational behavior, interpretation of the data that relate to an organisation, interpretation of the data and provision of understandable language. This paper seeks to analyze various diagnoses models and determine the most appropriate model that makes HP Company to have a competitive edge in the technology industry. Force Field Analysis Force Field Analysis was developed by Kurt Lewin with an aim of analyzing and managing problems that faces an organisation. According to this model, there exist forces that stimulate changes within a firm and restraining forces such as poor morale and limited resources that acts as obstacles to change. To understand the problems that face a company, the management must first identify and define the restricting and driving forces. This is followed by planning the goals that are effective in pushing the equilibrium of an organisation towards achieving the desired goals. According to Beer and Spector (1993), one of the major objectives of the Force Field Analysis is to achieve a state of equilibrium by eliminating the restraining forces as well as by adding the appropriate driving forces. Being based upon the change process, Force Field Analysis assumes that within a dynamic company the changes occur simultaneously. Leavitt’s Model Leavitt’s Model was developed in 1965 by Lewin. Being a simple model that is appropriate to deal with problems that face organisations, Leavitt’s Model specify various models that a firm can adopt rather than the driving forces that are adopted by the Force Field Analysis. Major variables emulated by Leavitt’s Model include human variables, task variables, technological variables and structure variables. Bollen and Long (1993) stipulates that key aspects that make up the structure variable include communication system, work flow within a firm as well as authority systems. According to this model, effective collaboration of all the systems within an organization is a vital aspect that ensures all the problems facing an organisation are effectively addressed. This model depicts that the major technological variables includes the machinery and equipments used by the task variable. On the other hand, task variables include all the activities and subtasks adopted during the provision of goods and services. Human variables encompass all the human resources that are involved during in undertaking various activities in order to achieve the organizational objectives (Emery and Trist, 1965). According to Leavitt’s Models, the interdependence of all the variables is imperative to achieve the desired change. This means that a change in one of the variables generate an impact on the entire model. For instance, if a new technology is introduced in an organisation, the quality of the products and services that make up the task variables is improved. In the same way, human resources will be motivated due to the improved communication within and outside the organisation. Basically, any improvement in the technology will positively impact on the entire structure of an organization. One of the major similarity between Leavitt’s and the Force Field Analysis models as depicted by Cummings and Worley (1993) is that both of them depicts that any change of the variables may generate a retaliatory impact from other variables. However, while Force Field Analysis model indicates the implication of the external factors on the organizational goals, Leavitt’s does not portray the role of eternal environment in generating change within an organisation. Weisbord’s six-box model According to Weisbord’s six-box, organisations experiences six key steps that determine their success. These include purposes, structures, relationships, rewards, leadership as well as helpful mechanisms. This model depicts that the purpose of an organisation is to achieve it goals while the structure refers to the way a firm is organized. Relationships refer to the way the various units within an organisation and the employees interact. Rewards entail the extrinsic or intrinsic benefits that the workers within an organisation are exposed to. Leadership stands for the balance between all the aspects of the Weisbord’s six-box and the various leadership tasks. Helping mechanisms involves the various strategies that are adopted to ensure proper performance of an organisation. These include planning, controlling, budgeting as well as the information systems that are used to achieve organizational objectives. Even though this model is adopted by most organisations, Gable and Wolf (1993) stipulates that it does not depict two key premises that are vital in understanding of all the six aspects of the model. The first one is the informal versus the formal systems. While the informal systems refer to the actual behaviors that occur within an organisation, formal systems entails the procedures that a company claims to emulate. If the gap between the formal and the informal systems is huge, it means that an organisation is less effective and the possibility of achieving the targeted objectives is low. The second premise that is not covered by the Weisbord’s six-box model is the match between an organisation and the external environment. This covers the strategies that an organisation adopts in order to meet the external demands such as the unions, customers, shareholders as well as the government. Congruence model Congruence model is similar to Leavitt’s model as well as Weisbord six-model in the sense that it covers the inputs, outputs as well as throughputs. Fuqua and Kurpius (1993) argue that in order to bring change within an organisation, four major assumptions are made by this model. First, it assumes that firms are open social systems that take into consideration the impacts of external factors. Secondly, it assumes that any change within an organisation takes place at the group, individual and systems level. Thirdly, firms have the possibility of changing. Fourthly, this model assumes that there is an interaction between the individuals, groups and systems that brings about changes within an organisation. According to Falletta (2008), major inputs within an organisation include the history, resources as well the environment. On the other hand, the outputs refer to the groups, systems outputs, performance, individuals and effectiveness. High-performance programming High-performance programming is a model that evaluates the current performance level of an organisation with an aim of planning for the interventions that are essential in changing a firm into a high performing system. According to Nelson and Burns, the pioneers of this model, there are four key organizational system that are less or more effective. These include proactive organisations, reactive organisations, responsive organisations and high-performing organisations (Campbell, 1988). In order to diagnose a particular organisation, this model advocates for a survey that covers eleven variables namely time frame, change mode, structure, focus, perspective, development, planning, communication, motivation, management, and leadership. Changes in HP Company In 2011, HP Company adopted organizational changes that were aimed at improving the performance of the top management level and enhance the transparency of the company (Kawamoto, 2011). Additionally, the company was aimed at exploiting the opportunities that existed in the market. In this regard, the company emulated the Force Field Analysis in order to put in place experienced management team that had the ability to drive the company towards its goals. For example, Leo Apotheker was appointed as the chief executive officer who was responsible for directing Dave Donatelli and Bill Veghte the vice presidents of technology servers and software respectively. To ensure that the problems faced by its customers are effectively addressed, HP appointed Jan Zadak to oversee the sales in the international market. One of the major restraining forces that HP Company faces is stiff competition from its rivals especially in the China and India market. In order to instill a driving force that would counteract the cut-throat competition in the technology industry, Tsukayama (2011) argues that the company appointed Todd Bradley and Vyomesh Joshi as vice presidents to oversee expansion of the firm in China and India markets. As a result of the organizational changes, HP Company has brought about significant impact on the businesses, society and individual customers. Additionally, the company has increased its profitability based on its services diversification that includes spans printing, software production, personal computing among other products. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, organizational changes are vital to any organization in order to face off the competitors. To ensure that appropriate model of change is put in place, it is advisable for firms to undertake self evaluation so at to identify the loopholes that affects their profitability and the returns for their shareholders. Due to the large number of models of change that companies can emulate, it is fundamental for companies to seek the guidance of experts to ensure that the appropriate model is put in place (Fleishman, 1953). In the same way, it is significant for companies to have proper strategies to handle the implications of changes. This is due to the fact that organizational changes bring about resistance from the employees among other stakeholders that can jeopardize the operations of a company. References Argyris, C. (1970). Intervention theory and method: A Behavioral Science View. MA: Addison-Wesley. Beer, M. and Spector, B. (1993). Organizational diagnosis: It’s a role in organizational learning. Journal of counseling and development, 71, (7), 642-650. Bollen, K and Long, J. (1993). Testing structural equation models. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Campbell, P. 1988. Productivity in organisations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cummings, G., Thomas G., Christopher G. & Worley, G. (1993). Organization development and change. New York: West Publishing. Emery, E & Trist, L. (1965). The causal texture of organizational environments. Human relations, 18, (8), 23-31. Falletta, S. (2008). Organizational intelligence surveys. Training & Development, 31, (2), 52-57. Fleishman, A. (1953). Leadership climate, human relations training and supervisory behavior. Personnel Psychology, 6 (23), 206-221. Fuqua, D., & Kurpius, D. (1993). Conceptual Models in Organizational Consultation. Journal of Counseling & Development, 71(6), 607-618. Gable, K & Wolf, B. (1993). Instrument development in the affective domain: Measuring attitudes and values in corporate and school settings. Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. HR Intelligence Report. (2011). Organizational Diagnostic Models. Leadersphere. Retrieved from http://leadersphere.com/img/OrgmodelsR2009.pdf. Kawamoto, D. (2011). HP outlines long-term strategy |CNET News.com. News.com. Retrieved April 26, 2012. Tsukayama, H. (2011). Q&A with HP’s Scott Taylor: Setting an industry privacy framework." Hayley Tsukayama. The Washington Post. Retrieved April 26, 2012. Read More