Using the Emergent Approach to Organizational Change - Literature review Example

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Management of Change Introduction Currently, the business environment needs firms to undertake changes almost continuously so as to remain competitive. Normally, planned change, as mentioned by Weick and Quinn (1999, p.362), is prompted by people’s failure to generate unceasingly adaptive organizations; so, organizational change regularly takes place somewhat in the context of failure. Organizational change takes place when an organization makes a transition from its present state to the required future state. For decades, as observed by Orlikowski (1996, p.63), organizational change has continuously been a subject of interest to practitioners and also researchers. For years, questions about organizational change have largely remained behind the scenes as organizational practice as well as thinking engaged in a discourse subjugated by stability questions (Orlikowski, 1996, p.63). Feldman (2000, p.612) asserts that even though organizational routines are normally defined and perceived as unchanging, they have an enormous change potential. In this case, Feldman (2000) highlight routines’ descriptions that change after the response of the participants to the previous routine iterations’ outcomes. Managing change in an organization involves the process of planning as well as putting the change into practice in a manner that reduces resistance from employees as well as the incurred cost while concurrently get the most out of the change effort. This research essay seeks to discuss the emergent approach to organizational change using four research papers by Feldman (2000), Orlikowski (1996), Tsoukas and Chia (2002), as well as Weick and Quinn (1999). Discussion Traditional approaches to change management within as stated by Tsoukas and Chia (2002) have been emphasized by suppositions showing partiality towards routine, stability, as well as order making change to be seen as an exceptional instead of natural. Change as per Tsoukas and Chia (2002, p.567) is the reweaving of actors' webs of habits and beliefs to accommodate fresh capabilities gained by means of interactions. Since people try to accommodate new experience constantly within the organization, then change according to Tsoukas and Chia take place constantly within the organizations Furthermore, change is integral to the human action, as well as organizations are places for continuous human action evolution. Organization as mentioned by Tsoukas and Chia (2002, p.567) is the effort of ordering the human action intrinsic flux in the attempt of channeling it towards particular ends through institutionalizing as well as generalizing certain cognitive representations. As indicated by Tsoukas and Chia (2002, p.568), it is beneficial when organizational change both as a management preoccupation and as a study object, are approached from the ongoing change viewpoint instead of stability. First, this because can facilitate researchers to understand completely the change micro-processes at work. Another reason is attributed to the reason that little is known about the micro-processes of change. According to Tsoukas and Chia (2002) if the organizational change is perceived as a fait accompli, its, emergent, unfolding, and dynamic qualities are undervalued. Additionally, when change is perceived in association with stability, then the sustaining subtle micro-changes are lost, and simultaneously, possibly corrode stability. Moreover, when change is exceptionally viewed as a random organizational life episode, then the nature of pervasive change is underestimated. Another reason why organizational change is approached from the ongoing change viewpoint is the pragmatic dissatisfaction to the traditional change approach that offers urgency to stability, and wherein change is treated as an epiphenomenon. Whether the reweaving of employees’ webs of habits and beliefs of action result in microscopic changes, Tsoukas and Chia (2002) posit that to become organizational is another issue that may or may not take place. That is to say, the level to which it takes place is an fascinating that needs further theoretical development and empirical research. Change programs as indicated by Tsoukas and Chia (2002, p.568) which are informed by traditional approach often fail to generate change. This is because ongoing change is triggered by change programs; they offer the discursive resources that make particular things conceivable, even though what will ensue after the change program is initiated remains uncertain. So, Tsoukas and Chia (2002, p.568) believes that have to be experienced initially prior to appreciating the possibilities it opens up. Change programs are espoused so as to work, and while this takes place, they are adapted locally, created and expounded by human agents. As documented by numerous studies, Tsoukas and Chia (2002) cite that organizational strategies, systems, and routines are inclined to persist, even when the existing evidence creates the need for change. The argument presented by Tsoukas and Chia (2002) is that there are ongoing change processes within the organizations, but that does not mean that organizational change takes place constantly. Local adaptations can by no means become institutionalized; so, when organizations focus their attention just on what can be institutionalized, which is an approach mainly presumed by organizational change synoptic accounts, then it is possible to miss all the microscopic changes. Organizational routines according to Feldman (2000) can change even though they are normally defined or perceived, as unchanging. For this reason, Feldman (2000) proposes a performative organizational routines’ model, which point out that routines have internal dynamism that can bring about continuous change. Routines, as indicated by Feldman (2000, p.611), are temporal structures normally utilized as a means of completing work within the organization. Organization students have long viewed routines as a crucial part of organizational behavior and are partly beneficial to the organizations since lots of organizational work is carried out through routines (Feldman, 2000, p.611). Even though change is not largely viewed as a dominant facet of routines in the organization, it has been acknowledged by different scholars. Feldman (2000) posits that the way of considering the change in routines is through change triggered by an external shock or a crisis. Citing Gersick and Hackman, Feldman (2000, p.612) list numerous reasons that can result in change within groups’ habitual routines: first, encountering a new set of circumstances; second, suffering a failure; third, gaining a breakthrough in the group work or the life; fourth, getting an intervention that that needs member’s attention with regard to the norms of the group; and lastly, having to manage a change in the group structure. New ideas or financial crises within the industry can make routines change. Moreover, technology, as observed by Feldman (2000), as a drive that results in changes based on how the structures of organizations accomplish a certain work. This relates to the perception that routines’ change is related to their origins, and that equilibrium is achieved subsequent to a period of flux, which does not have change. In her study, Feldman (2000) noted a change potential in the routine internal dynamics as well as in the reactions and thoughts of the people taking part in the routines. In so doing, Feldman suggest that changes are somewhat ordinary while routines are more extraordinary. According to Feldman (2000) major transitions as well as new beginnings are dominant incentives to change based on how work is completed, but this understanding is restricted when this is considered as the only means to routines change in the organization. At a times, routines can be changed by its participants and as observed by Feldman (2000, p.620) this takes place for a number of reasons which are associated with different forms of outcomes. One of the reasons is that actions do not occasionally generate the required outcomes. Another reason is according to Feldman (2000, p.620) is that actions occasionally generate outcomes that generate new challenges, which require solution: that is to say, actions generate undesirable as well as unintended outcomes. Another reason is that instead of generating problems, actions may lead to outcomes that generate new resources and, as a result, create new opportunities. An additional possibility arises when the outcome generated is desired, but the routines participants believe there is still room for improvements (Feldman, 2000, p.620). In his concluding remarks, Feldman (2000) posits that change may be more ordinary while routines could be more extraordinary. One can experience hard time to change routines when they are tied to routines carried out by individual far from those making the changes. Regardless of whether they will be a connection between different routines’ participants how to change them will be the main challenging factor (Feldman, 2000, p.627). A perspective of situated change as observed by Orlikowski (1996) can provide a strategy that is particularly suitable for analyzing organizational change turning progressively away from bureaucracy, stability patterns, as well as management of learning, self-organizing, and flexibility. Orlikowski (1996) similarly to Feldman (2000) provided a perspective on organizational change by describing change as endemic to the organizing practice and therefore implemented through situated practices of actors within the organization as they innovate, improvise, and change their work routines. According to Orlikowski (1996, p.64), planned change models assume that the key basis of organizational change is the organization managers, and as the change actors, they purposely start and put changes into practice in reaction to seeming opportunities with the intention of improving performance in the organization or fit to the environment. The models as mentioned by Orlikowski (1996, p.64) have dominant in the literatures of organizational development and change, and include contingency frameworks, force field analysis, innovation theories, as well as organizational effectiveness’ practitioner-oriented prescriptions. In Orlikowski (1996) study of the customer support department (CSD) in Zeta Corporation, she exhibited how introducing information system, mainly for tracking calls from the customer offered the stimulus for the rise of a stream of actions as well as events, many of which were not expected, over time. This took place as managers as well as specialists tried to manage the day-to-day opportunities, breakdowns, contingencies, as well as unexpected outcomes while utilizing the ITSS, as well as improvised norms and techniques for its successful integration into the working practices. The author documents comprehensively the ITSS appropriation by members of the CSD; in addition to the adjustments as well as adaptations they legislated over time in their attempt to integrate their working practices with the ITSS. When change is emphasized as situated, Orlikowski (1996, p. 65) asserts that it offers a means of understanding that change cannot always be inevitable, as planned, or irregular. Instead, it is regularly achieved by means of ongoing variations that surface recurrently, even gradually, in the improvisations as well as slippages of day-to-day activity. Besides that, those variations, which are sustained, shared, repeated, and amplified, can, ultimately, generate striking as well as perceptible organizational changes. Based on the situated change perspective, Orlikowski (1996, p.65) observed that transformation within the organization is not depicted as a spectacle staged deliberately by directors with choreographed moves as well as predefined scripts, or the expected technological logic outcome, or the unexpected incoherence that essentially overturns the current situation. Instead, organizational transformation is viewed by Orlikowski as an ongoing improvisation implemented through organizational actors with the intention of acting rationally. So, change is to some extent more widespread, but it is perceived by Orlikowski as being endemic and situated to the organizing practice, which is refreshing and helpful. Episodic change in Weick and Quinn (1999) study is compared with continuous change, arguing that episodic change follows the unfreeze-transition-refreeze sequence while continuous change follows the freeze-rebalance-unfreeze sequence. According to Weick and Quinn (1999, p.362), the basic tension underlining scores of works of literature about organizational change is that people should at first, do their job as required. Planned change, as revealed by Weick and Quinn (1999, p.362), is normally initiated by the inability of people to generate incessantly adaptive organizations. From organizational development point of view, Weick and Quinn (1999) posit that change is a set of behavioral science-based techniques, strategies, values and theories, intended for the planned organizational work environment change so as to improve individual development as well as enhance performance in the organization, through altering the on-the-job behaviors of the organizational members. The organization’s metaphor implied through episodic change conceptualizations according to Weick and Quinn (1999) is the social entity combining attributes such as firmly coupled interdependencies amongst subunits; dense, efficiency; a preoccupation with temporary adaptation instead of permanent flexibility; limitations on action in imperceptible institutionalization form; influential norms rooted in robust subcultures; as well as imitation as the key driver of the change. Organization’s images, which are well-suited for episodic change are those developed around the ideas of second-order change, the edge of chaos, as well as punctuated equilibria (Weick & Quinn, 1999, p.367). the Organisational image built around the punctuated equilibrium idea portrays the organizations as interdependencies sets converging and tightening during the relative equilibrium period, normally to the detriment of continuous adaptation to changes in the work environment. According to Weick and Quinn (1999, p.367) when adaptation lags it results to decrease in effectiveness; thus, increasing pressures for change leading to the advent of the revolutionary period. When such pressures intensify, they can lead to the occurrence of a vital change in personnel as well as activity patterns, which afterward turn out to be the new equilibrium period basis. As observed by Weick and Quinn (1999), if change in the organization takes place in the context of failing to adapt, at that point, the organization that adapts continuously will be the ideal one, and this is factual regardless of whether the focus is continuous or episodic change. Companies that are successful do not depend on either a purely organic or purely mechanistic structure or process; rather, they have clear project priorities and clear managerial responsibilities while at the same time enabling the design processes to be continuously changing, improvisational, as well as highly flexible. As observed by Weick and Quinn (1999, p.371) there are two crucial features that promote both continuous as well as episodic change; semi structures poised between disorder and order with prescription of some structures and intentional links between future probes and present projects so as to lessen discontinuity and maintain direction. Weick and Quinn (1999) study suggests that change begins with the organization’s failures to adapt and since change never stops, then it does not start. Bureaucracies of the characteristic machine together with their reporting structures are very rigid to acclimatize to faster-paced change; so, to improve them they have to be unfrozen (Weick & Quinn, 1999, p.381). Conclusion In conclusion, the research essay has discussed the emergent approach to organizational change using four research papers by Feldman (2000), Orlikowski (1996), Tsoukas and Chia (2002), as well as Weick and Quinn (1999). As indicated in the essay, Feldman has astutely posited that the key to comprehending change as a continuous/ongoing process is to take note of the ordinary human action transformational character. In view of Feldman study, it is evident that routines are carried out by human agents who possess the seeds of change; that is to say, even the organizational parts that are alleged to be stable, like routines, are possibly not stable. So, change is at all times existent if only people try to search for it. Instead of viewing organizational change as coordinated from the top management, Orlikowski view it as a practice rooted in the ongoing organizational actors’ practices, and surfacing out of their accommodations to as well as experiments with the day-to-day opportunities, breakdowns, contingencies, exceptions, as well as unintentional outcomes that they come across. Correspondingly, Weick and Quinn noted that change is not an on-off occurrence and its effectiveness does not depend on the level to which it was planned. As reviewed in the essay, Tsoukas and Chia asserted that organization is a place, where the human action is continuously changed. In view of this, Tsoukas and Chia mention that when people attempt to accommodate new experiences, change takes place continuously in the organizations. According to Tsoukas and Chia, the assertion that organizations are inclined to resist change is a shorthand manifestation for asserting that initiatives of change, undertaken centrally or locally, remain to be plans or improvisations, without developing to be institutionalized. References Feldman, M.S., 2000. Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change. Organization Science, vol. 11, no. 6, pp.611–29. Orlikowski, W.J., 1996. Improvising Organizational Transformation Over Time: A Situated Change Perspective. Information Systems Research, vol. 7, no. 1, pp.63-92. Tsoukas, H. & Chia, R., 2002. On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change. Organization Science, vol. 13, no. 5, pp.567-82. Weick, K.E. & Quinn, R.E., 1999. Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 50, pp.361-86. Read More