Discussion Questions - Coursework Example

Organization Change and Decision Making Organization Change and Decision Making Question One of my friends comes from the Hispanic neighborhood of Lower West Side, Chicago. One of the ways that such an individual would have a different career path from myself is the background from which the individual was raised. Hailing from the Chicago Projects, his economic background and social background are increasingly different as compared to mine. As such, such an individual is likely to avoid formal white collar employment as his parents would not afford to take him to college.

Arguably, such an individual also has many influencers in his environment which include his peers and people who have made it from the neighborhood. As such, the individual might choose a profession such as music, owing to the fact that most of the people in his neighborhood aspire to be musicians and rappers. The individual is also susceptible to joining crime, as crime is lucrative in most poor neighborhoods. Question #2 Reactive change is a process through which an individual undergoes a series of change and a radical stage that causes confusion and response to problems and change in a disorganized manner.

Active or proactive change involves strategic planning for change and the use of available resources in an intellectual and organized manner to combat change. For such an individual, reactive change is highly likely to be more inclined with this individual. Arguably, based on the harsh conditions that the individual has had to undergo in his neighborhood, he is already used to reactive change and handling problems as they occur. Previously, I dealt with reactive change at my former job after our competition launched a number of competitive products all at once causing much turmoil at the organization where I was working.

Question #3 There are several theories of change. Primarily, one of the theories of change is Lewin’s Three-Step Change Theory. This theory involves three main steps. Primarily, the first step is unfreezing, which involves behavior change to suit the changes in the business. The second step is movement, whereby goals and objectives are set to accommodate these changes. The third step in this theory is refreezing. Refreezing is the process of ensuring that the new behaviors are maintained to avoid them being short-lived(Cartwright & Cooper, 2008).

Social Cognitive Theory as a theory of change is based on the interactions of humans, their behaviors, dialogue and observation have an impact on the effect change will have on individuals. This model is based on psychology of human behavior proposing that change can be taught to each individual. The best approach for my practice would be Lewin’s theory of change. Question #4 Social learning theory argues that humans can learn through observation and direct instruction without necessarily requiring reinforcement or motor reproduction.

Arguably, this theory argues that humans can be instructed during a critical phase of change in which good instructions the use of vicarious reinforcement, which are rewards and punishments to other employees(Cartwright & Cooper, 2008). A client has just opened a new product line. However, the product production process is very different from the previous production process that the client’s staff was used to. As such, teaching the employees on how the system works and closely monitoring them for guidance would be the best approach to combat such change.

Social learning is not only a theory of change, but rather a learning process that all humans undergo. As such, discussing such a theory sheds insight on the psychology of employees, which is the main reason I chose this theory as the remedy for such a situation. Question #5 One of the common decision making theories is the incremental theory of decision-making. This theory operates on the contention that a decision is only made if a significant change occurs to the initial planning. Although this theory subscribes to logic, science and mathematics, decision-making involves assessing alternative choices of action in case unwanted changes occur in the organization.

Incremental decision making is founded on the improvement of previous decisions made without radically changing them from time to time. This theory is of a prescriptive nature, proposing alternatives that will be implemented in future, but have not been implemented yet. ReferenceCartwright, S., & Cooper, C. L. (2008). The Oxford handbook of personnel psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.