36 Organisational Change-1

Prof.Mahabir Narwal

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1.  Learning Objectives:

 

Basic objectives of this module are:

 

To understand the Concept & meaning of organizational change

 

To understand the characteristics and importance of organizational change To know the planned change and its process

 

Introduction

 

An organization or business is interactive with its environment. Each environmental change will affect the work and performances of the organization. Change is important in the life of an organisation.Organizational change is activity of differentiation or modification of the organization strategies with main purpose to bring improvements of overall business processes . In today’s business world, most of the organizations are facing a dynamic and changing business environment. They should either change or die, there is no third alternative. Organizations that learn and cope with change will succeed and others who fail to do so will be wiped out.

 

Meaning

 

Organisational change means when the business strategies or major sections of an organisation are altered.

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Definitions

 

The followings are the main definitions of change:

 

According to S.P. Robbins, “Change is concerned with making things different.”

 

According to Keith Davis, “Change is necessary way of life in most organisations. In fact, change in all round people in the seasons, in their social environment and in their own biological processes.”

 

 

According to H. Randolph Bobbit, “When an organisational system is disturbed by some internal and external forces, change frequently occurs. Change, as a process, is simply modification of the structure or process of a system. It may be good or bad, the concept is descriptive only.”

 

According to E.F. Huge, “Managed change refers to the active involvement of the organisation, group or individual in making things occur with a view to accomplish the best interests of both the individual and the organisation.”

 

3. Nature of Change

 

The nature of change can be explained with the help of following points:

 

Change is inevitable: Change is inevitable in today’s competitive environment. Nowadays organizations are facing dynamic environment. In today’s environment, only those organizations can survive and grow which adept the changing environment. Organizations need to be flexible in order to expand their business. Therefore, survival and growth of the firms depends upon the adoption of change.

 

Change is continuous process: For many companies, making changes in business management has been considered as a non routine and rarely happening incident in course of normal business operations. Apparently such notion needs to be changed under today’s market competition. Organization change tends to become part of a day to day work of everyone. It is necessary for the management to ensure that the company has effected important change on a timely manner to ensure the long term survival of the business.

 

Change leads to development: For organizations to develop, it must undergo significant changes at various points in their life time. Organization change is undertaken to improve the performance of the organization or a part of the organization.

 

Change results from Internal and external factors: Change may results from the pressure of both internal and external factors in the organization. There are many external factors which force an organisation to adopt change such as competition, change in consumer needs, technology and market conditions etc,.

 

Change may be reactive or proactive: Change has mainly two types. It may be proactive or reactive. Proactive change involves actively attempting to make alterations to the work place and its practices. Reactive change is a change initiated in an organization because it is made necessary by outside forces.

 

4. Objectives of Organizational Change

 

Establish a culture of innovation: It is one of the main objectives of organizational change to establish a culture of innovation. If your culture is in the habit of resisting change, then every change will be difficult. Establishing a culture that is creative and accepting of change is a high priority objective for every change management practice.

 

Develop innovative strategies: To develop innovative strategies is another objective of organisational change. Develop and implement strong culture, communication and performance management strategies in innovative way are required to bring change.

 

Achieve employee participation in change: It is not enough that the employees only support change. Change management seeks employee engagement and participation in change. Deploy strategies to energize your organization around change.

 

Create a sense of urgency for change: Build empathy in employees of an organisation for the change. Communicate to ensure that employees are aware of the external forces (e.g. competition) that make change an urgent need.

 

Sustain change: Change is a long term, sustainable strategy. Therefore, it is another objective of an organisation to sustain change for long time period. If an organisation keeps changing with the environmental change then there are more chances of success and growth of an enterprise.

 

Importance of Change

 

Change is important for any organization because it is necessary for businesses to survive in the competitive edge. So without change, businesses would likely to fail to meet the needs of customers. The followings points will make us understand the importance of change:

 

Growth opportunities: Simply an organizational change management plan enables businesses to develop more during the transition. Change is one of the important factors for organizations growth. Change allows employees to learn new skills, explore new opportunities and exercise their creativity in ways that ultimately benefit the organization through new ideas and increased commitment.

 

 

Boost in morale: Organizational changes also boost the morale of employees. When leaders in the organizations have taken the time to develop a change management plan that considers the needs and wants of employees then they feel motivated. They perform better and get more involved in the transition.

 

Anticipation of challenges: When an organization has effective change management plan, it is easy for an organisation to predict and respond to challenges that may arise during and after the transition.

 

Reduced costs: Developing a change management plan will also allow your organization to reduce the cost of the production by adopting new methods of production. With the right people involved you can reduce inefficiencies and waste and avoid costly projects that do not contribute to the ultimate goals.

 

Technology  advancement:  Change  is  important  for  technological  advancements  in  an organisation. Technology advancement such as new machinery, new methods of performing work and new tools of communication helpful in facing competition and also increase the efficiency of employees. Ultimately the change tends to increase productivity and service.

 

6. Types of Change

 

There are mainly two types of change. These are as follow:

 

Proactive change: Proactive change involves actively attempting to make alterations to the work place and its practices. Companies that take a proactive approach to change are often trying to avoid a potential future threat or to capitalize on a potential future opportunity. For example, introduction of a new employee benefit scheme is proactive as the management strongly believes that it enhances the satisfaction and motivation of the employees.

 

Reactive change: Reactive change occurs when an organization makes changes in its practices after some future threats or opportunity has already occurred. In other words, reactive change is a change initiated in an organization because it is made necessary by outside forces. For example, employee benefit scheme was introduced because of demands made by the employees.

 

7. Levels of Change Individual level change: The first level of change is individual level change that may take place due to changes in job assignment, transfer of an employee to a different location or the changes in the maturity level of a person. Sometimes, it is found that less importance is given to individual level change. But this is not correct because individual level changes will have impact on the group which in turn will influence the whole organization. Therefore, managers should consider individual level change which is equally important.

 

Group level change: Change often affect groups, this can happen from the outside or inside of an organisation. They have to adapt to new situations, processes, systems and tasks. The groups in the organization can be formal groups or informal groups. Changes at the group level can affect the work flows, job design, social organization, status systems and communication patterns. The groups, particularly the informal groups have a lot of influence on the individual members of the group. As such by effective implementing change at the group level, resistance at the individual level can be frequently overcome.

 

Organizational level change: The organizational change involves major programs which affect both the individuals and the groups. Decisions regarding such changes are made by the senior management. These changes occur over long periods of time and require considerable planning for implementation. A few different types of organization level changes are:

 

Strategic change: Sometimes, a company may change its priorities. For example, an organization might decide to move from focusing on a product to focusing on a service. This will create a demand for new types of marketing and production, while at the same time requiring a shift in strategy. All of these factors combined can trigger massive change.

 

Structural change: Structural changes are those changes made to the organization’s structure and typically affect how the company is run. This change may be in the whole set of relationships, work assignments and authority structure. The managers and human resources professionals change the way they organize the business. For example, they could introduce new methods of bookkeeping, such as going from paper files to digital files. This would require massive retraining for all employees involved. Even smaller-scale improvements, like updating software, will still cause some change.

 

Process oriented change: Process oriented changes are related to the recent technological developments, information processing and automation. It involves replacing or retraining personnel, heavy capital equipment investment and operational changes. All this will affect the organizational culture.

 

People oriented change: People oriented changes are directed towards improving employee performance, skills, attitudes, behavior and loyalty to the organization, as well as to enhance manager-subordinate relationships, group cohesion and employee sense of achievement. Changes to people can be large-scale, such as replacing all of the top-level managers in hopes of creating a new organizational culture, or small-scale, such as working to change employee attitudes through things such as team building or other behavioral activities.

 

8. Causes of Change

 

There are number of factors both internal and external which affect organizational functioning. Any change in these factors necessitates changes in an organisation. Followings are the important factors:

 

 

External Forces

 

The followings are the important external factors which force the organization for introducing changes:

 

Technology: Technology is one the important external factors responsible for change in an organization. When there is a change in technology such as discovery of new machinery, new methods of production and change in communication system force the organizations to adopt new technology in order to get success in the competitive era. New technology reduces the cost of production and increases the efficiency of employees. Therefore, if we establish new technology, the work structure will get affected and organization will grow.

 

Marketing conditions: Since every organization exports its outputs to the national and international market, so there is competition that has to face by each and every organization. The customers who do not purchase products and the other firms which selling the same product, these two type of forces may influence the firms competitive situation. Therefore, there is need to change in the firm or in the organization if there is any change in these two forces. For example, there were numerous foreign firms or organizations which come into the Indian market, when there was liberalization in 1991. That situation forced many organizations to change according to the situation. Therefore, there may be alteration in the liking, needs, disliking of the customers or there may be change in the income of the customers. These changes brought those products which can be according to the needs of the customers.

 

Social changes: Social changes reflect in terms of people’s aspirations, the needs, and their ways of working. Social changes have taken place because of the several forces like level of education, urbanization, feeling of autonomy, and international impact due to new information sources. These social changes affect the behavior of people in the organization. There, it is required to make adjustment in its working so that it matches with people.

 

Political changes: Political factors have an important influence on organisations. The interference of the government in organizations is increasing. The organization can manage different activities and for completing activities which methods will be followed by it, these activities or methods are defined by the political factors. The operations of the organizations may be affected if there is any change in the legal and political factors.

 

Internal Forces

 

It is not true that only external factors may bring the changes in the organization which are required for the organization, changes in internal factors may also bring changes in the organization. Below are some important internal factors:

 

Changes in the managerial personnel: The first internal cause of change is related with the managerial personnel. Old managers are replaced by new mangers. When there are retirements, dismissal, promotion, transfer, the old managers are replaced. Every individual has new way to do work. So, new managers bring new ideas and way of working in the organization. They develop informal and cordial relationship with employees. Because of change in the functioning of top level managers there is a possibility of change in the organisation. The change may be in the form of fixing responsibility, allocation of work, delegation of authority, organisation design and control, etc.

 

Deficiency in existing organization: When there is insufficiency in the current organizational process, there is need of change in current organization. There may be many reasons for this insufficiency in the organization, like- no co-operation between staff and line, problems in communication, multiple committees, lack of consistency in decisions regarding policy, lack of co-ordinance between different department, etc.

 

Nature of the work force: Sometimes, changes take place due to change in the nature of work  force.  The  workforce  nature  has  changed  with  passing  of  time.  Different generations have expressed  different  work  values. In  the changing  environment,  the workforce profile also changing. The new people or generation who is having better education, place more importance on human values and also they are more educated to ask questions from the managers if there is something not according to rules. To achieve the organizational goals, it is very difficult for the managers to manage the behavior of the workforce and also it is challenging for the managers. The management will feel stress if the turnover of the employees are high.

 

To avoid developing inertia: Dynamism plays important role in the development of an organization. Organizational changes are necessary to avoid developing inertia. There should be flexible organization so that if there is any change in the environment or technology, the management would be able to tackle the situation. Only one method may not be good for the management. Needed changes should be incorporated so that the employees modify their attitude towards changes.

 

9. Planned change

 

Planned change is a kind of change which we ourselves want to bring in an organisation. For this kind of change plans are made in advanced. As we know that change is inevitable in any of the organisation for sustainability. If things are decided in advance after deliberation, desired change can be brought in an organisation. This kind of change is easy as machinery is prepared for that. Following are the steps involved in the process of planned change:

 

Step 1: Identifying need for change: The first step in change process is to identify the need for change. The need for change is associated with the factors influencing the organisation. There are internal and external factors influencing the organisation. The need is to find out the way in which a particular factor influences the organisation. When this information is obtained, the necessity of a change becomes known. For example, change in liking and preferences of existing consumers are important factor which affects the company. The sale of company will fall down because of change in taste and preferences of consumers. In order to face this problem company shall have to introduce some change in its organisation structure.

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Step 2: Recognize an Area of Need: The secossnd step in organizational change process is to recognize where in the business is the most important need of change right now. We may be aware that there is pressure for our business to improve, but how do we determine what area within our business to focus on, where is the greater need?

 

Internally often the area of need can be recognized by reviewing the company’s financial performance. However you may also recognize a need in the company by number of injuries at work or when the firm is not producing the volume and it has the capacity to produce.

 

Step 3: Presenting a proposal and adopting the change: Managers must work hard to establish the fact that innovation and change are important to the organisation. Otherwise, most good ideas will be rejected when they are proposed. Managers need to prepare a written business plan outlining how new ideas will be developed. Without this, they cannot get their budget proposal approved for the new projects.

 

Step 4: Planning to overcome resistance: The fact that one group, even top management decide to adopt a change does not mean that others will readily go along with it. Managers must plan to overcome employee resistance to change and understand the reasons for such resistance to change. Such issues are critical to managing change and innovation effectively.

 

Step 5: Implementing the change or innovation: This is the moment of truth when the change is put into operation. If a change is thought out well to begin with and the planning step is carefully carried out, the implementation of the change or innovation will be smooth.

 

Step 6: Monitoring the results: It is not advisable to implement a significant change without monitoring and evaluating what happens after the change has been implemented.

 

 

10.  Summary

 

Organizational change is the activity of differentiation or modification of the organization strategies with main purpose to bring improvements of overall business processes. In today’s environment, only those organizations can survive and grow which adept the changing environment. For many companies, making changes in business management has been considered as a non routine and rarely happening incident in course of normal business operations. Companies that take a proactive approach to change are often trying to avoid a potential future threat or to capitalize on a potential future opportunity.

 

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REFERENCES:-

  • Organisational Behaviour by K Ashwathappa, published by Himalaya Publishing House.
  • Organisational Behaviour by Shashi K Gupta and Rosy Joshi, published by Kalyani Publishers.
  • Management Concepts and Organisational Behaviour by N.K.Sahni, published by Kalyani Publishers.
  • Organizational  Behavior:  Foundations,  Realities  &  Challenges  by  Debra  L.  Nelson  and
  • James Campbell Quick, published by South-western Cengage Learning, 5th edition. https://www.boundless.com/management/textbooks/boundless-managementTextbook/organizational-culture-and-innovation-4/managing-change-for-organizations-39/types-of-organizational-change-210-7567/
  • http://management.simplicable.com/management/new/10-types-of-organizational-change
  • http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/organizational-change/columns/why-organizations-change-and-what-they-can-change
  • http://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-important-organization-728.html
  • http://oureverydaylife.com/importance-change-organization-4297.html