Organizational Change Flashcards
Define Organizational Change
Organizational change is a macro level concept that is defined as a transformation of an organization between two points in time and comparing the organization before and after the transformation (Barnett & Carroll, 1995). Organizational change has two dimensions, the first is content which consists of transformations that involve many elements of structure or those that entail radical shifts in a single element of the structure (Barnett & Carroll, 1995). The second is the way in which the transformation occurs, the speed, sequence of activities related to the change, the decision making and communication system, and the resistance encountered (Barnett & Carroll, 1995). Additionally, organizational change may be further defined when viewed from an evolutionary perspective as transitional, transformational, or developmental (Gilley, Gilley, & McMillan, 2009). Transitional change, the most common, improves the current state through minor, gradual changes in people, structure, procedures, or technology (Gilley, Gilley, & McMillan, 2009). Transformational change efforts represent a fundamental, radical shift that rejects current paradigms or questions underlying assumptions and mindsets (Kuhn, 1970). Lastly, developmental change stems from an overall philosophy of growth and development that creates a culture of building competitive advantages through continuous dynamic yet manageable change (Gilley, Gilley, & McMillan, 2009). Overall, Understanding organizational change involves examining types of change within an organization and regardless of its size, any change has a ripple effect on an organization and its employees (Miles, 2001).
Beer, Eisenstat, & Spector, 1990 (why change programs don’t produce change); Fernandez & Rainey 2006 (managing successful OC in public sector); Reichers, Wanous, & Austin, 1997 (Understanding and managing OC); Goodstein, & Burke, 1991(creating successful OC); Quinn & Weick 1999 (organizational change and development)
Four areas in which the pressures for change appear most powerful: people, technology, information processing and communication, and competition
Org change as
• Kurt Lewin’s Process Model (1951)
o Unfreezing (people become aware of need for change), change( moving from old to new state of org), refreezing (making new behavior relatively permanent and resistant to further change)
• dynamic perspective (continuous)
o change happening simultaneously
o 1. Force for change; 2 recognize and define problem; 3. Problem solving process; 4. Implement the change 5. Measure, evaluate, control.
o Change agent involved through the whole process and transition management is at step 4
o Organization culture
Jaques 1952—System of publicity and collectively accepted meanings operating from a given group at a given time. This system of terms, forms, categories, and images interprets a people’s own situation to themselves
Organizational culture is a term used to describe the environment in which people work and the influence it has on how they think, act, and experience work (Warrick, Milliman, & Ferguson, 2016). Culture can vary based on the organization and can bring out the best in people and unite them around common goals and values. Cultures can also be dysfunctional and filled with stress, tension, distrust, low morale, and lack of support. Organizational culture is a mindset, a specific way of seeing problems and solving them, and is a sense of belonging to a team (Muscalu & Halmaghi, 2015). Organizational culture is a mindset, a specific way of seeing problems and solve them, a sense of belonging to a team. At the same time, organizational culture gives rise to a certain jargon specific to each organization, jargon they understand only members of that organization. (Mascalu & Halmaghi, 2015). Organizational culture is a kind of organizational change since any transformation amounts to a reevaluation of basic assumptions that employees or the organization have assumed (Muscalu & Halmaghi, 2015). Additionally organizational culture is an interface between employees and change while being able to convert one by one into a barrier or facilitators of the change (Muscalu & Halmaghi, 2015). Edgar Schein (2010) describes organizational culture as a set of assumptions and beliefs that shape how people habitually relate to one another, their tasks, and the broader environment. These assumptions are mostly tacit and taken for granted.
The current research related to culture is provides valuable information about the important role it has in the success or failure of an organization, the ability to attract and retain top-level talent, and how it affects employee behaviors, performance, and morale. Culture must be strongly linked to vision, values, and strategy of the company and specific actions need to be taken to build the desired culture and align organizational systems and practices with it during periods of organizational change. Organizational cultures can be resistant to needed change and fragile and altered by changes in leadership or major events. When the culture of the organization is not strong employees will be less likely to buy into the changes being implemented, lack of employee buy-in will cause the organizational change to be stonewalled increasing its likelihood of failure. Therefore, before any organizational change occurs Upper-Level Management should focus on developing a strong organizational culture. This requires open, frequent, and multi-dimensional communication, involving meetings, emails, the company website, videos, blogs, tweets, Facebook, and a variety of other methods to keep employees, customers and suppliers well informed. This communication should also come from all directions and the organization should increase its culture inquiries, which involves understanding if the culture is helping or hindering the organization’s ability to achieve its strategic goals and to identify what is important to those who are vital to the organization. Without a strong culture that embodies communication, the likelihood of organizational change failure increases because employees do not feel empowered to make decisions, they will not contribute to the change processes, or be creative in their jobs. When employees feel empowered they are more likely to become change agents, these individuals help to present different ways of coping with the chaos caused by the change processes (Horng, Hu, Hong, Lin, 2011)
Huber & Lewis, 2010; Ehrhart et. al., 2014 ( organizational climate and culture); Rollins & Roberts, 1998 (work culture, performance, and business success); Denison, 1997 ( corporate culture and organizational effectiveness); Kaplan & Robert, 2001 (strategy focused organization); Schein, 2010 ( organizational culture and leadership)
o Customer and employee satisfaction
Change can lead to restructuring which can lead to improve processes and strategies to better service customers. Improved customer service starts with org change that supports employees who direct interact with customers. employees who have higher levels of satisfaction, commitment, and have higher levels of POS will perform their job task and responsibilities better than those employees who do not believe the org change will benefit them or will be successful.
Include how to make org change successful at each step to get employee buy in and the fact that there needs to be support from the top down.
Employees need to feel a part of the change and that they are valued during the change process. If not they will resist the change and will try to damage the change efforts. Getting employees to buy in creates change agents who can facilitate the change process regardless of it is continuous or the Lewin’s model of unfreezing, change, refreezing.
• How to implement organizational change (who should be involved)
[Techniques for implementing organizational change (impact and causes of success/failure= When techniques are implemented they can lead to success and when they are not it can lead to failure or organizational change.]
Organizational and strategic changes often require employees to modify their behavior in ways that conflict with traditional ‘‘ways of doing things around here’’ — or, in other words, with the culture of the organization. (Canato & Ravasi, 2015). In order for change to be successfully implemented breakdowns in the implementation must be avoided. Breakdowns are defined as perceived discrepancies or gaps between the change process in an organization and an individual’s mental model of how the change process should unfold (Van de Ven & Kangyoung Sun, 2011). In order for these breakdowns to be addressed to prevent from derailing the change program, change agents must be designated at each step. However, even before employees can become change agents. Upper-level management must be involved at the onset of change, negative and positive. When leadership is involved with the implementation of change, employees will likely have more buy-in to the change and a positive perception of change will be more likely to implement the change and motivate their colleagues to do the same. However, if employees do not believe in the change or support through the change process the change may be rejected, and organizational members may initiate negative reactions such as sabotage, absenteeism, and output restrictions (Bouckenooghe, Devos, & Van den Broeck, 2009).
Now that we know the key players of who should be involved with organizational change we can discuss some general steps that can be taken to implement change. The first is that the business problem needs to be clearly identified and that this should be a cross-functional/departmental task. When organizations operate in silos it will be harder for change to be successfully implemented because certain organizational departments are excluded from the process making integration more difficult in the long run. The second step involves developing a shared vision for the organization and develop cohesion to help change and new vision process forward. Without a clear vision, employees and other key members of the organization’s network will be left to interpret the meaning of the change and how they do or do not fit into the new organization. Therefore, it is critical that managers, directors, and leaders at all organizational levels ensure that employees feel valued, their roles and responsibilities are clear throughout the change process, and that communication is transparent so that all employees feel included in the transformation of the organization. The next step involves developing formal policies, systems, and structures to help support the change. This will provide employees with clear guidelines to what is appropriate and what is not as it relates to the organizational change. Lastly, the organization will need to monitor and adjust strategies in response to problems and concerns that will arise throughout the change implementation process. Ensuring that monitoring happens allows for real-time adjustments to be made that allow the organization to accommodate feedback from its network. This ensures that the change will not fail and that benefits that didn’t exist within the organization will exist and thrive after the change is implemented. These steps provide a way to impose change without forcing it, which can allow employees to see that the change will lead to a more effective organization.
Beer, Eisenstat, & Spector, 1990 (why change programs don’t produce change); Fernandez & Rainey 2006 (managing successful OC in public sector); Reichers, Wanous, & Austin, 1997 (Understanding and managing OC); Goodstein, & Burke, 1991(creating successful OC)
o Effects of organizational change on employees
Organizational changes are usually considered to be associated with the experience of stressful work conditions, uncertainty, anxiety, and increased sick leave (Kivima¨ki, Vahtera, & Thomson, 1997; Sverke, Hellgren, & Na¨swall, 2002; Vahtera et al., 1997, 2004). Since work is seen as a central part of one’s life and is associated with economic, social, and personal satisfaction (Sverke et al., 2002), it may be assumed that job insecurity in times of organizational change can be viewed as a critical life event (Nerina, Deborah, Jimmieson, & Callan, 2004) that can evoke stress reactions for the individual because of anxiety regarding future employment and insufficient work satisfaction. Hartley, Jacobson, Klandermans, and van Vuuren (1991) have suggested that prolonged feelings of job insecurity are closely connected to stress: Job insecurity can be one of the more important stressors in employment situations. Furthermore, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) pointed out that job insecurity is a source of negative stress, which has both immediate and long-term consequences. Immediate stress reactions for the individual are related to attitudes such as job satisfaction and job involvement. It has been found that employees who feel insecure about future employment are more dissatisfied with their job compared with those who feel more secure about their future (Ashford, Lee, & Bobko, 1989; De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007). In a long-term perspective involving prolonged uncertainty with feelings of frustration and limited useful coping strategies (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), job insecurity has been found to be associated with lower commitment and performance (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007), and to have a varying negative impact on both physical and mental health (Sverke et al., 2002). Gallup Poll data shows that in the United States only 29 percent of employees are energized and committed to work (engaged). Fifty-four percent of the workforce is relatively ambivalent about giving forth much effort. They basically do the minimal requirements of their job. The remaining 17 percent of employees are disengaged and could be actively working against the organization in their work performance and interactions with customers. According to the Gallup study of a large United States retail bank, the importance of employee engagement in building customer engagement is clear and essential to the organization’s sustainability (Thompson & Mathys, 2013). This data shows that on average employees are not engaged and negative feelings to change can increase employee lack of energy towards their jobs and the organization. This lack of job security and commitment not only has a negative effect on the employee which manifest as stress but can also impact the relationships that employees and ultimately the organization has with customers. When employees cannot meet the needs of the customer, the organization can be faced with a decline in loyal customers, which could lead to negative financial performance. Therefore it is important for organizations to establish leadership, encourage employees’ to participate in decision making, develop an effective implementation of the changes, establish goal clarity, and provide services for to help employees cope with changes. These factors have been positively associated with organizational and individual well-being (Anderze´n & Arnetz, 2005; Arnetz, 2005; Svensen, Neset, & Eriksen, 2007).
o Role of upper level management in organizational change
When an organizational change occurs employees can have positive and negative reactions related to the change. If organizational members are not ready, the change may be rejected, and organizational members may initiate negative reactions such as sabotage, absenteeism, and output restrictions (Bouckenooghe, Devos, & Van den Broeck, 2009). Additionally, employee’s attitudes towards an occurring or pending change can impact morale, productivity, and turnover intentions (Iacovini, 1993; McManus et al., 1995). To prevent negative outcomes related to change, managers, leaders, and organizational development professionals must understand how to create readiness for change programs and initiatives that will help aid employees in being motivated and prepared for change (Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005). Upper-level management must also be active in all stages of the change implementation for employees to have buy-in and belief that the organizational change will be successful because management believes in that the change will be beneficial. Changes within an organization can result in increased feelings of anxiety, negative emotions, uncertainty, and ambiguity among employees (Bordia, Hobman, Jones, Gallois, & Callan, 2004; Kiefer, 2005), which are indicators of an individual’s unwillingness to support changes (Applebaum & Batt, 1993; Judson, 1991).
When organizational change is implemented it is important to assess employee’s perceived organizational readiness, which refers to organizational members’ change commitment and change efficacy to implement organizational change (Weiner, Amick, Lee, 2008; Weiner, Lewis, Linnan, 2009). Additionally, it is the organizational members’ shared resolve to pursue the courses of action involved in change implementation that makes the change successful (Bandura, 1997). With high levels of organizational commitment present, it could lead to positive employee reactions to change. For example, Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) observe that organizational members can commit to implementing an organizational change because they want to or value the change, because they have to and have little choice, or because they ought to and they feel obliged. Commitment based on ‘want to’ motives reflects the highest level of commitment to implement organizational change (Weiner, 2009). Therefore, in order for organizations to ensure change is successful employees must feel openness, commitment, and motivated to change (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993; Backer, 1995; Bernerth, 2004; Eby, Adams, Russell, & Gaby, 2000).
Another result of the organizational change that can have a positive and negative impact involves how comfortable employees feel with using their voice. By using their voice this entails speaking up when an employee sees something that can be improved or when employees see unethical behavior occurring. When change is implemented employees often feel apprehensive about voicing concerns related to the change. For example, change can cause employees to become more reluctant to voice substantive and relevant ideas and questions at work, which is related to the widespread and frequent feelings attributed to employees’ concerns about personal consequences (e.g., Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998; Edmondson, 2003; Milliken et al., 2003; Pinder & Harlos, 2001; Withey & Cooper, 1989).
When lines of communication are opened and encouraged, organizational change can have a positive impact on employees speaking up. By speaking up to those who occupy positions that are hierarchically higher than their own, employees can help stop illegal and immoral behavior, address mistreatment or injustice, and bring problems and opportunities for improvement to the attention of those who can authorize action. Employees of all types and levels confront problems and formulate ideas when carrying out day-to-day activities in organizations; this is the nature of work in a dynamic environment. Yet, even when they believe they have something useful to say, people often choose silence over speaking up (Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003; Ryan & Oestrich, 1998). Whether seen as primarily rational and calculative or as fear-driven and spontaneous, the belief that voice is risky has been described as a general expectation that speaking up will have undesired outcomes, such as harm to one’s reputation or image, reduced self-esteem or emotional well-being, or negative work evaluations and reduced opportunities for promotion (e.g., Ashford et al., 1998; Milliken et al., 2003). Therefore, upward communication is vital to the success of contemporary organizations and critical for organizational change as leadership seeks to make improvements to the change implementation strategy.
o Stress and organizational change
Stress is a nonspecifically induced psychological state of an individual that develops because the individual is with situations that “tax or exceed available resources (internal and external) (Lazarus & Folkman 1984)
Stress is negatively related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment and performance and positively related to turnover (Kinicki, McKee & Wade, 1996)
Organizational change: M&As, retrenchment and downsizing will create uncertainty, job anxiety and higher stress (Tosi, 1971)
Organizational changes are usually considered to be associated with the experience of stressful work conditions, uncertainty, anxiety, and increased sick leave (Kivima¨ki, Vahtera, & Thomson, 1997; Sverke, Hellgren, & Na¨swall, 2002; Vahtera et al., 1997, 2004). Since work is seen as a central part of one’s life and is associated with economic, social, and personal satisfaction (Sverke et al., 2002), it may be assumed that job insecurity in times of organizational change can be viewed as a critical life event (Nerina, Deborah, Jimmieson, & Callan, 2004) that can evoke stress reactions for the individual because of anxiety regarding future employment and insufficient work satisfaction. Hartley, Jacobson, Klandermans, and van Vuuren (1991) have suggested that prolonged feelings of job insecurity are closely connected to stress: Job insecurity can be one of the more important stressors in employment situations. Furthermore, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) pointed out that job insecurity is a source of negative stress, which has both immediate and long-term consequences. Immediate stress reactions for the individual are related to attitudes such as job satisfaction and job involvement. It has been found that employees who feel insecure about future employment are more dissatisfied with their job compared with those who feel more secure about their future (Ashford, Lee, & Bobko, 1989; De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007). In a long-term perspective involving prolonged uncertainty with feelings of frustration and limited useful coping strategies (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), job insecurity has been found to be associated with lower commitment and performance (De Cuyper & De Witte, 2007), and to have a varying negative impact on both physical and mental health (Sverke et al., 2002). Gallup Poll data shows that in the United States only 29 percent of employees are energized and committed to work (engaged). Fifty-four percent of the workforce is relatively ambivalent about giving forth much effort. They basically do the minimal requirements of their job. The remaining 17 percent of employees are disengaged and could be actively working against the organization in their work performance and interactions with customers. According to the Gallup study of a large United States retail bank, the importance of employee engagement in building customer engagement is clear and essential to the organization’s sustainability (Thompson & Mathys, 2013). This data shows that on average employees are not engaged and negative feelings to change can increase employee lack of energy towards their jobs and the organization. This lack of job security and commitment not only has a negative effect on the employee which manifest as stress but can also impact the relationships that employees and ultimately the organization has with customers. When employees cannot meet the needs of the customer, the organization can be faced with a decline in loyal customers, which could lead to negative financial performance. Therefore it is important for organizations to establish leadership, encourage employees’ to participate in decision making, develop an effective implementation of the changes, establish goal clarity, and provide services for to help employees cope with changes. These factors have been positively associated with organizational and individual well-being (Anderze´n & Arnetz, 2005; Arnetz, 2005; Svensen, Neset, & Eriksen, 2007).
o Leadership style and organizational change (effects on change)
As organizational life becomes more dynamic, uncertain, and unpredictable, it has become increasingly difficult for leaders to succeed by merely developing and presenting their visions top-down to employees (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). More than ever before, leaders depend on employees to proactively advance bottom-up change by voicing constructive ideas (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998), taking charge to improve work methods (Morrison & Phelps, 1999), and engaging in upward influence (Dutton, Ashford, O’Neill, & Lawrence, 2001). However, employees still need an effective leader for change to be successfully implemented. Transformational leaders have been characterized by four separate components or characteristics denoted as the 4 I’s of transformational leadership (Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino (1991). These four factors include idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Transformational leaders integrate creative insight, persistence, energy, intuition, and sensitivity to the needs of others to “forge the strategy culture alloy” for their organizations (Bass & Avolio, 1993). In contrast, transactional leaders are characterized by contingent reward and management-by-exception styles of leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1993). Essentially, transactional leaders develop exchanges or agreements with their followers, pointing out what the followers will receive if they do something right as well as wrong. They work within the existing culture, framing their decisions and actions based on the operative norms and procedures characterizing their respective organizations (Bass & Avolio, 1993). These two different leadership styles can influence how employees respond to change. For example, under transformational leadership employees may have feelings that make them believe that they are empowered to make decisions, contribute to the change processes, or be creative in their jobs. This allows employees to have more commitment to the organization and when employees feel empowered and committed, they are more likely to become change agents, these individuals help to present different ways of coping with the chaos caused by the change processes (Horng, Hu, Hong, Lin, 2011). Whereas transactional leadership could potentially lead to employees feeling insecure about their job roles and responsibilities if they cannot quickly meet the expectations of the leader once the change has been implemented. These feelings of job insecurities can lead employees to have negative attitudes towards the change, which could impact morale, productivity, and turnover intentions (Iacovini, 1993; McManus et al., 1995). Although transactional leadership rewards good and bad practices and behaviors, when change is implemented employees believe that their negative behaviors or performance will be highlighted and could be the cause for their anxiety related to the job (Nerina, Deborah, Jimmieson, & Callan, 2004). Additionally, Transactional leaders may be less likely to implement change that cause the culture to change because that is out of the scope of their leadership style which could result in unsuccessful change implementation. Since leadership has been identified by many researchers as being one of the most, if not the most, important (Amabile, 1998; Jung, 2001; Mumford & Gustafson, 1988) factor in organizational change. It is important for leaders to understand what their style of leadership and how that particular leadership style can be utilized to evoke positive outcomes from the implemented organizational change.
Eisenbach, 1999 (Transformational leadership in the context of OC);
o Types of organizational change and how they come about
The rising rate of complexity associated with increasing volatility, uncertainty and interconnectedness is a big challenge facing organizational leaders around the globe (Berman, 2010). In this environment, the world is operating in fundamentally different ways, which causes organizations to react and incorporate new business strategies (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017). One type of change that most organizations are faced with is the changes in consumer preferences. In the last decade, consumers have desired companies to be more transparent about what ingredients they use and consumers are pickier and exercise more discretion about what they consume (Carden et. al., 2017). For companies like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King it is becoming increasingly important to consider their external environment. The external environment are factors that impact companies uniquely, such as unanticipated crises and those events that impact the industry that the firm operates in (Dean, 1992). Currently, the fast food industry is losing customers to the fast, casual segment of the restaurant industry where consumers can find fast food, though not as fast; that is affordable, but not quite as lower priced, and of higher food quality (Carden et. al., 2017). With these seemingly small shifts in consumer taste, McDonald’s had to develop radical strategies that allowed the organization to change as consumer preferences changed and to quickly accommodate those changes in order to maintain customers. McDonald’s approach included a marketing strategy that promoted healthy food choices, included calorie counts on its menu displays and started offering low-fat and grilled menu options. This shift in menu allowed McDonald’s to adjust to external changes by implementing internal organizational changes by offering a good product mix that focuses on the choices the consumer would prefer (Carden et. al., 2017; Boin & Eeten, 2013), thus implementing a consumer-focused change implementation strategy. The external changes prompted internal changes which requested employees and franchise owners to move quickly to make changes to the menu and design of all McDonald’s locations (Morales-Raya & Bansel, 2015). This required support from the organization as well as formalized policies so that within a certain time frame all locations would offer a standardized menu.
Isabella, 1990 (interpretations as change unfolds)
When a new CEO takes over an organization there are likely to be immediate and progressive changes that take place throughout that CEO’s tenure. Often these changes can be beneficial to the organization and in other instances, it could have a negative effect that leads to the firing of the CEO by the Board of Directors, decreases in financial performance, and increases in employee turnover. One of the major changes that come with the hiring of a new CEO is a change in the organizational culture. A CEO can deliberately begin to design the organization around his/her philosophy of creating a culture that promotes what they believe in like employee happiness, exceptional customer service, and high performance as in the case of Zappos (Warrick et. al., 2016). Organizational cultures can be resistant to needed change and at the same time can be fragile and altered almost overnight by changes in leadership or major events. In order to create a new organizational culture that results in a great place to work, exceptional customer service, and impressive organizational performance requires specific drivers. These drivers include committed leaders, practiced core values, a customer-focused strategy, management practices that are aligned with core values and lastly HR practices that are aligned with the core values as well. With these drivers consistently in play throughout the organization and in conjunction with open communication channels, the change will have a greater chance of being successful.
Greening & Johnson, 1996 (CEO turnover and crisis); Ehrhart et. al., 2014 ( organizational climate and culture); Rollins & Roberts, 1998 (work culture, performance, and business success); Denison, 1997 ( corporate culture and organizational effectiveness); Kaplan & Robert, 2001 (strategy focused organization); Schein, 2010 ( organizational culture and leadership); Barney, 1986 ( OC as a source of sustained competitive advantage)
o Barriers of organizational change (strategies to help improve change)
Organizational change is defined as a difference in form, quality, or state over time in an organizational entity (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995, p.512). When organizational change is presented in a company it is important for the leaders to understand that change takes time and will often require a strategy-oriented approach. One of the best methods to improve the implementation of change stems from advances made by Kaplan and Norton (2001). Leaders must first articulate the company’s new strategy in operational terms. Next, actions are taken to allow employees to implement the strategy and create a mindset where they see the strategy as part of their jobs. Finally, the organization’s leadership must seek to make changes necessary to reinforce the strategy. We know that organizational change is an ongoing and never-ending process within an organization. When changes are being implemented there are often breakdowns that occur when organizations do not change in a manner that is consistent with an employee’s conceptual model (Van de Ven & Kangyoung Sun, 2011). When this happens there are two strategies that can be used by change agents to capitalize on the change. The first is an action strategy, which focuses on correcting the people or processes in the organization that prevent the change model from unfolding as expected. When using this strategy the change agent might explain to participants the logic and reasons for the planned change. As a problem solver, a change agent attempts to intervene in and control a change initiative by diagnosing and correcting difficulties that prevent the change process from unfolding as the change agent thinks it should. This strategy reflects a mainstream view in the literature that change management largely entails an action-oriented problem-solving approach (Burke, Lake, & Paine, 2009). The second strategy, reflection, focuses on revising the employee’s mental model to one that better fits the process of change unfolding in the organization. For example, given the resistance to the planned change, the change agent might adopt a dialectical model of change that promotes constructive conflict and debate among participants with opposing plans. The reflection strategy emphasizes how change agents make sense of and socially construct understandings of the changes they experience in organizations (Weick, 2011). Diagnosing the breakdowns and knowing what strategy to follow in directing organizational change is the key to determining which basic strategy to utilize. For most organizations, a hybrid approach will probably be the most beneficial as one single strategy may not be effective in aiding in the successful implementation of change programs and initiatives.
Ford et. al., 2008 (resistance to change); Nutt, 2002 (why decisions fail); Quinn & Weick 1999 (organizational change and development)
o Organizational theory development (relate to the process of publishing an article in academia) (see comps question 2016 about this)
Organizational Development (OD) is a field of research, theory, and practice dedicated to expanding the knowledge and effectiveness of people to accomplish more successful organizational change and performance. (UPenn, 2018)
OD is a process of continuous diagnosis, action planning, implementation and evaluation, with the goal of transferring knowledge and skills to organizations to improve their capacity for solving problems and managing future change. (UPenn, 2018)
5 Steps
• Anticipate a Need for Change
o Organization must anticipate the need for change (Brown, 2010).
• Develop the Practitioner-Client Relationship
• The Diagnostic Phase
o Gather data about the system. This provides a better understanding of the client system problems.
• Action, Plans, Strategies and Techniques
o The problem areas and casual relations are identified. As such, a series of interventions, activities and programs aimed at resolving the problems and increasing effectiveness follow (Brown, 2010, p.16). The programs will apply relevant OD techniques such as total quality management (TQM) towards achieving necessitated change.
• Self-Renewal, Monitor, and Stabilize
o The next step is to monitor the results and stabilize the desired changes. Brown (2010) elaborates that, in this stage the organization assesses the effectiveness of the change strategies in aiming the stated objective
History and Application of Organizational Development Theory
- OD emerged out of human relations studies from the 1930s where psychologists realized that organizational structures and processes influence worker behavior and motivation
- Lewin’s work in the 1940s and 1950s also helped show that feedback was a valuable tool in addressing social processes.
- More recently, work on OD has expanded to focus on aligning organizations with their rapidly changing and complex environments through organizational learning, knowledge management and transformation of organizational norms and values.
key Concepts of Organizational Development Theory
• Organizational Climate
o Defined as the mood or unique “personality” of an organization.
o Attitudes and beliefs about organizational practices create organizational climate and influence members’ collective behavior.
o Climate features and characteristics may be associated with employee satisfaction, stress, service quality and outcomes and successful implementation of new programs. Climate features and characteristics include:
o Leadership, openness of communication, participative management, role clarity, and conflict resolution, leader support and leader control.
• Organizational Culture
o Deeply seated norms, values and behaviors that members share.
o The five basic elements of culture in organizations include:
Assumptions
Values
Behavioral norms
Behavioral patterns
Artifacts
o The subjective features (assumptions, values and norms) reflect members’ unconscious thoughts and interpretations of their organizations.
o The subjective features shape the behaviors and artifacts take on within organizations
• Organizational Strategies
o A common OD approach used to help organizations negotiate change, i.e. action research, consists of four steps.
Diagnosis
• Helps organization identify problems that may interfere with its effectiveness and assess the underlying causes
• Usually done by OD enlisting the help of an outside specialist to help identify problems by examining its mission, goals, policies, structures and technologies; climate and culture; environmental factors; desired outcomes and readiness to take action.
• Usually done through key informant interviews or formal surveys of all members.
Action planning
• Strategic interventions for addressing diagnosed problems are developed.
• The organization is engaged in an action planning process to assess the feasibility of implementing different change strategies that lead to action.
Intervention
• Change steps are specified and sequenced, progress monitored, and stakeholder commitment is cultivated.
Evaluation
• Assess the planned change efforts by tracking the organization’s progress in implementing the change and by documenting its impact on the organization.
o Healthcare reform and effects on organizations that lead to organizational change
Pros
• Better coverage and universal healthcare could lead to increases in employee satisfaction and well-being; which could also lead to improved work performance and org commitment
• Affordable Care Act made it more accessible to those who did not have coverage by employers.
• Reform in the sense that it will reduce the company’s responsibility for providing healthcare will be beneficial in the aspect that it could increase tax cuts and provide more profits by eliminating expenses related to employee wages and benefits
• Small business will be able to generate more profit because they will not have the cost of healthcare. However a mandated healthcare policy could lead to the firing or for small, educed hiring for small, medium, and large firms
