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CHAPTER 16: ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT |
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CHAPTER 16 ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT OUTLINE
I. EXTERNAL FORCES FOR CHANGE A. Information Technology
1. The network of computers linked around the planet has become a major driver of rapid environmental change. 2. Information technology forces corporate leaders to rethink how their organizations are configured. 3. Information technology a. creates new structures that allow companies to compete globally through network alliances. b. facilitates telecommuting and opens up new employment relationships with employees. c. Places more emphasis on knowledge management rather than physical presence and manufacturing capacity as a driver of competitive advantage.
B. Global and Local Competition
1. Global and domestic competition often leads to corporate restructuring. 2. To increase their competitiveness, companies: a. reduce layers of management. b. sell entire divisions of employees. c. reduce payroll through downsizing. 3. Global competition has fuelled an unprecedented number of mergers and acquisitions in recent years.
C. Demography
1. Employers are more educated and expect more involvement and interesting work. 2. Generation-X and Generation-Y employees are less intimidated by management directives and they work to live more than live to work. 3. Companies employ a far more diverse work force than a few decades ago. 4. These changes have put pressure on organizational leaders to: a. alter work practices. b. develop more compatible structures and rewards. c. discover new ways to lead.
II. LEWIN’S FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS MODEL
A. Restraining Forces
1. Some organizational behavior scholars suggest that employee “resistance” represents symptoms of underlying restraining forces that need to be removed. 2. Employees may be worried about the consequences of change or the process of change itself. 3. The main reasons why people create obstacles to change: a. direct costs. b. saving face. c. fear of the unknown. d. breaking routines e. incongruent organizational systems. f. incongruent team dynamics.
III. UNFREEZING, CHANGING, AND REFREEZING
A. Creating an Urgency for Change
1. Driving forces must be real, not contrived; otherwise employees will doubt the change agent’s integrity. 2. Customer driven change is a powerful driver of change a. the adverse consequences for the organization’s survival and success. b. provide a human element that further energized employees to change current behavior patterns.
B. Reducing the Restraining Forces
1. Effective change involves reducing or removing the restraining forces. 2. Six ways to overcome employee resistance: a. communication b. training c. employee involvement d. stress management e. negotiations f. coercion
C. Changing to the Desired Future State
1. To become more customer focused requires changes in behavior as well as attitudes and values. 2. Task forces identified specific changes, which resulted in new tasks and roles in the organization. 3. Change results in new behaviors that employees must learn and internalize.
D. Refreezing the Desired Conditions
1. Refreezing occurs when organizational systems and team dynamics are realigned with the desired changes. 2. The desired patterns of behavior can be “nailed down” by changing the physical structure and situational conditions. 3. Organizational rewards are powerful systems that refreeze behaviors. 4. Information systems play a complementary role in the change process. 5. Feedback mechanisms help employees learn how well they are moving toward the desired objectives, and they provide a permanent architecture to support the new behavior patterns in the long term.
IV. STRATEGIC VISIONS, CHANGE AGENTS, AND DIFFUSING CHANGE
A. Strategic vision 1. Provides a sense of direction and established the critical success factors against which the real changes are evaluated. 2. Minimizes employee fear of the unknown and provides a better understanding about what behaviors employees must learn for the future state. 3. A clear vision of the proposed change is the most important feature of successful change initiatives.
B. Change agents 1. Help form, communicate, and build commitment toward the desired future state. 2. A change agent is anyone who possesses enough knowledge and power to guide and facilitate the change effort. 3. As companies rely increasingly on self-directed work teams, change agents will be found in any employee.
C. Diffusion of Change
1. Change agents often test the transformation process with a pilot project, then diffuse what has been learned from this experience to other parts of the organization. 2. Diffusion is more likely to occur when the pilot project is successful within one or two years and receives visibility. 3. Successful diffusion depends on labor unions support and active involvement in the diffusion process. 4. An important condition is that the diffusion strategy isn’t described too abstractly making the instructions too vague to introduce the change elsewhere. 5. Without producing excessive turnover in the pilot group, people who have worked under the new system should be moved to other areas of the organization to transfer their knowledge and commitment of the change effort to work areas that have not yet experienced it.
V. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
Organization development tries to understand how to manage planned change in organizations and is a planned system wide effort, managed from the top with the assistance of a change agent that uses behavioral science knowledge to improve organizational effectiveness.
A. The Client—Consultant Relationship
1. The organization development process begins by forming a relationship between the client and consultant. a. consultants need to determine the client’s readiness for change b. consultants need to establish their power base in the client relationship c. consultants need to agree with their clients on the most appropriate role in the relationship 2. Process consultation involves helping the organization solve its own problems and the means by which they can be changed.
B. Diagnose the Need for Change
1. Organizational diagnosis involves gathering and analyzing data about an ongoing system. 2. Organizational diagnosis is important because it establishes the appropriate direction for the change effort. 3. Involves agreeing on specific prescriptions for action, including the appropriate change method and the schedule for these actions. 4. Joint action planning ensures that everyone knows what is expected of them and that standards are established to properly evaluate the process after the transition.
C. Introduce Change
1. Incremental change is an evolutionary strategy whereby the organization fine-tunes the existing organization and takes small steps toward the change effort’s objectives and is generally less threatening and stressful to employees because they have time to adapt to the new conditions. 2. Quantum change is where companies face extreme environmental turbulence in which the organization break out of its existing ways and moves toward a totally different configuration of systems and structures
D. Evaluate and Stabilize Change
1. To evaluate an OD process, recall its objectives that were developed during the organizational diagnosis and action planning stages. 2. If the activity has the desired effect, the change agent and participants need to stabilize the new conditions or refreezing process.
VI. TRENDS IN ORGANIZAITON DEVELOPMENT
A. Parallel Learning Structures
1. Parallel learning structures are highly participative arrangement, composed of people from most levels of the organization who follow the action research model to produce meaningful organizational change. 2. Parallel learning structure participants are sufficiently free from the constraints of the larger organization so they can more effectively solve organizational issues.
B. Appreciative Inquiry
1. Appreciative inquiry tries to break out of the problem-solving mentality by reframing relationships around the positive and the possible. 2. Directs its inquiry toward successful events and successful organizations. 3. External focus becomes a form of behavioral modeling and increases open dialogue by redirecting the group’s attention away from its own problems. 4. Enables groups to overcome these negative tensions and build a more hopeful perspective of their future by focusing on what is possible. 5. The “Four-D” model appreciative inquiry includes: a. discovery—identifying the positive elements of the observed events or organization b. dreaming—envisioning what might be possible in an ideal organization c. designing—in which participants listen with selfless receptivity to each others’ models and assumptions d. delivering—establish specific objectives and direction for their own organization based on their model of what will be
VII. EFFECTIVENESS OF ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
A. Cross-Culture Concerns with OD
1. Conflict with cultural values in other countries. 2. Sensitivity training and other OD practices encourage open display of conflict. 3. OD needs to develop a more contingency-oriented perspective with respect to the cultural values of its participants.
B. Ethical Concerns with OD
1. OD activities may threaten the individual’s privacy rights. 2. OD activities potentially increase management’s power by inducing compliance and conformity in organizational members. 3. OD activities undermine the individual’s self-esteem. 4. Dilemma facing OD consultants is their role in the client relationship
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