Change within Organizations

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Why are there different perspectives on change within organisations

INTRODUCTION

Organizational Change

In an ever-changing business environment, for organisations to remain competitive in this fast-moving world of technological development and globalization, organisations must examine frameworks regularly and manage change and their working practices and systems if they are to remain competitive. “It is becoming increasingly important for organizations to gain competitive advantage by being able to manage and survive change ” “Organizational change has become synonymous with managerial effectiveness since the 1980s (Burnes, 1996; Wilson, 1992). A definition given by Mark Hughes (2006 ) in his book Change Management defines ‘ Change’ as “The leadership and direction of the process of organizational transformation – especially with regard to human aspects and overcoming resistance to change” (Hughes, 2006). Change is a constant feature of organizational life and the ability to manage it is

seen as a core competence of successful organizations (Bumes, 2004b). The ability of organizations to manage and survive change is becoming increasingly important in an environment where competition and globalization of markets are ever intensifying (Cao and McHugh, 2005: 475). Organizational change involves, by definition, a transformation of an organisation between two points in time”. It is crucial for organizations to “Accept that undertaking change is a natural part of business life in order to keep in line with the need for improvements or customer or fashion demands”. The IBM report (2008 ) on Making Change Work states the ``effects of globalization , technology advances, complex multinational organizations , enable...

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...e-fits-all approaches. For example, they attempt to combat resistance to change by involving employees in the initiative’s design even when employees don’t have the information needed to provide useful input”

We need to beware of pat formulas or off-the-shelf improvement packages. Improvement tools, techniques, and approaches must be customized to fit our unique personal, team, and organizational circumstances. That's why trendy programs like quality circles, excellence, customer service, quality improvement, teams, empowerment, re-engineering and the like have failed or fallen short in so many organizations. They're often sold as a one-size-fits-all, step-by-step process that we can drop right into our organization. When that doesn't work, some managers or consultants try to alter the organization to fit the program rather than the other way around.

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