Organizatinal Change

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I. Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the plan to implement a major change within the department of an organization. The change will involve a substantial change to the departmental structure, the department’s processes, personnel responsibilities and the reporting lines of the individuals within the department.
Studies have shown the majority of change initiatives have failed over the last several decades (Kotter, 1995, p. 59) with some researchers findings that over two-thirds have failed (Szabla, 2007, p. 256). Kotter suggests the primary reasons for these failures include a lack of urgency, guiding coalition, vision, communication, unremoved obstacles, lack of recognition of successes, and not institutionalizing the change within the organization (1995, pp. 60-67). Szabla (2007, p. 256) suggest there are other causes such as political and internal organizational conflicts that have also been shown to prevent success. Further, Szabla (2007, p. 526) suggests there is evidence that resistance of the organizational members is also a major factor in the failure of organizational change. However, Dent and Powley suggest that not all change is resisted by organizational members and in fact some people actually embrace change (2003, pp. 40-42).
Leaders are responsible for promoting organizational change (Bass, 1985, p. 27). Effective leaders allow participation of their teams and establish the environment for their organizations to succeed (Eisner, 2011, p. 51-52).
Lewin, a leader in the field of change, provides a change model that includes the three steps that change agents must lead their organization through to achieve a successful change in his seminal article Group Decision and Social Change (1958, pp....

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.... Images of organization (pp. 149-206). Thousand Oaks, CA US: Sage Publications, Inc. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=1997-08197-000&site=eds-live&scope=site
Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership, fourth edition (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, c2010.
Simon, H. A. (1997). Chapter V. the psychology of administrative decisions. Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. (4th ed) (4th ed., pp. 92-139). New York, NY US: Free Press.
Szabla, D. B. (2007). A multidimensional view of resistance to organizational change: Exploring cognitive, emotional, and intentional responses to planned change across perceived change leadership strategies. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 18(4), 525-558. doi:10.1002/hrdq.1218

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