Analysis Of Experience Organizational Change Management Essay

Todays organizations are facing a continually changing world, unpredictable and fast-paced environment that require constant restudying to change. For an organization to be successful in this modern world it is ultimately for organization to regularly evaluate the need for them to change to stay up to date. Organizational change enables a company to strive to stay competitive and profitable. In 2006, Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) had acquired Maxtor Corporation; Maxtor was an American manufacturer of computer conventional disk drives and the third largest in the world prior to acquisition. In 2008, some commentators argue that Solid-state drive (SSD) challenge may give threat to Seagate steady as a world’s largest manufacturer of conventional disk drives. Organizations likely to be struggling to survive if fail to meet the challenges and demands of both the external and internal environment factors. Today environment is erratic and does not stand still, so organizations cannot assume that the future is stagnant, there is a need for organizations to continuously review their vision, strategies, technologies and goals based on changing environment and technological. As Charles Darwin quotes that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”.

Jai B. P. Sinha (2008: 352) states that “there is two-dimensional view of organizational change, where organizational change can be triggering by external and internal factors, either unplanned or planned”. The unplanned change is usually reacting to ad hoc measures that company does not anticipate and it may cause distraction to operation. For examples, change of government policy, critical incidents due to lacking of skills, unscheduled tools maintenance due to lacking of preventive measurement, and missing standard operating procedures. The planned change is usually change of organization business plans and organization restructuring, such as offer competitive pricing in the market, redesign or align roles and responsibilities to improve productivity and employees morale. The effective outcome of unplanned and planned change both can be effective and ineffective; basically it depends on how efficient of the strategic plans that put into practical effect.

There are many external triggers for organizational change. For example, in 2011, Europe solar industry sees hurt and affected with legal environment factor when UK government announced plans to introduce a cut to the Feed-In Tariff scheme (FIT) for large solar energy enterprises. Such legal constraints may have serious negative impact on an industry and would hurt organization budget and react unintentional, such as cease some of its operations and will cost jobs lost and low morale. Globalization is another key external factor in the world economy and could be a good or bad for organization. Globalization has brought in new opportunities to developing countries or third world countries. For example, international companies in Asia have big advantages with better government subsidies and lower labor costs. In order for developed countries companies to stay competitive they must be consistently review their strategic plans so be more innovative than overseas competitors, such as reallocate their manufacturing business to overseas countries. Likewise, new technological advances make present company struggle to stay competitive. Nokia Corp profit has been suffered badly due to lacks of new technology or model to challenge smart phone, such as Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. An organization has to continuously research and develop new technology in order having ability to challenge the threat from competitors and demanding customers.

Internal triggers are the factors happening within the organization itself. For example, workplace abuse or high stress employees can lead to low morale and low performance; it will affect the productivity, staff turnover, or legal issue. For example, in 2012, China Company Foxconn Technology has reported several suicides cases at its factories in southern china, which is a major supplier to Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Some commentators revealed that the issue may due to poor management policies that workers have force to keep up with the machines speed and not allowed to talk to each other in the workshop. Therefore, it is an obligation that organization has to response to the incident and investigates to identify what are the factors caused the incident. Organization must decide and implement a strategic change to resolve the incident and prevent from reoccurring. Also the change has to include the plan how to calm, raise employee’s morale and motivate employees.

Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 565-566) discussed that one way to distinguish type of change is to consider how deeply they penetrate the organization. However it does not mean that all change must be deep change to be a good change. The depths of organization intervention are surface, shallow, penetrating, deep, and transformation. The surface or fine tuning is an appropriate to minor issue, where the deep change is appropriate when dealing with major change. For example, in 2009, the deep change will be appropriates for Chartered Semiconductor Company when the company acquired by the main stockholder of Global Foundries Inc, and it required to change to align and transform their corporate mission, vision and values.

Kurt Lewin (1985) change theory contains three stage model of change, unfreezing->moving->refreezing. Based on Kurt Lewin unfreezing model, it can be comprehend that organization has to be aware to the changing world and willing to accept change when get trigger. The second step, moving, it is the period to identify appropriate strategic planning and ability to influence to implement the change. The third step, refreezing, it is a step to settle down the change and stabilization of behavior, and then get ready for next change. There is a potential failure to the change if the change does not settle down soon enough in the refreezing period, because the impact to human behavior may be considered risky if stabilization of behavior unable to execute promptly. Also, the ability for continuous of the change would be depends on how fast or how effective the organization to settle down the change, where the change must be accepted and practiced consistently by members of organization.

Pennington Change Model (2006) suggests “that proposed changes can be placed along two scales: radical – incremental and core – peripheral. Plotting the character of a proposed change along these scales can provide a sense of how difficult the introduction of any particular initiative might be and how much ‘disturbance’ to the status quo it might generate”. Radical change is generally is a dramatic change and require employees to move far apart or react very differently to a change. However incremental change does not necessary is better that radical change in term of resistance of change. It is still depends how well of organization mitigating resistance and encouraging people.

Organizations have always met with resistance to change because human naturally tend to resist change. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 567) discussed that the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1969) model has addresses human reaction associated with change. The five stages in the Kubler-Ross coping cycle are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The five sets of emotional may not all experience by employee throughout the change process. However by understanding the response of people during change, organization will be better ready to promote the change. Huczynski and Buchanan also discussed the Yerkes-Dodson law, which first observed by Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson (1908). The Yerkes-Dodson law argues that human performance increases with arousal or stress increases, however it sees an inverted U-shaped function between arousal and performance. A certain amount of arousal can be a good motivator toward change such as employees may work and learn better with little pressure. However too little arousal has a sluggish affect too and performance will be slow. When arousal reach an optimal level, the individual will has a hyperactive affect such as overloaded and exhausted and performance will start to drop. How organization response to resistance is very important, such as by force could increase resistance and turnover. The degree of readiness, understanding, commitment and compromise by employees can help to accelerate the change process. According to Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 567), Arthur Bedeian (1980) has states there are four reasons that certain people resist change are parochial self-interest (concerned), Misunderstanding, Low tolerance to change, and Different assessments of the situation. To manage or overcome the resistance to change, Kotter and Schlesinger (2008) have identify 6 methods for dealing with resistance of change. The methods are Education and commitment, Participation and involvement, Facilitation and support, Negotiation and agreement, Manipulation and co-optation, and Implicit and explicit coercion. These 6 methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, however this is a model that organization can use as guidance, and apply it wisely on right situation to prevent or minimize resistance to change in organizations.

Jai B. P. Sinha (2008: 354) discussed that culture plays an important role in organizational change processes. Huczynski and Buchanan highlight that Edgar Schein (1985) model sees culture as a three levels: Surface manifestations (the visible aspects of an organization’s culture: object and behaviors that can be seen, heard and felt), Values and beliefs (strategies, goals and philosophies), and Basic assumptions (unconscious, taken for granted beliefs, thoughts and perceptions). It is a challenge for culture change to support organizational change, such as what are the best approaches to change people belief and corporate values so that can align with both internal and external factors that resulting from organizational change.

Additional, organizational climate and culture are go hand in hand. The culture and climate are both important aspects to organization and have the strong impact during organizational change. Organization change must be always focusing to seek balance between culture and climate throughout the change process. It is very difficult to implement and sustain the organizational change without a properly strategies to manage the climate. The reason is because climate or individual psychological climate such as attitudes, behavior and feelings in the organization are easier to be affected, especially during transformation change that affect organizational mission and strategy. However with a right strategic planning, thorough assessment of organizational human behavior, and the consistent commitment of organizational from both shareholders and top management, so the change may accomplishable and sustainable. For example, Micron Semiconductor Inc had open and respect climates: Managers in open and respect climates are often look more pleasant and easier to work with, hence it will be much better performance that the managers in closed and contempt climates. With strong culture and right values, everyone in the organization will be having the common perspective in mind and working toward a common goal. As Frances Hesselbein quotes that, “Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.”

There are really no specific model is the best for organizational change. Organization should proactive continuously learning to identify better ways of develop the innovative strategic planning for driving effective change in organizations by the team members. The successful implementation of organizational change will be depends on how well the ability of leaders or management in choosing the right strategic planning, and implement it ethically. Although change in today fast-paced world is often essential to keep up, however managing organizational change requires skill. Organizational change can be sabotaged if key members refuse to align with the new strategies, because resistance to change is a natural human phenomenon. Hence, all members of organization have to involve and be aligned with the change process, and then integrate their efforts to the organizational change towards the achievement of ultimate organizational goal. The consistent commitment from both senior management and employees are the main key for organization change to succeed. As Jai B. P. Sinha (2008: 369) say that “although changes are inevitable and only those who adjust with them survive, effective organizations plan changes for improving individual and organizational performance and well-being of the employees”.

ASSIGNMENT 1: REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradford University School of Management, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 20010, 2011, 2012. Managing People (MP) Study Book.

David A. Buchanan and AndrzeJ A. Huczynski, Organizational Behavior. 7 Editions. 1985, 2010.

Jai B. P. Sinha, Culture and Organizational Behavior, First Published in 2008 by SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd.

Michael W. Durant, Durant, CCE, CPA. Managing Organ0izational Change. 1999. Retrieved on July 1, 2012, from http://www.crfonline.org/orc/pdf/ref4.pdf

Charles Darwin quotes. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charles_darwin.html

Running Head: Organizational Change. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http:///www.advanceessays.com/samples/Organizational_Change.pdf

JISC InfoNet, Change Management. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-management/printable-version.pdf

Sam Kogan, Gen3 Partners, October 10, 2006. How IT companies can stay competitive in a global market. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.zdnet.com/news/how-it-companies-can-stay-competitive-in-a-global-market/149830

20 Awesome Quotes on Change Management. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.torbenrick.eu/blog/change-management/20-awesome-quotes-on-change-management/

Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola, Published: March 19. Solar industry faces subsidy cuts in Europe. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/solar-industry-faces-subsidy-cuts-in-europe/2012/03/10/gIQArkbXLS_story.html

Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan, Impact of Globalisation on Developing Countries and India. Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://economics.about.com/od/globalizationtrade/l/aaglobalization.htm

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai, 27 May 2010. Inside Foxconn’s suicide factory Retrieved July 1, 2012, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7773011/A-look-inside-the-Foxconn-suicide-factory.html

ASSIGNMENT 2: ESSAY QUESTION – Why have managers and researchers been so interested in leadership theories to develop effective work performance?

Today, a lot of managers and researchers have gone into searching the perfect leadership solution and ideas to achieve organization effectiveness. Many different leadership theories have emerged; some of the popularly adopted leadership theories have evolved over time and have developed their own lines of thoughts and debates endlessly. The leadership theories may have understood and differentially by managers and researchers. And leaders applied these adopted leadership theories as guidance and generate new ideas to strive for their organizational effectiveness in today fast-pace environment. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 596) state that “Leadership appears to be a critical determinant of organizational effectiveness”. Yuki (2002: 7) defines that leadership as “Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree what needs to be done and how to can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish the shared objective”. The preceding two arguments may reach an understanding that leadership in organizations is a critical process of influencing and facilitating others to develop effective work performance. The benchmark to measure how well the effective work performance may depends on how well the ability of leaders understand the adopted leadership theories as the conceptual template to demonstrate in actual life and business situations. The clearer a leader can comprehend or perceive it the more effective leader can get into the act. Hence we can argue that the better theory and models enables leader to act more effectively to develop effective work performance.

Is boss or manager a leader? Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 598) discussed that Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus (1985, P.21) observed that “managers do things right, while leaders do the right thing”. John Kotter’s (1990) contrast different functions between leaders and managers, such as Leader establish direction and aligning people, where Manager plans and budget, and Organizing and staffing. Managers have the authority and power in organization to do certain tasks but it does not simply mean the manager is a leader. Some leaders may not have any formal authority but have the ability to influence the behavior of group of people to achieve goal. Individuals can learn to lead and develop their leadership. Jai B. P. Sinha (2008: 354) discussed that “Whether managers are developed into leaders depends first of all their own efforts to rise above their routine functions, expand their roles, and cultivate beliefs, dispositions, skills, and styles that make them stand out from others around them. Organizations also play a facilitating role by creating conditions and devising mechanisms transcend their managerial roles”. There are many leadership theories that individuals or managers can stick at for learning and developing leadership skills. Apparently, managers interested in leadership theories to develop into leaders and ability to develop effective work performance.

Theories of leadership tend to serve a guideline for organization to apply all factors and components of effective leadership into a framework and establishing a culture. Early leadership theories tend to focus upon the trait approach, style approach and contingency approach, where characteristics and behaviors affects leadership; the later new leadership theories tend to focus upon the organizational vision, transactional, transformational, role of followers, the contextual nature of leadership. Each leadership theories provides a personal models or concepts that given management a direction, however each theories does has their own advantages and problems. The next few paragraphs will provide more insight look of some typical theories of leadership: Great man theory, Trait theory, Style theory, Contingency theory, Transactional leader, and Transformational leader.

In 19th century, the Great man theory was a popular idea which identifies “leaders are born and not made. Great leaders will arise when there is a great need”. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 599) explained that the theory as “Great Man are born leaders, and emerge to take power, regardless of the social, organizational or history context”. It can be said that history leaders were male and primary focus on man only, and ‘great man’ are born with destined to lead.

Next similar theory of leadership is a Trait theory. The Trait theory is the ideas which identify leaders are the people born with inherited leadership characteristic or traits that make these people suited to become leader. According to Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 599), Ralph Stoghill (1948, 1974) had reviewed hundreds of trait studies. Some of his typical characteristics list are “strong drive for responsibilities, focus on completing the task, vigor and persistence in pursuit of goals, venturesomeness and originally in problem-solving, drive to exercise initiative in social setting, self-confidence, sense of personal identity, willingness to accept consequences of decisions and actions, readiness to absorb interpersonal stress, willingness to tolerate frustration and delay, ability to influence the behavior of others”. However researchers argue that the research did not find a consistent set of leadership traits, those attributes could not be determined, and do not appear to be unique to leaders. Later Shaw and Fraser (1976, 1978) identified the following skills as a traits leader: ability (intelligence, relevant knowledge, and verbal facility), sociability (participation, cooperativeness, popularity, motivation (initiative and persistence). Some commentators argue that this theory remains gender issues in leadership and a person without trait or some of the traits are not possible for him to be a leader. The Trait theory was abandoned after researcher’s switched attention to leadership behavior patterns.

After the Trait theory, Style or Behavioral style theory has emerged and most commentators considered that this is a big jump from Trait theory. Researchers identified that Style theory is a theory look at what a leader actually do, the traits and the leadership capabilities and qualities are not inherited. It assumes that leaders are not born; leadership behavior and capability can be learned hence leaders can be made through training. Successful leadership is definable and learnable. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 606) discussed that in 1940s to early of 1950s, Survey Research Center in Michigan with Katz et al had identified two dimensions of leadership: employee-centered behavior and job-centered behavior. The style of leadership based on employee-centered behavior is focusing on relationship and employee needs. The leadership has a concern of people as priority, which always strives to solve the problems of followers, concerns the needs of followers, and development of followers. The style of leadership based on job-centered behavior is focusing on getting the job done. The leadership put the priority on achievement and meeting goals. In 1953a to 1951, Bureau of Business Research at Ohio State University also identified two types of leadership’s behavior which are consideration and initiating structure. The style of leadership based on consideration behavior is focusing on relationships and needs oriented. The leadership allows followers to share ideas and make decisions together. The style of leadership based on initiating structure is focusing on job-centered, which structure tasks and assign works, and expect follower to follow instruction to act accordingly. However there are some concerns raised against Style theories, such as how well leader can fix to the given style of leadership behavior, and what if a person unwilling or unable to learn the given behavior. As Thompson and McHugh (2002) states that “others have recognized that situational, environment and contextual factors all potentially influence and effectiveness of different leadership”.

Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 610) identified that Contingency theory of leadership of Fred Fiedler (1967) as “a perspective which argues that leader must adjust their style in a manner consistent with aspects of the context”. This is a model describes the leadership effectiveness is depends on relationship between leader behavior or style and the favorable of the situation. The favorable of the situation can be influenced by three key factors, which are the degree of relationship and trust between leader and team members, the degree of task structure, and the positional power of leader. The theory can promote better relationships between leaders and workers. The theory also can help leader to familiar and not confuse with the tasks structure, hence achieve better effectiveness. Theoretically this theory judge the leader performance is depends on their abilities, not by gender or person background. However some commentators argue this theory is often fails when tested in real-life situation. And the approach should identify a leader not just by positional power, but should evaluate the person leadership competencies to deal with bad situation. Also this theory is difficult to assess the three key factors and not really identify the need of team members.

In the late twentieth century, new leaderships have emerged. The new leader focuses on the key role of heroic, powerful, visionary, and charismatic. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 617) defined that “New leader an inspirational visionary, concerned with building shared senses of purpose and mission, creating a culture in which everyone is aligned with the organization’s goals and is skilled and empowered to achieve them”. Later the new leadership was distinguished by McGregor Burns (1978) between transactional leader and transformational leader.

Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 618) suggest that “Transactional leader a leader who treats relationships with followers in terms of an exchange, giving followers what they want in return for what the leader desires, following prescribed tasks to pursue established goals”. This theory basically is a model that business agreement or exchange made between an employee and an organization or leader, where completion of tasks through reward or penalty. The benefits of this theory are people are easier to motivate through rewards or penalty. Also organization has the full authority, control and commitment from employee once employee “agrees” with the agreement. However this theory will limit the people development because people never has chance to learn to think because they are just require to follow instruction as per agreement. This leadership model may create a stressful work environment because upper level leaders hard to identify lower level leaders to help in managing people or tasks. Some commentators see that this leadership is unable to promote or creating an innovation culture within organization that encourage employees participation and contribution for improving organization effectiveness.

Transformational leadership is an effective charismatic leadership theory. Huczynski and Buchanan (2010: 618) suggest that “Transformation leader a leader who treats relationships with followers in terms of motivation and commitment, influencing and inspiring followers to give more than mere compliance to improve organizational performance”. This leadership theory will improve organizational behavior and changing organizational climate. Hence people tend to improve effectiveness through self motivation and commitment to their work and organization. However this theory is highly depends on the ability of the organization leaders to influence, motivate and inspire people.

There are numbers of leadership theories describe the processes of how a leader developed, influence, motivate, and empower people. Leaders have the flexibility in identifying right theories for them or their organization. These leadership theories and leadership principles are evolving over time. Undoubtedly, Leadership theories and strategic planning are going to enhance leader’s capabilities to achieve organization effectiveness. However what happens if the theories or ideas are confuse or not effective at particular situation? Will the theories operate and suitable to organization culture? Will the committed theories fail to return expected outcome? Will the theories cause misunderstanding and impact to the operation or organization? How clear do we know the models? How accurate do we see the direction and outcome? This is a general rule that we must learn to get the concept of theories right first and then put into practical effect. This is a lifelong process that leader should continuously learning and provide high level of commitment to understand leadership theories clearer so be more control and more effective of the outcome. Potentially leaders may cause fears and critical impacts if they are confuse or ambiguous about their action and outcome, especially leaders with great power. As Peter Parker quotes in his spider-man stories that “With great power comes great responsibility”.

ASSIGNMENT 2: REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradford University School of Management, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 20010, 2011, 2012. Managing People (MP) Study Book.

David A. Buchanan and AndrzeJ A. Huczynski, Organizational Behavior. 7 Editions. 1985, 2010.

Jai B. P. Sinha, Culture and Organizational Behavior, First Published in 2008 by SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd.

Omkar Phatak, Pros and Cons of Leadership Theories. 6/20/2012. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/leadership-theories-pros-and-cons.html

Right Management Inc. Organizational Effectiveness, 2010. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://right.com/thought-leadership/research/organizational-effectiveness-discovering-how-to-make-it-happen.pdf

Bolden R. Gosling, J. Marturano, A. and Dennison, P. A review of Leadership Theory and Competency Frameworks, June 2003. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/cls/documents/mgmt_standards.pdf

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Leadership. Retrieved July 04, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership#Theories

The High and the Mighty. Shelton, Ken. Leadership Excellence29. 5 (May 2012): 2. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.brad.ac.uk/docview/1018673389/137BDADA9D5486776E9/2?accountid=17193

Successful Leaders. Halvorson, Heidi Grant. Leadership Excellence29. 5 (May 2012): 6. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.brad.ac.uk/docview/1018673393/fulltext/137BDADA9D5486776E9/6?accountid=17193

Real Leaders. Fretwell, Peter. Leadership Excellence29. 5 (May 2012): 8. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.brad.ac.uk/docview/1018673589/fulltext/137BDADA9D5486776E9/8?accountid=17193

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