MANA3335 Ch 7

The Lewin Model

1.In unfreezing, people recognize why the change is needed. 2.The change is implemented. 3.In refreezing, the organization reinforces the change so that it persists.

Change in People

Changes in technology and other factors can drive a desire to change the skills in the organization's workforce. Upgrading the employee skill set can be accomplished by hiring people with the desired skills or through training existing employees. Also, many managers today seek a more collaborative, less adversarial relationship with workers than in the past. • Abilities and skills • Performance • Perceptions • Expectations • Attitudes • Values

Change in Technology and Operations

Innovation in information technology is practically constant, and organizations must decide whether to adopt the latest technology and, if so, how best to use it. Changes in technology and equipment often drive changes to processes. When processes are complex and span multiple areas of the company, the organization may use technology to manage them. • Information technology • Equipment • Work processes • Work sequences • Control systems • Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

Change in Organization Structure and Design

Many organizations are becoming flatter, giving managers wider spans of control. • Job design • Departmentalization • Reporting relationships • Authority distribution • Coordination mechanisms • Line-staff structure • Overall design • Culture • Human resource management

Planned Changes

are preferable; made in anticipation of future events.

Reactive Changes

are responses, often rushed and inadequate, to developing circumstances.

Internal Forces

include changes in strategy and in employee values and preferences.

External Forces

include changes in the general environment, such as to the economy, to laws and regulations, and in societal values. External forces also include changes in the task environment, such as activity of competitors, suppliers, regulators, and unions.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

is a large-scale information system for coordinating activities across the enterprise as well as with suppliers and customers.

Organization Development (OD)

is an approach to change that focuses on altering the attitudes, perceptions, behaviors, and expectations of people in an organization. Formally, OD is a planned, organization-wide effort that is managed by senior leadership and uses behavioral science to increase organizational effectiveness through interventions in process. OD is based on several assumptions: • Employees want to grow and develop. • Employees have a strong need to be accepted by their colleagues. • The nature of the overall organization influences the behavior of individuals and groups within it. OD practitioners believe that collaboration between managers and employees is necessary to take advantage of the abilities of the employees and eliminate aspects of the organization that inhibit employee development and group acceptance.

Organization Change

is any substantive modification to some part of the organization. Organization change can be prompted by external or internal forces.

Business Process Change/Reengineering

is the radical redesign of all aspects of a business to achieve major gains in cost, service, or time. Reengineering is necessary to the survival of the organization when the environment undergoes a major shift.

Common reasons people are reluctant to change:

• Change is inherently uncertain, so people often feel anxious about whether the change will negatively affect them. • Threatened self-interest arises when people know the change will reduce their influence or cause the organization to value their jobs less. • Sometimes people resist a change because they disagree with it. They have different perceptions of the situation or different opinions about the best response, and so they try to block the manager from acting. • Employees may feel a sense of loss during organization change, as their jobs, procedures, systems, status, and workplace relationships change.

Innovation Life Cycle

• Development- an organization evaluates, modifies, and improves on a creative idea. • Application- an organization uses a developed idea in the design, manufacturing, or delivery of new products, services, or processes. • Launch- an organization introduces new products or services to the marketplace. • Growth- demand for new products or services grows. • Maturity- most competing organizations have access to the idea. • Decline- demand for an innovation decreases, and substitute innovations are developed and applied. The difference between application and launch is that the application stage is concerned with whether the innovation works while the launch stage is concerned with whether customers want to buy it. At the maturity stage, the innovation no longer provides a competitive advantage since most competitors also have it.

Overcome resistance to change:

• Encourage employees to participate in planning and implementing the change. They will understand it better and will feel that their perspectives have been considered. • Educate employees and communicate openly with them throughout the change to reduce uncertainty. • Facilitate change by not altering more than necessary, telling employees what will happen well in advance, and giving them time to adjust. • Conduct a force-field analysis by listing all the forces promoting and impeding change, then boosting the forces for change and reducing the forces against change.

reasons why organizations fail to innovate

• Lack of resources • Failure to recognize opportunities • Resistance to change