MGMT 301 Final Exam Ch. 8

Belief change is not in organization's best interests

A final cause of resistance is a belief that the change is incompatible with the goals and interests of the organization. For instance, an employee who believes that a proposed new job procedure will reduce product quality can be expected to resist the change. This type of resistance can actually be beneficial to the organization if expressed in a positive way.

Team-Building

A primary function of OD is to help organizational members become a team. Team-building is generally an activity that helps work groups set goals, develop positive interpersonal relationships, and clarify the roles and responsibilities of each team member. The primary focus of team-building is to increase members' trust of, and openness toward, one another.

Concern Over Personal Loss

A third cause of resistance is the fear of losing something already possessed. The more that people have invested in the current system, the more they resist change because they fear losing status, money, authority, friendships, personal convenience, or other benefits that they value.

Job-related stressors

Include pressures to avoid errors or complete tasks in a limited time period; changes in the way reports are filed; a demanding supervisor; unpleasant coworkers.

Intergroup Development

Intergroup development focuses on helping different work groups to become more cohesive. It attempts to change attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions that one group may have toward another in order to improve coordination of efforts among the various groups.

Interpersonal Demands (Causes of Stress: Job Related)

Interpersonal demands are pressures created by other employees. Lack of social support from colleagues and poor interpersonal relationships can cause considerable stress.

Process Consultation

process consultation, outside consultants help managers to perceive, understand, and act on organizational processes they face, such as workflow, informal relationships among unit members, and formal communication channels. Consultants give managers insight into what is going on and help managers diagnose the interpersonal processes that need improvement.

Changes in People

refer to changes in employee attitudes, expectations, perceptions, or behaviors. Examples include using team building efforts to make a team more innovative.

Marketplace (External Factors)

reflects intense competition in recent years

"White-water rapids" metaphor

the organization is seen as a small raft navigating a raging river with uninterrupted white-water rapids. Aboard the raft are half a dozen people who have never worked together before, who are totally unfamiliar with the river, and who are unsure of their eventual destination. In this metaphor, change is the status quo and managing change is a continual process.

Manipulation and Co-Optation (Reducing Resistance to Change)

Manipulation and co-optation refer to covert attempts to influence others about the change. These tactics may involve twisting or distorting facts to make the change appear more attractive.

External Factors

Marketplace Government laws and regulations Technology Labor markets Economic changes

Negotiation (Reducing Resistance to Change)

Negotiation involves exchanging something of value for an agreement in order to lessen the resistance to the change effort. This resistance technique may be particularly useful when the resistance comes from a powerful source.

Organization Structure (Causes of Stress: Job Related)

Organization structure issues like excessive rules and an employee's lack of opportunity to participate in decisions that affect him or her can cause stress.

Organizational Leadership (Causes of Stress: Job Related)

Organizational leadership refers to the supervisory style of the organization's managers. Some managers create a culture characterized by tension, fear, and anxiety. They establish unrealistic pressures to perform in the short-run, impose excessively tight controls, and routinely fire employees who don't measure up.

Participation (Reducing Resistance to Change)

Participation involves bringing those individuals directly affected by the proposed change into the decision-making process. It allows these individuals to express their feelings, increase the quality of the process, and increase employee commitment to the final decision.

Personal Stressors

Personal stressors include family issues, personal economic problems, etc. Because employees bring their personal problems to work, a manager must understand and address these personal factors.

Strategy (Internal Factors)

Redefining or modifying an organization's strategy causes change. For example, bringing in new equipment is an internal force for change that can result in employees facing job redesign, undergoing training to operate the new equipment, or establishing new interaction patterns within their work groups.

Role Demands (Causes of Stress: Job Related)

Role demands are stresses due to one's particular role in the organization. Role conflicts create expectations that may be hard to reconcile or satisfy. An employee experiences role overload when he or she is expected to do more than time permits. An employee experiences role ambiguity when role expectations are not clearly understood and the employee is not sure what he or she is supposed to do.

Type A Personality

Type A personality is characterized by a chronic sense of time urgency, an excessive competitive drive, and difficulty accepting and enjoying leisure time. They are more likely to show symptoms of stress.

Type B Personality

Type B personalities have little to no sense of time urgency or impatience. Stress comes from the hostility and anger associated with Type A behavior. Surprisingly, Type Bs are just as susceptible.

Resistance to Change

Uncertainty Habit Concern over personal loss Belief change is not in organization's best interests

Economic Changes (External Factors)

affect almost all organizations. Prior to the mortgage market meltdown, significant growth in the housing market meant more jobs, more new hires, and increased sales in other businesses that supported the building industry. But as the economy soured, the housing industry and other related industries shrunk as credit markets dried up and businesses couldn't get the capital needed to operate.

Government laws and regulations (External Factors)

are another impetus for change. The Affordable Care Act is causing many companies to review their health insurance programs.

Technology (External Factors)

creates the need for organizational change. The Internet has changed how we get information, how products are sold, and how we get our work done. Technological advancements have created economies of scale for many organizations.

Changes in structure

includes any alteration in authority relationships, coordination mechanisms, degree of centralization, job design, or similar variables. For example, restructuring can result in decentralization, wider spans of control, reduced work specialization, and work teams.

Changing technology

includes modifications to the way work is done or to the methods and equipment used. Examples include computerizing work processes, adding robotics to work areas, and equipping employees with mobile communication tools.

Change Agent

people who acts as catalysts and assume responsibility for managing the change process.

Habit

Another cause of resistance is that we do things out of habit—we don't want to have to consider the full range of options for the hundreds of decisions we make every day.

Composition of an Organization's Workforce (Internal Factors)

Another internal force for change is a shift in the composition of an organization's workforce in terms of age, education, gender, nationality, and so forth. A stable organization in which managers have been in their positions for years might need to restructure jobs to retain more ambitious employees and to rework the compensation and benefits systems to reflect the needs of a diverse workforce and to respond to market forces in which certain skills are in short supply.

Employee Attitude (Internal Factors)

Employee attitudes, such as increased job dissatisfaction, may lead to increased absenteeism, resignations, and even strikes. Such events will likely lead to changes in organizational policies and practices.

Facilitation and Support (Reducing Resistance to Change)

Facilitation and support involve helping employees deal with the fear and anxiety associated with the change effort. Such help may include employee counseling, therapy, new skills training, or a short paid leave of absence.

Employees Reaction to Change

For many employees, change creates stress. A dynamic and uncertain environment characterized by restructurings, downsizings, empowerment, and personal-life matters has caused large numbers of employees to feel overworked and "stressed out." Sometimes the stress gets to be so intense that individuals respond in a drastic (and tragic) way. In the following slides, we'll review the meaning of the term "stress," the symptoms of stress, the causes of stress, and what managers can do to reduce anxiety.

Organizational Change

1) Changes in Structure 2)Changing Technology 3) Changes in People

Symtoms of Stress

1) Physical 2) Psychological 3) Behavioral

Uncertainty

Change replaces the known with uncertainty and we don't like uncertainty. For example, when quality control methods are introduced into manufacturing plants, many inspectors have to learn the new methods. Some may fear that they won't be able to do so and may develop a negative attitude toward the change or behave poorly if required to use the new methods.

Education and Communication (Reducing Resistance to Change)

Education and communication can reduce resistance to change by helping employees see the logic of the change effort. But this assumes that much of the resistance lies in misinformation or poor communication.

Internal Factors

Strategy Composition of workforce Employee attitudes

Stress

Stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure placed on them from extraordinary demands, constraints, or opportunities. Stress isn't always bad. Stress can be positive—especially functional stress, which allows an athlete, stage performer, or employee to perform at his or her highest level at crucial times. However, stress is more often associated with constraints and demands and opportunities. A constraint prevents you from doing what you desire; demands refer to the loss of something desired; opportunities refer to the possibility of something new, something never done. Another thing to understand about stress is that just because the conditions are right for stress to surface doesn't always mean it will. Two conditions are necessary for potential stress to become actual stress. First, there must be uncertainty over the outcome, and second, the outcome must be important.

Kurt Lewin's three-step description of the change process

Successful change requires unfreezing the status quo, changing to a new state, and freezing the new change to make it permanent. The status quo can be considered a state of equilibrium. Unfreezing is necessary to move from this equilibrium and can be achieved in one of three ways: 1) The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the status quo, can be increased. 2) The restraining forces, which hinder movement from the existing equilibrium, can be decreased. 3) The two approaches can be combined.

Organization Development Efforts

Survey feedback Process consultation Team-building Intergroup development

Survey Feedback

Survey feedback efforts are designed to assess employee attitudes about, and perceptions of, the change they are encountering. Employees generally respond to a set of specific questions regarding how they view such organizational aspects as decision making, leadership, communication effectiveness, and satisfaction with their jobs, coworkers, and management. This data is used to clarify problems that employees may be facing and to initiate action to remedy the problems.

Task Demands (Causes of Stress: Job Related)

Task demands are factors related to an employee's job. They include the design of a job (which includes autonomy, task variety, and degree of automation); working conditions (temperature, noise, etc.); and the physical work layout (overcrowded or in visible location with constant interruptions; work quotas, especially when excessive, high level of task interdependence with others). Autonomy lessens stress.

Fluctuations in Labor Markets (External Factors)

can force managers to initiate changes. For example, the shortage of registered nurses in the United States has led hospital administrators to redesign nursing jobs, alter their rewards and benefits packages for nurses, and join forces with local universities to address the shortage of nurses.

Coercion (Reducing Resistance to Change)

coercion, which involves the use of direct threats or force against the resisters, can also be used to deal with resistance to change.

Organization development (OD)

efforts that assist organizational members with a planned change by focusing on their attitudes and values.

"Calm waters" metaphor

envisions the organization as a large ship crossing a calm sea. Change appears as the occasional storm, a brief distraction in an otherwise calm and predictable trip.