MGMT2: HBO

Prof: Ms. Maylin Y. Bayza

BSBA-2B (Group 4)

Chapter 10: Change and the Social System

The keynote of human life is change, which goes on continually and unremittingly.
Change itself has come to form the central core of our existence and is considered
common place.
SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM

Business, industry, community and society are interdependent and interrelated.

The dynamic force of change affects the whole system. All elements of the social
system are involved.

Elements of Social System:

its people
formal and informal organization
communication networks
economic
labor force
decision-making process
pattern of cooperation and competition

Homeostasis - a self-correcting characteristics of organization that is, ,people to

establish steady state of need fulfillment and to secure themselves from disturbance
of that balance.

Viewed as a whole, the idea of social equilibrium implies:

(1) a system of interrelated parts,
(2) a dynamic state of motion, rather than a static system
(3) an interdependence such that a change inone part affects all others,
(4) a homeostatic tendency to resist pressures and maintain a steady state.

Social systems are never perfectly frictionless; hence never reach and idyllic state of
perfection without conflicts or problems.

When a change is minor and within the scope of the correcting program, adjustment
is fairly routine but when a change is major or unusual, more serious upsets may
occur.

PROCESS OF CHANGE IN BUSINESS

The process of change in business and government organization is inevitable.

Sometimes change is forced on an organization because of external pressures, such

as laws, competition, revolution, and innovation.

It is not work, but the shape of work that changes.

The shape work can take is decided by the available technology, adjusted to the
social structure of the time and then fitted into the prevailing values.

"work change" - refers to any alternation which occurs in the overall work
environment.

Equilibrium exist; an individual makes new adjustment as the organization seeks a

new equilibrium. The organization is then in a state of imbalance. It is the
management's concern to restore and maintain the group equilibrium and personal
adjustment.

In the Philippines, the February revolution of 1986 marked a tremendous change in

government and big business.

ATTITUDES AND CHANGE

The are simple structural changes in the organization or replacements of people in

particular locations that may have consequences that others promote or hindere
changes in attitude and performance.

Change can alter cultural values, personal values, attitudes and feelings of
individuals within the work environment. Work changes operate through each
employee's attitudes and feelings toward the change.

Roethlisberger in his clinical experiments showed that

each changed situation is interpreted by an individual according to his attitudes. The
way he feels about the change then determines how he will respond to it.

Attitudes, in turn, are not the result of change; they are learned, they are caused.
These could be traceable to personal history, his background, social experiences,
and work environment.

In general, attitudes are slow to change, nebulous and latent.

Feelings and logic are two different things. Logic alone is an ineffective way to try to
modify feelings.
Effect of Changes in Attitude
RESPONSE

CHANGE

ATTITUDES
(SENTIMENTS

PERSONAL HISTORY
REFERENCE GROUP

SOCIAL SITUATION
AT WORK

FACTORS CAUSING SOCIAL CHANGE

Social change is the alteration in patterns of culture, social structure and social
behavior over time.
1. Physical Environment - People living in the Arctic region find social forms different
from those of people living in deserts or on tropical islands.
2. Population - Any significant increase or decrease in population size or growth rates
may affect or even disrupt social life.
3. Ideas - Karl Marx argued strongly that social conditions shape people's ideologies.
4. Cultural Innovations - There are three distinct sources of cultural innovation:
Discovery - is the perception of an aspect of reality that already exists; a new

continent, circulation of the blood, principle of steam power, etc.

Invention - is the combination of new use of existingknowledge to produce

something that did not exist before.

Diffusion - a process involves the spread of cultural elements, both material artifacts

and ideas from one culture to another.

5. Technology - The practical application of scientific researchers or other knowledge
is a major source of social change.
SOURCES OF RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Man is born to learn and adopt to changes in the environment. The moment he is
born into this world he begins to adjust to changes inhis physical surroundings as well as
to his cultural and socialenvironment. His adjustment is, however, made easier by the
family and other groups through the process of socialization, formal education, learning
and teaching through imitation and other informal methods and continuous
communication and interaction. Change is a necessary way of life in most organizations.
1. Personal reasons - Change is resisted at times because of criticism that present
method is inadequate and when methods and systems change, this often results in
the elimination of some jobs.
2. Economic reasons - are fears of reduced work hours because of low demands for
the product or an installation of a computer; fear of reduced base wages because of
government policies on wages.
3. Social reasons - Many changes in an organizations are perceived as disrupting
establishedsocial groups.
REDUCING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
1. The changed agent should be an accepted member of the group, someone whom
the group admires, likes and respects.

2. Management has developed a number of ways to gain support for change brought
about by planned or unplanned changes:
2.1 to set up various controls and pledges to protect employees from economicloss
from change,
Grievance systems give the employee a feeling of security that his benefits will be
protected and differences about them fairly resolved.
2.2 to permit workers to share in the benefits which result from change,
2.3 communication is essential in improving support for change. Even though a
change will affect only one or two in a work group of ten persons, all of them need to
know about the change in order to feel secure and maintain group cooperation.
3. Change requires unlearning old habits as well as learning new ones, and the
unlearning may be really more difficult than the new learning.
4. Modern management has given emphasis to human resource development (HRD)
which is concerned with the human and social implication of change in internal
organization, methods of working and of economic and social changes in the
community.
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
1. Building trust and confidence - is important in overcoming resistance to change.
Trust and confidence in management are directly related to past experiences.
Trust builds up if management deals with employees in an open and straight forward
manner.
2. Group participation - is an effective way to build support for change. Usually more
than one person is involved and a person's behavior is firmly grounded in the
different groups to which he belongs; hence the utilization of group forces will
encourage anindividual to change.
Values which can influence the acceptance or rejection of change:
a) the kindship pattern
b) the compadre system
c) the amor propio
Management's responsibility for change is summarized as
1) Make only useful, necessary change.
2) Recognize the possible positive and negative effects of change and introduce it with
adequate attention to human relations.
3) Share the benefit of change with employees.
4) Diagnose the problems remaining after a change occurs and treat them. Change,
when improperly handled manifests itself in slowdowns and showdowns. When
properly managed and controlled it can lead to creativity, improvement and progress.