Chapter Fifteen

Organization
Change and
Development
 Chapter Objectives

• Summarize four dominant forces for change

in organizations.
• Describe the process of planned organization
change as a continuous process.
• Discuss several approaches to organization
development.
• Explain organizational and individual sources
of resistance to change.
• Identify six keys to managing successful
organizational change and development

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 Forces for Change

• An organization faces pressures for change

from numerous sources:
– It is difficult to predict what types of pressures for
change will be the most significant in the next
decade because the complexity of events and the
rapidity of change are increasing.
– Four categories of pressures that are likely to
have major effects on organizations include:
• People, technology, information processing and
communications, and competition.

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 Pressures for Organizational Change

• People
– Baby Boomers comprise approximately 56 million
people born between 1945 & 1960. Special
characteristics of this group include distinct
purchasing patterns that affect product and
service innovation, technological change, and
marketing activities.
• Technology
– Technology development is increasing so rapidly
in almost every field making it difficult to predict
which products will dominate 10 years from now.

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 Pressures for Organizational Change
(continued)

• Information Processing and Communications

– In the future, people may not need offices as they
work with computers and communicate through
new data transmission devices.
• Competition
– Most markets are international because of
decreasing transportation and communication
costs. The Internet is creating new opportunities
overnight.

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 Table 15.1
Pressures for Organizational Change

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 Planned Organizational Change

• External forces may impose change on

an organization.
• Ideally, the organization will not only
respond to change but will anticipate it,
prepare for it through planning, and
incorporate it in the organization
strategy.

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 Lewin’s Process Model

• Kurt Lewin suggested that efforts to bring

about planned change in organizations
should approach change as a multistage
process.
• His model of planned change consists of 3
steps
– Unfreezing
– Change
– Refreezing

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 Figure 15.1: Lewin’s Process Model of
Organizational Change

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 The Continuous Change Process Model

• Lewin’s model is very simple and

straightforward, so virtually all models of
organizational change use his approach.
• However, it does not deal with several
important issues.
• This approach treats planned change from
the perspective of top management and
indicates that change is continuous.

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 The Continuous Change Process Model
(continued)

• Major Steps in the Model

– Top management perceives that change is
needed.
– The issue in question is subjected to the
organization’s usual problem-solving and decision-
making processes.
– Alternatives for change are generated and
evaluated, and an acceptable one is selected.
– The change agent and top management assess
the degree to which the change is having the
desired effect, and make adjustments if
necessary.

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 Figure 15.2: Continuous Change Process
Model of Organizational Change

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 Organization Development

• The process of planned change and improvement

of an organization through the application of
knowledge of the behavioral sciences.
– First, organization development involves attempts to
plan organization changes, which excludes
spontaneous, haphazard initiatives.
– Second, the specific intention of organizational
development is to improve the organization.
– Third, the panned improvement must be based on
knowledge of behavior sciences such as organizational
behavior, psychology, sociology, and related fields
rather than financial or technological considerations.

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 Systemwide Organization Development

• Structural Change
– A major reorientation or reorganization that
affects performance appraisal and
rewards, decision making, and
communication and information processing
systems.
– No systemwide structural change is simple.

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 Systemwide Organizational Development
(continued)

• Contemporary Approaches to Systemwide

Structural Change involve:
– Reengineering
– Changing the way tasks are divided into jobs
– Combining jobs into departments and divisions
– Rearranging authority and reporting relationships
– Dividing large groups into smaller ones
– Moving from functional departmentalization to a
system based on products or geography
– Moving from a vertical or functional design to a
matrix or a team-based design

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 Task and Technological Organizational
Development

• Task Redesign
– Changing tasks involved in doing the work
– Changing how inputs are transformed into
outputs is called technological change
usually results in task changes

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 Four Types of People-Oriented Change
Techniques

• Training
– Generally designed to improve employees’ job
skills. Among the many training methods, the
most common are lectures, discussions, lecture-
discussion combinations, experiential methods,
case studies, and films or videotapes.
• Management Development Programs
– Programs that attempt to foster certain skills,
abilities, and perspectives. Training in this area
typically relies heavily on participative methods
such as case studies and role playing.

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 Four Types of People-Oriented Change
Techniques (continued)

• Team Building
– Emphasizes members working together in
a spirit of cooperation
• Survey Feedback
– Techniques used to form the basis for a
change process; data are gathered,
analyzed, summarized, and returned to
those who generated them to identify,
discuss, and solve problems

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 Figure 15.3: The Survey Feedback Process

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 Resistance to Change

• Resistance to change can come from the

organization, the individual, or both.
• Organizations both promote and resist
change.
– As an agent of change, the organization asks
prospective customers to change their purchasing
habits by buying its products or services, and asks
clients and suppliers to change to accommodate
other firm objectives.
– An organization resists change in that its structure
and control systems protect the daily tasks of
producing a product or service from uncertainties
in the environment.
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 Table 15.3: Organizational and Individual
Sources of Resistance

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 Table 15.3: Organizational and Individual
Sources of Resistance (continued)

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 Table 15.4: Managing Successful
Organizational Change

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