Organizational ChangeOrganizational Change is an important concern of most modern day organizations. Through this process, an organization is able to optimize its performance as it strives to attain an ideal state. There are different triggers that drive or cause organizational change. Some triggers are external while others are internal to the organization. Change managers are tasked with the entire process of initiating, directing, and sustaining organizational change. This paper looks at the causes of organizational change, its targets, types, processes, forces, challenges, and management.The modern day organization operates in a very dynamic environment. The management must therefore appreciate the fact that organizational change is necessary and must acquaint themselves with requisite skills to manage the change. Competition is cited as being one of the greatest motivators for organizational change. In essence, competition does not only cause organizational change, but also determine the rate at which this change takes place. It is estimated that the rate of organizational change is not going to slow down anytime soon (Kotter, 1994). The essay that follows will give an in-depth discussion of the causes of organizational change, its targets, types, processes, forces, challenges, and management.According to Jones (2004), there are many causes or triggers of organizational change. These triggers can be grouped into two categories; i.e. passive triggers and proactive triggers. Change that is caused by an ever-changing environment is an ensample of a passive trigger while a proactive trigger of change can be exemplified by a change that is initiated by a leader of an organization. Most organizations experience change when management or ownership of the organization is transferred to a more progressive executive team (Jones, 2004).According to Van de Ven and Poole (1995), the causes of changes occurring in organizations can be explained by theories that include life cycle theory, teleological theory, and dialectic theory. The life-cycle theory believes that an organization that cycles through the states of birth, growth, maturation, and decline and that the environment in which the organization operates determines all these cycles. The teleological theory asserts that organizational change occurs in response to an organizations drive to achieve a desired ideal state through a process of continuous goal-setting, evaluation, execution, and restructuring. The dialectical perspective theorizes that an organization is akin to a multi-cultural society that is burdened by opposing values and ideologies. When one force overwhelms the other, a new value, or goal is set, leading to organizational change.Factors that influence organizational effectiveness are diverse in nature and include factors related to the improvement of internal management effectiveness and those related to external environmental changes. The management must consider the external environment, the internal conditions, and the reasons for the desired change. Leadership style, strategy, vision, structure, production technology, and culture are some of the commonest targets of organizational change (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997).The vision of an organization captures its core values, which helps it, adapt to its external environment. Culture refers to the people in an organization, their collective norms, values, and basic assumptions. Change alters this collective values and norms. Structure denotes the official authority relations of an organization. System is the formal procedures, policies, regulations that entail reward system, goal budget system, etc used to run the organization. Production technology transforms inputs into outputs. Leadership targets to influence the led towards some direction (Lucas, & Kline, 2008).Often times, managers are faced with the responsibility of determining how to respond to the forces of organizational change. Change managers are tasked with the duty of choosing the appropriate type of change that will help their organizations achieve desired results. These types of changes can be split into two broad categories; evolutionary and revolutionary change. Evolutionary change is gradual, narrow-focused, and intermittent. This aims at making gradual improvements that will help the organization adjust to the changes in its environment (Winter, 2003). On the other hand, Revolutionary change is rapid, abrupt, and broad in its focus. This is often resorted to when the organization needs to make a crucial change within a short period to keep the organization operational.Evolutionary change takes different forms. Of these forms the socio-technical system theory, management by objective, and total quality management are some of the most common. The socio-technical system theory addresses the relationship between workers of an organization and the technology in use. Management by objective insists on regular meetings between the management and employees of the organizations. The purpose of these meetings is to evaluate work performance, discuss obstacles and challenges, and set future goals for the various work groups. Total quality management seeks ways to improve the goods and services offered by the organization.Conversely, revolutionary change also takes three forms: reengineering, innovation, and restructuring (George, & Jones, 2002). Reengineering occurs when an organization carries out a radical redesigning of its business processes. This is done to stop inefficiencies and may be achieved by moves that include retrenching employees to cut on operation cost, elimination of departments to remove bureaucracy etc. Innovation looks at the successful application of skills and technology to develop goods and services that responds better to the needs expressed by the organizations customers (George & Jones, 2002).Regardless of the type of change settled upon by managers, the greatest challenge often lies in the actual process of change. This section will apply Lewins force theory of change to understand the intricacies of organizational change. Looking at an organization undergoing change in the real world, Lewin hypothesised a three-step process that leads to successful transition or change: unfreezing, moving, and freezing (George & Jones, 2002).The moving stage involves changing the situation from non-ideal to ideal. This stage is complex and it is action-oriented and involves tasks such as goal setting, resource finding, support seeking, planning, and execution of the plan. Moving can take of either two forms; vision orientation and problem-solving orientation. Freezing seeks to stabilize the change achieved at the moving stage. Failure to stabilize the milestones gained during the moving stage can easily cause the organization to revert to the way of thinking and doing that existed at the unfreezing stage (Lucas, & Kline, 2008). During the freezing stage, the organization must form new rules and establish regulatory framework to check on the behaviour of the members all in a bid of internalizing the new values and behaviour into the culture of the organization.Lewin looks at an organization as an open system. He argues that two opposing forces are operational within the organization. These forces are the driving force, which attempts to push the organization forward, and resisting force, which attempts to prevent the organization from moving forward. When the driving force exceeds the restraining force in intensity, organizational change occurs (Lucas, & Kline, 2008). However, when the restraining force overpowers the driving force, the organization will stagnate in its current position.Change managers must diverse foolproof measures or mechanisms for dealing with factors that hinder organizational change. Some of the active means that are available to the management include the gaining of the members support via communication, involvement, education, and participation. The change managers can also employ passive measures to eliminate resistance levied by the members. Some of the passive means at the disposal of change managers include coercion, negotiation, and control. It is up to the change manager to determine the appropriate means to use in implementing change (Lucas, & Kline, 2008).Kotter proposes another framework available for change managers. According to Kotter (1994), change managers can apply an eight-step change model to implement change in their organizations. These steps include creating urgency; forming a powerful coalition; creating a vision for change; communicating the vision to the members; removing obstacles; creating short-term wins; building on the change; anchoring the changes in corporate culture.The success or failure of organizational change depends on a myriad of factors. Factors that contribute to the failure of organizational culture include quick fix expectations; and lack of systematic plan to sustain the change. Other factors include lack of sufficient readiness for change; placing too much focus on the change event instead of focusing on the attainment of desired results; poor management of the process of change; and a mismatch between the change plan and the context of the organization (Song, 2009). A careful consideration of these factors is advised, as their proper management will determine whether organizational change will be successful or not.Readiness for change is a situation where the members of the organization are willing to adopt the change being suggested by change managers. Higher acceptance is often recorded in organizations where the management has taken its time to ready the members for the change. The probability of a successful organizational change in such an organization is higher than compared to an organization where there is lots of resistance (Song, 2009).Another reason for failure of organizational change rests in the organizations failure to take a systematic viewpoint while making a holistic plan for organizational change. For instance, a firm might choose to introduce change via education and disregard the other factors that may influence their employees. Additionally, the application of an identical change plan across all departments in an organization may be unwise because the departments are not similar (Song, 2009).Focus needs to be pegged on the goal of the change process not the actual process. This is the surest way to ensure the success of organizational change. When the members have their focus on the goal of the change, they will play their part in meeting the goal set. Finally, the organizational context and the change plan must match. It is impossible to apply a change plan to an organization if the organizational structure and plan for change do not match. The change plan must be developed with the organizational context in mind (Song, 2009).Organizational change is an important aspect in the growth and sustainability of business entities. It is notable that business environment is always changing and thus organizational change is inevitable. The change occurs in management, operation, culture, structure or ownership of the organization. Organizational change emerge inform of evolutionary or revolutionary. Evolutionary change occurs because of changing environment and their managers of change need to be always aware of the market situation. Therefore, it is always recommendable for managers to hold regular meetings to discuss some of the challenges engulfing their organizations and ways of initiating successful changes. While initiating organizational change, some organizations fail due to over expectations, failure to sustain change, lack of readiness, poor management of the change and so forth. As a result, it is recommendable for organizations to have prior arrangement before pursuing a certain change. In future, organizations must ensure than the kind of change under implementation matches the vision, the mission, and the structure of the organization.George, J. M., & Jones, G. R. (2002). (3). New York: Pearson Education IncJones G. R. (2004). New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.Kotter, J. P. (1994). . In J.A. Conger, G.M. Spreitzer and E.E. Lawler (Eds.) (p.p 87-89). San Francisco: Jossey-bass.Lucas, C., & Kline, T. (2008). 15(3), 277-287.Song, X. (2009). Why Do Change Management Strategies Fail? , 4(1), 6-15.Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. (G. Dosi, R. R. Nelson, & S. G. Winter, Eds.) , 18(7), 509-533.Van de Ven, A. 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