MIS 2 Assignment 5: Most radical type of change
{ Posted on 1:42 PM
by Ariel Serenado
}
In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts?
One of the most challenging tasks of a business may be organizing the people who perform its work. A business may begin with one person doing all the necessary tasks. As the business becomes successful and grows, however, there is generally more work, and more people are needed to perform various tasks. Through this division of work, individuals can become specialists at a specific job. Because there are several people—often in different locations—working toward a common objective, "there must be a plan showing how the work will be organized. The plan for the systematic arrangement of work is the organization structure. Organization structure is comprised of functions, relationships, responsibilities, authorities, and communications of individuals within each department" (Sexton, 1970, p. 23).
Because there are several peoples there is increased in competition, difficulties retaining talented workers, globalization, changing technologies and new business models are just a subset of the drivers requiring companies to re-think how they do business. In the face of such challenges, many companies embark upon ambitious organizational change initiatives, often with goals such as “paradigm shift” or “reengineering of people and processes.” These are complex, challenging change goals to manage and achieve the desired benefits. In a tumultuous business environment, the ability to successfully manage change is what enables companies to survive, even thrive. A comprehensive and integrated approach to organizational change management encompasses three pillars: people, process and technology. By successfully aligning these elements, organizations can effectively manage and deliver change.
What is organizational change?
Organizational change is an ongoing process in order to bring the organizational systems and processes in line with the factors prevailing in the external and internal environment of the organization. The forces of organizational change include internal and external forces. Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.
Importance of organizational change.
An organization operates in an environment of constant change. In order to survive, it is imperative for the organization to anticipate any change in the environment and proactively work towards eliminating the effect of the same .It is therefore important to have a change in the organization. In addition, such change should be successful and must contribute towards the success of the organization.
To really understand organizational change and begin guiding successful change efforts, the change agent should have at least a broad understanding of the context of the change effort. This includes understanding the basic systems and structures in organizations, including their typical terms and roles. This requirement applies to the understanding of leadership and management of the organizations, as well. Organizational change should not be conducted for the sake of change. Organizational change efforts should be geared to improve the performance of organizations and the people in those organizations. Therefore, it's useful to have some understanding of what is meant by "performance" and the various methods to manage performance in organizations.
How organizational change occurs?
Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. That's why the topic of organizational change and development has become widespread in communications about business, organizations, leadership and management.
Causes of Organizational Structure.
In just a few months, the technology that an organization uses on an everyday basis may be outdated and replaced. That means an organization needs to be responsive to advances in the technological environment; its employees' work skills must evolve as technology evolves. Organizations that refuse to adapt are likely to be the ones that won't be around in a few short years. If an organization wants to survive and prosper, its managers must continually innovate and adapt to new situations.
Every organization goes through periods of transformation that can cause stress and uncertainty. To be successful, organizations must embrace many types of change. Businesses must develop improved production technologies, create new products desired in the marketplace, implement new administrative systems, and upgrade employees' skills. Organizations that adapt successfully are both profitable and admired.
Managers must contend with all factors that affect their organizations. The following lists internal and external environmental factors that can encourage organizational changes:
Generally:
• The external environment is affected by political, social, technological, and economic stimuli outside of the organization that cause changes.
• The internal environment is affected by the organization's management policies and styles, systems, and procedures, as well as employee attitudes.
Specifically:
• Change in Government: Employees that work for government departments can find existing initiatives get discontinued when a change in government takes place. The subsequent refocus of priorities that takes place as a result of the new governments mandate can create redundancies or a radical change in the way the department conducts its affairs.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: When two competitors merge the existing business operations of both companies get centralized and streamlined. This can result in the merging of departments and processes, cost cutting and a redeployment of existing resources. Mergers and acquisitions are one of the most frequent causes of organizational change.
• Strategic Refocus: When the company changes its business processes to adopt a new paradigm organizational change ensues. Consider the plight of a company that shifts its focus form a product centric to a customer centric platform. New manufacturing specifications, new marketing and a change in logistical operations create a change reaction for change throughout the organization.
• Structural Change: When new administrative processes get introduced, organizational change results. Consider the ramifications of centralizing an archiving process using computer technology. Old redundant processes get replaced by new software and hardware and staff members are required to retrain to operate the new systems.
• Process Oriented: When a company redefines its manufacturing operations by changing its manufacturing process to a JIT operation, infrastructure, warehousing and logistical operations are required to be redesigned and deployed. This structural shift in the way a product is created has a domino effect on organizational change.
Typically, the concept of organizational change is used to describe organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, and so on. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (for example, restructuring to self-managed teams or due to layoffs), new technologies, mergers, or new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, and so on.
Managers should note that all changes should be implemented as part of a strategy to accomplish an overall goal; these transformations should not take place just for the sake of change.
There are four ranges in organizational change, these are the following:
Automation
Automation is the least risky IT-change by which the organization purchases technology in order to make the life of its employees easier and their job more effective. A relevant example in the operations of a hotel might be the creation of the setting up of a computer network and purchase of workstations.
Is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention.[1] In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated.
Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities.Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible.
Specialized hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers.
Rationalization of Procedures
Rationalization is the second stage of organizational change where the organization uses information technology to streamline a standard operating procedure. A database that holds information of available rooms is an example of this stage.
Refers to streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. improves efficiency and effectiveness. This range of organizational structure causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.
Business Reengineering
Business process reengineering is a more complicated and risky type of organizational change. Using the information technology the organization redesigns whole business processes in order to reduce waste and increase efficiency.
Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, service; maximize benefits of technology.
BR on the other hand, can cause radical disruption. The mere mention of the term nowadays strikes fear in the hearts of workers and managers at all levels. Why? Because many companies use it as a guise for downsizing the organization and laying off workers. Business process reengineering causes planners to completely rethink the flow of work, how the work will be accomplished, and how costs can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary work and workers. In order to make BPR successful, you must first redesign the process, then apply computing power to the new processes. If problems existed in the process before the new system was installed and those problems aren't resolved, the new system could actually make them worse. Very few processes in business are as efficient as they can possibly be. It's a fact of life. The idea behind successful BPR is to find improvements or even new opportunities. For instance, Federal Express and UPS both have online package tracking systems. That simple process was never economically feasible before the Internet. They had to reengineer their business processes to incorporate this new paradigm shift.
1. Aims at
2. eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive, bureaucratic tasks
3. reducing costs significantly
4. improving product/service quality
Paradigm Shift
Paradigm shift is actually changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself. We're talking whole new products or services that didn't even exist before. We're talking major disruption and extreme change.
The success of any organizational change effort can be summed into an equation:
Success = Measurement X Method X Control X Focused Persistence X Consensus
Like any equation with multiplication, a high value of one variable can compensate for lower levels on other variables. Also like any equation with multiplication, if one variable equals 0, the result is zero.
Below is the graph showing the spectrum of organizational change:
As you can see in the graph above paradigm shift is the riskiest and most radical type of organizational change. It involves rethinking and changing business models or even the nature of the organization. Example: information system that combines information about the suppliers, customers and employees of the hotel.
There are many approaches to guiding change -- some planned, structured and explicit, while others are more organic, unfolding and implicit. Some approaches work from the future to the present, for example, involving visioning and then action planning about how to achieve that vision. Other approaches work from the present to the future, for example, identifying current priorities (issues and/or goals) and then action planning about to address those priorities (the action research approach is one example). Different people often have very different -- and strong -- opinions about how change should be conducted. Thus, it is likely that some will disagree with some of the content in this topic. That's what makes this topic so diverse, robust and vital for us all.
• Organizational Change Management Solutions include:
Change Implementations
o Change-related benefits rationalization
o Staffing assessments and role redesign
o Redesign roles to align with new processes and technology
o Cost analysis and staffing evaluations to support organizational redesign
o Change readiness and resistance management
• Communications - Internal & External
• Training - Strategy and Delivery
• Policy and procedure creation
• Process Excellence
o Process reengineering
o Process standardization and improvements in process capability
o Governance design and implementation
o Improve controls effectiveness
o Maximize adoption in operational state
• Lean / Six Sigma Practices
• Program / Project Management
References:
http://www.nouveon.com/organizational-change-management.html
http://www.santarosa.edu/~ssarkar/cs66fl06/ch14notes.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
http://www.answers.com/topic/organizational-structure
http://www.organizedchange.com/decide.htm
http://www.organizational-change-management.com/causes-of-organizational-change.php
http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm
One of the most challenging tasks of a business may be organizing the people who perform its work. A business may begin with one person doing all the necessary tasks. As the business becomes successful and grows, however, there is generally more work, and more people are needed to perform various tasks. Through this division of work, individuals can become specialists at a specific job. Because there are several people—often in different locations—working toward a common objective, "there must be a plan showing how the work will be organized. The plan for the systematic arrangement of work is the organization structure. Organization structure is comprised of functions, relationships, responsibilities, authorities, and communications of individuals within each department" (Sexton, 1970, p. 23).
Because there are several peoples there is increased in competition, difficulties retaining talented workers, globalization, changing technologies and new business models are just a subset of the drivers requiring companies to re-think how they do business. In the face of such challenges, many companies embark upon ambitious organizational change initiatives, often with goals such as “paradigm shift” or “reengineering of people and processes.” These are complex, challenging change goals to manage and achieve the desired benefits. In a tumultuous business environment, the ability to successfully manage change is what enables companies to survive, even thrive. A comprehensive and integrated approach to organizational change management encompasses three pillars: people, process and technology. By successfully aligning these elements, organizations can effectively manage and deliver change.
What is organizational change?
Organizational change is an ongoing process in order to bring the organizational systems and processes in line with the factors prevailing in the external and internal environment of the organization. The forces of organizational change include internal and external forces. Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.
Importance of organizational change.
An organization operates in an environment of constant change. In order to survive, it is imperative for the organization to anticipate any change in the environment and proactively work towards eliminating the effect of the same .It is therefore important to have a change in the organization. In addition, such change should be successful and must contribute towards the success of the organization.
To really understand organizational change and begin guiding successful change efforts, the change agent should have at least a broad understanding of the context of the change effort. This includes understanding the basic systems and structures in organizations, including their typical terms and roles. This requirement applies to the understanding of leadership and management of the organizations, as well. Organizational change should not be conducted for the sake of change. Organizational change efforts should be geared to improve the performance of organizations and the people in those organizations. Therefore, it's useful to have some understanding of what is meant by "performance" and the various methods to manage performance in organizations.
How organizational change occurs?
Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. That's why the topic of organizational change and development has become widespread in communications about business, organizations, leadership and management.
Causes of Organizational Structure.
In just a few months, the technology that an organization uses on an everyday basis may be outdated and replaced. That means an organization needs to be responsive to advances in the technological environment; its employees' work skills must evolve as technology evolves. Organizations that refuse to adapt are likely to be the ones that won't be around in a few short years. If an organization wants to survive and prosper, its managers must continually innovate and adapt to new situations.
Every organization goes through periods of transformation that can cause stress and uncertainty. To be successful, organizations must embrace many types of change. Businesses must develop improved production technologies, create new products desired in the marketplace, implement new administrative systems, and upgrade employees' skills. Organizations that adapt successfully are both profitable and admired.
Managers must contend with all factors that affect their organizations. The following lists internal and external environmental factors that can encourage organizational changes:
Generally:
• The external environment is affected by political, social, technological, and economic stimuli outside of the organization that cause changes.
• The internal environment is affected by the organization's management policies and styles, systems, and procedures, as well as employee attitudes.
Specifically:
• Change in Government: Employees that work for government departments can find existing initiatives get discontinued when a change in government takes place. The subsequent refocus of priorities that takes place as a result of the new governments mandate can create redundancies or a radical change in the way the department conducts its affairs.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: When two competitors merge the existing business operations of both companies get centralized and streamlined. This can result in the merging of departments and processes, cost cutting and a redeployment of existing resources. Mergers and acquisitions are one of the most frequent causes of organizational change.
• Strategic Refocus: When the company changes its business processes to adopt a new paradigm organizational change ensues. Consider the plight of a company that shifts its focus form a product centric to a customer centric platform. New manufacturing specifications, new marketing and a change in logistical operations create a change reaction for change throughout the organization.
• Structural Change: When new administrative processes get introduced, organizational change results. Consider the ramifications of centralizing an archiving process using computer technology. Old redundant processes get replaced by new software and hardware and staff members are required to retrain to operate the new systems.
• Process Oriented: When a company redefines its manufacturing operations by changing its manufacturing process to a JIT operation, infrastructure, warehousing and logistical operations are required to be redesigned and deployed. This structural shift in the way a product is created has a domino effect on organizational change.
Typically, the concept of organizational change is used to describe organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, and so on. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (for example, restructuring to self-managed teams or due to layoffs), new technologies, mergers, or new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, and so on.
Managers should note that all changes should be implemented as part of a strategy to accomplish an overall goal; these transformations should not take place just for the sake of change.
There are four ranges in organizational change, these are the following:
Automation
Automation is the least risky IT-change by which the organization purchases technology in order to make the life of its employees easier and their job more effective. A relevant example in the operations of a hotel might be the creation of the setting up of a computer network and purchase of workstations.
Is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention.[1] In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated.
Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities.Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible.
Specialized hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers.
Rationalization of Procedures
Rationalization is the second stage of organizational change where the organization uses information technology to streamline a standard operating procedure. A database that holds information of available rooms is an example of this stage.
Refers to streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. improves efficiency and effectiveness. This range of organizational structure causes the organization to examine its standard operating procedures, eliminate those no longer needed, and make the organization more efficient. Both types of change cause some disruption, but it's usually manageable and relatively accepted by the people.
Business Reengineering
Business process reengineering is a more complicated and risky type of organizational change. Using the information technology the organization redesigns whole business processes in order to reduce waste and increase efficiency.
Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, service; maximize benefits of technology.
BR on the other hand, can cause radical disruption. The mere mention of the term nowadays strikes fear in the hearts of workers and managers at all levels. Why? Because many companies use it as a guise for downsizing the organization and laying off workers. Business process reengineering causes planners to completely rethink the flow of work, how the work will be accomplished, and how costs can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary work and workers. In order to make BPR successful, you must first redesign the process, then apply computing power to the new processes. If problems existed in the process before the new system was installed and those problems aren't resolved, the new system could actually make them worse. Very few processes in business are as efficient as they can possibly be. It's a fact of life. The idea behind successful BPR is to find improvements or even new opportunities. For instance, Federal Express and UPS both have online package tracking systems. That simple process was never economically feasible before the Internet. They had to reengineer their business processes to incorporate this new paradigm shift.
1. Aims at
2. eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive, bureaucratic tasks
3. reducing costs significantly
4. improving product/service quality
Paradigm Shift
Paradigm shift is actually changing the very nature of the business and the structure of the organization itself. We're talking whole new products or services that didn't even exist before. We're talking major disruption and extreme change.
The success of any organizational change effort can be summed into an equation:
Success = Measurement X Method X Control X Focused Persistence X Consensus
Like any equation with multiplication, a high value of one variable can compensate for lower levels on other variables. Also like any equation with multiplication, if one variable equals 0, the result is zero.
Below is the graph showing the spectrum of organizational change:
As you can see in the graph above paradigm shift is the riskiest and most radical type of organizational change. It involves rethinking and changing business models or even the nature of the organization. Example: information system that combines information about the suppliers, customers and employees of the hotel.
There are many approaches to guiding change -- some planned, structured and explicit, while others are more organic, unfolding and implicit. Some approaches work from the future to the present, for example, involving visioning and then action planning about how to achieve that vision. Other approaches work from the present to the future, for example, identifying current priorities (issues and/or goals) and then action planning about to address those priorities (the action research approach is one example). Different people often have very different -- and strong -- opinions about how change should be conducted. Thus, it is likely that some will disagree with some of the content in this topic. That's what makes this topic so diverse, robust and vital for us all.
• Organizational Change Management Solutions include:
Change Implementations
o Change-related benefits rationalization
o Staffing assessments and role redesign
o Redesign roles to align with new processes and technology
o Cost analysis and staffing evaluations to support organizational redesign
o Change readiness and resistance management
• Communications - Internal & External
• Training - Strategy and Delivery
• Policy and procedure creation
• Process Excellence
o Process reengineering
o Process standardization and improvements in process capability
o Governance design and implementation
o Improve controls effectiveness
o Maximize adoption in operational state
• Lean / Six Sigma Practices
• Program / Project Management
References:
http://www.nouveon.com/organizational-change-management.html
http://www.santarosa.edu/~ssarkar/cs66fl06/ch14notes.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift
http://www.answers.com/topic/organizational-structure
http://www.organizedchange.com/decide.htm
http://www.organizational-change-management.com/causes-of-organizational-change.php
http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm
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