Organizational Change A Review of External and Internal Pressure

Organizational Change: A Review of External and Internal Pressure

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Organizational Change: A Review of External and Internal Pressure

Introduction

An organization is a social system. Every aspect of the organization has an impact on the others. – in other words, there are so many interconnections between components that whatever happens at one point is relayed to another. This interdependence exists not just between the components and organizational units, but also with external environment. Whenever an institution operates, these links and interconnections get entrenched, and the organization eventually becomes more systematized and balanced. The entire system can be said to be in balance. Every shift in an organization’s external environment, including changes in demands of customers, competitiveness, governmental monetary reforms, and so on, necessitates adjustments in its internal structure. Therefore, the organization theorist making these claims is accurate. Forces from the outside pressuring a company to change force the management to make adjustments or risk falling behind the competitors. The paper seeks to address the factors that lead to organizational change, both external and internal.

Environmental pressures, according to Daft, are what drive the demand for organizational reform. Technological changes, political laws, changes in social attitudes, and shifting marketplaces are all examples of environmental factors. These environmental influences are considerably more widespread in current times than they had been previously, necessitating a higher rate of change to adjust to (Haveman, Russo, & Meyer, 2001). Organizational change takes place as a response to ever-changing surroundings or as a reaction to a present crisis event from a passive standpoint. A more proactive attitude, on the flip side, is that it is prompted by a gradual management. Moreover, whenever the business has just witnessed a shift of executive authority, organizational transformation is very visible (Haveman, 2001). As a result, both the internal and external environments can influence organizational change. Management teams within the corporations, on the other hand, seek to create stress for stabilisation. Managers prefer to structure their business operations in a predictable pattern that they and others in the institution are familiar with. Most managers believe that in the face of change, stability must be fostered in order to support familiarity. Others argue that a management’s capacity to steady a company during times of upheaval is crucial to its success. Those inside the corporation emphasize the value of stability, believing that it will limit the recurrence of threat, despite the influences that can push change being visible all around the company’s perimeter. Among the most important parts of proper management is transformation. Individuals, people, and institutions engage in the adaptation process of transitioning from their existing situations to a preferred one in response to the changing internal and external variables that modify present reality.

A company’s internal environment consists of activities, circumstances, individuals, systems, processes, and situations that are normally under the organization ’s control. The goal statement, organisation characteristics, and management style are all aspects that are commonly connected with an institution’s internal atmosphere. As a consequence, corporate operations, choices, and personnel attitudes and behaviors will all be impacted by the internal environment. Adjustments in style of leadership, purpose, or culture can have a massive effect on an organization’s performance (Aswathappa, 2005). The outside environments of an organization are elements that happen outside of the company that affect change within the company and are, considerably part, outside of the organization’s control. External elements that drive organizational change include consumers, competitors, the market, technologies, social and political situations, and resources. Despite the fact that the external environment exists outside a company, it can have a substantial influence on its ongoing operations, organizational development, and long-term viability.

Internal causes of organizational Change

The strategic choice to transform the way one carries out business or the structure of the firm itself causes a lot of change initiatives. Adjustments in goods or services, shifts in governance structures, and changes in business size and composition are three basic forms of scheduled internal organizational transformation, whilst unplanned institutional reasons of transition involve improvements in employee demographics, people are concerned with long-term functioning of business, and competency gaps.

Change in Products or Services

Organizational transformation is necessitated by a premeditated choice to reform the company’s line of business (William, 2005). A corporation that has made a name for itself in the cosmetics industry may wish to branch out into wellness as well. This choice to take the company in a new path and add a new, customized service would necessitate a significant level of organizational transformation. There would be a need for new equipment and materials, as well as new people. In other words, the firm’s anticipated choice to shift its service line needs organizational transformation.

Pressure

Upper management puts pressure on a firm’s administrators to reform (for instance, to improve coordination, define objectives, and prioritize). Pressure to improve the organization’s primary work (that is, the production and manufacture of products and services) originates from the engineering side of the company; from the bottom up (Jones, 2004). The dual-core organizational paradigm is based on this concept. Numerous companies, particularly moderate ones in terms of size, may well be marked by possible conflicts of interest between the technical and administrative cores, each of which seeks to restructure the corporation to suit its very own entrenched interests. Which side generally comes out on top? According to studies, the answer is determined by the company’s structure. Organizations that take a mechanical rather than organic approach to implementing (that is, those that are extremely formalized and regimented) are much more effective in implementing administrative transformation. The administration core’s considerable amount of influence allows for administrative modifications to be implemented.

Changes in Administration System

Even though a corporation may be built to respond to outside rivalry, government interference, and economic forces by changing its principles, rewards system, objectives, and managerial style, it is also typical for administrative system modifications to be systematically meticulously planned. An aspiration to enhance efficiency, improve the image of an organization, or obtain a political influence privilege within the business may motivate such shift.

Performance Gaps

Among the most common phrases is “If it is not broken, do not fix it,” and as such, one ought to be familiar with one of the most powerful sources of unexpected internal transformation in corporations, that is, performance gaps (Martins, 2011). A stagnant line of products, dwindling profit margins, and revenues that fall short of company targets are all explanations of shortfalls between observed and forecast organizational levels performance. Unanticipated data regarding bad performance is one of the few factors that forces reforms within organizations. In general, corporations stick to a successful strategy and adjust when they underperform; in other terms, they adopt the win-stay/lose-change principle. Matter of fact, an achievement gap has been identified as one of the primary variables driving innovation process in various research. Those businesses that are better equipped to initiate change in the face of unforeseen economic downturn are considered successful.

Changing Employee Demographic

Also, within our generations, the makeup of the labor has changed significantly. Women now make up a larger percentage of the workforce than it has ever been. At the junior and intermediate management levels, an increasing number of females with professional expertise are entering the corporation. Further to these factors, the workforce population is aging. Several former governments and the public personnel are now working in the private industry, resulting in a shift in worker demographics. The workforce is growing increasingly diversified as the economy opens up and internationalization takes hold.

External causes of organizational Change

Introduction of New Technologies

From slide rules to computers, technological advancements have influenced how businesses work. Senior engineers and scientists, for instance, will likely be able to describe the manner in which their occupation was radically affected in the mid-1970s, after their ubiquitous plastic slide-rules were replaced by sophisticated portable electronics (Shani & Noumair, 2017). Only a ten years later, advanced desktop minicomputers replaced calculators, revolutionizing the way papers are produced, sent, and stored in a workplace. Siemens (Germany), for instance, built the globe’s first paperless workspace over a couple of years ago. For example, in the automobile sector, in which a substantial portion of design and production is automatic and IT based, manufacturing facilities have witnessed a considerable increase in the usage of computer-automated technologies and robotic systems in recent years. Generally defined, technological changes have several major consequences for corporate design. First and foremost, the use of technology has had apparent consequences on the structures of companies on the basis of mechanization. Mechanization allows a company to increase its productivity and effect without reducing its workforce (for instance, client money transfers a day at a bank, cans of beans processed hourly in a plant). As job functions are becoming harder to comprehend and synchronize, whilst the staff themselves are becoming more skillful and professional, “upskilling” of staff mostly decreases the quantity of individuals controlled by supervisors at the next hierarchy level, altering the structure of the company. And hence, while mechanization decreases the number of operators, the number of longitudinal levels in the company may not reduce correspondingly, changing the shape of the company. All of these cases illustrate how technological advancement has changed the way individuals perform their professions.

Information Technology

One of several greatest revolutions happening in the corporate sector currently is the usage of informational technology. During the early years of computing’s utilization in the office, it struggled to meet the expectations of enhanced productivity which was used to get people to utilize it. Not only was the hardware and software technologies outdated, but the consumers were also poorly prepared. Nowadays, nevertheless, this is no longer the case.

Advancements in Information Processing and Communication

Even though people now take for granted commonplace events like television broadcast and phone calls over long distance, these were formerly considered exotic fantasies. Of course, with the current advanced satellite transmission networks, fiber-optic cables traversing the globe, faxes, mobile cellphones, videoconferencing equipment, and such, corporations can connect with one another and their customers more easily than it has ever been. One important element to remember is that as methods of communication advance, so do prospects for corporate growth and progress.

Government Regulation

Regulation from governments is among the most primary triggers of unanticipated organizational changes (Westover, 2010). The manner in which corporations must function change quickly when the economy opens up and different governmental rules regarding delicensing, complete or partial convertibility of the currencies, and so on are enacted. These actions have a significant impact on how businesses are done in corporations. With much more international competitors in the market place, companies must discover means and mechanisms to conduct their enterprises securely and productively.

Economic Competition in the Global Arena

Nearly every day, somebody somewhere invents a superior product– or at the very minimum a less expensive version. As a consequence, businesses should frequently compete to keep their market share, publicize more efficiently, and make items at a lower cost. Economic competition is forcing companies to transform, but it also requires them to transform effectively if they are to stay afloat. Rivalry can grow so heated at times that the parties concerned would be much more efficient if they bury the hatchet and unite together. This ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ logic was behind the proposed collaboration involving fierce competitors Apple Computer and IBM in 1991, which one financial expert labeled “the deal of the decade.” Even though rivalry will always be critical to the success of organizations, it now emanates from all over the world. Even as cost of transporting resources around the universe has decreased, the industrialized countries have ended up finding themselves having to compete for market dominance in the global market.

Conclusion

In general, successful corporate transformation is more than just an adjustment process; it also necessitates adequate management skills. Nevertheless, there exist a slew of issues to think about if one wants to make a successful adjustment. As a consequence, the factors of transformation are the outcomes of strategic planning, that are often followed by various difficulties that force a company to adapt its capabilities to react to shifts from both the exterior and within the firm.

References

Aswathappa K. (2005). Organisational Behaviour’, Himalaya Publishing House, New Delhi.

Daft, R. (2013). Organization Theory & Design. 11th ed. Mason: South-Western.

Haveman, H. A., Russo, M. V., & Meyer, A. D. (2001). Organizational environments in Flux: the impact for regulatory punctuations on organizational domains, CEO succession, and performance. Organization Science, 12, 253-273.

Jones, G. R. (2004). Organization Theory, Design, and Change. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Martins, L. L. (2011). Organizational change and development. In APA handbook of

industrial and organizational psychology, Vol 3: Maintaining, expanding, and contracting the organization. (pp. 691-728). American Psychological Association.

Shani, A. B., & Noumair, D. A. (Eds.). (2017). Research in organizational change and

development. Emerald Publishing Limited.

Westover, J. H. (2010). Managing organizational change: Change agent strategies and

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Publishing Company, New York