Organizational Change

rganiz

Organizational Change

Paulette LeFleur

Bus610

Johnny Vanneste

04-15-2011

Organizational Change

Organizational change is the term used to describe the transformation process that a company goes through in response to a strategic reorientation, restructure, change in management, merger or acquisition or the development of new goals and objectives for the company [ (Organizational-Change-Management, 2011) ] Organizational change is not just change for the sake of change, the challenges encountered by organizational change have a ripple effect on the entire organization.

Examples of organization change may include a change in mission, restructuring operations, restructuring teams, management, layoffs, and new programs such as Total Quality Management. Usually this change is provoked by an outside force such as cuts in funding or needs for increase productivity. In the medical field change is often a result of cuts in insurance payments to doctors or decrease in patient numbers due to the economy. Doctors retire and will often sell their practice or hand it down to family members. Sometimes in the case of a medical practitioner dying or becoming too ill to practice medicine the organization must close.

Once the need for change is determined, what type of change needs to be implemented is considered. Some changes are easy while others are difficult, technological vs. organizational. There is a way to split change into three distinct and useful categories, type I, that which is done to us, type II, that which we do to ourselves, type III that which we do to others [ (Jager, 2004) ] Type I is a change that is most likely to be resisted, no one likes being told what to do. This violates our sense of independence and freedom. With type II change we are deciding something for ourselves and that doing something is necessary. Type III can be a combination of all three types depending on what type of change is being implemented. For example if a...