Organization Change
Analysis
When it comes to globalization, the impacts are often looked at in terms of corporations and businesses. However, the scope of the globalization and the change management involved goes quite far beyond that. Just as one example, globalization and its effect on higher education is massive. There are a couple of major theories and trends and some of them are rather different in nature. For example, there is what is as the convergence thesis. This thesis explains and asserts that there is a shift towards homogenization. In other words, there is an attempted fusing of multiple cultures and viewpoints into a more singular paradigm. By contrast, there is the divergence thesis that explains the opposite. Indeed, that theory focuses on the idea that actions and reactions will persist in being “different, pluralistic and localized” (Vaira, 2004). Another arena besides corporations and businesses that is part of the larger equation would be that of the wider world society and how it is affected by change (Roth, 2008).
Regardless of the type of organization or paradigm that is being discussed, it is clear that globalization is playing a huge part in driving diversity in institutions of all sizes and shapes. Just one example of this in motion is the Japanese electronics industry. Indeed, Japanese electronics firms have been driven a lot as of late by what is known as value chain modularity. This is the same model and movement that helped drive the expansion and creation of what is now known as the Internet and the World Wide Web. Indeed, the internet has only existed as it does not for about twenty to twenty-five years. Before that, any web-based communication was limited to businesses and government institutions at best. Japan has taken on the same pattern and pathway as the United States in many ways. Low-tech materials and jobs are farmed out to other (and cheaper) countries and/or companies, investments in factories tend to be shared and so forth (Sturgeon, 2007) To use the food and beverage industry as an example, it is not always practical to get foods and beverages from overseas sources and/or to enter into partnerships of a global nature when it comes to the same. However, there is a litany of firms and subsets of the food/beverage industry that are doing precisely that and it is often paying them huge dividends even if there is some blowback due to using overseas sources of food and drink (Baran, 2016). Even with that, companies in the food and beverage industry have multiple markets and it is foolish to believe or think otherwise. Globalization and how it relates to change management can involve single companies or it can involve a nexus or group of them.
An example of the latter is the Taipei Metropolitan Area under the new prism of globalization as it is existing now. The area is rich with what are called foreign direct investments, or FDI’s. Globalization of the involved businesses has led to the formation of a “mega-urban” region in that area. Even companies that are not centered in that area have latched onto this fact and that would include airlines like Far East Airlines. This example shows that a globalization participant need not affix themselves permanently in an area. Some industries and jobs allow for a temporary or fleeting presence in an area with minimal to basic frameworks in place. Other businesses that globalize should or simply do create more definitive framework in an area. Obviously, it depends on the industry in question and how much a business is willing to commit to an area. Globalization has affected in that many firms that are foreign to Taiwan have entered the Taipei and other markets. However, the manifestation of how this entry is made varies based on industry and the intentions of the incoming firms. Regardless, firms that are both native to Taiwan as well as firms that are foreign are able to engage in commerce in a mutually beneficial way. (Sheng & Sui, 2016).
Changes along the lines of what is mentioned in this section are often done using what is called the action research model. Just one way that action research can be used when it comes to globalization is defining and implementing the proper way to supervise global teams of people based on action research and prior actions and outcomes of other people who have travelled that proverbial road in the past. Indeed, using the lessons of other (especially similar) firms is a great way to avoid the mistakes made by others. Indeed, business decisions should be researched in advanced and should be based on the evidence borne out by other situations that involved the same sort of factors. To be sure, if the supervision and management is not up to par when it comes to revised and new global models, this would often cause many more problems and setbacks than would or should be necessary given the wealth of research that exists in the scholarly and business sphere (Phillips, 2014).
Information Technology
A good many of the changes that are seen in modern organizations relates to information technology to one degree or another. Just one example of this in action are the use of mobile phones and tablets to do work, the use of information systems to crunch sales and related data in a way that can be wielded to a company’s advantage and beyond. It has gotten to the point where resisting movement towards more advanced technology use and data handling is a non-option. However, many people do it nonetheless and this has to be managed. To be sure, employee resistance can be a complex and difficult issues to deal with. However, information technology changes can and will impact the work of the employees and their work life. Some of those changes are anticipate but some are absolutely not foreseen or even foreseeable. Given all that, leaders need to manage the change process aggressively but in a way that is perceived well and absorbed properly by the rank and file employees (Burchell, 2011).
One model that should be kept in mind when it comes to what was just mentioned is that there are three distinct stages when it comes to change. This set of changes has come to be known as the Lewin Three Phase model. First, there has to be an “unfreezing” of the current state of affairs. Second, there has to be the shift or change to the new norm that is desired and required. After that, there has to be a “refreezing” so that the new procedure and state of affairs is put firmly and permanently into place, at least until the next change (Lavasseur, 2001).
Change management is, as mentioned elsewhere in this report, certainly not limited to companies in the private sector. Indeed, public institutions and agencies are included in the change management paradigm as well. One microcosm of this would be the higher education sphere. Indeed, noted universities such as the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), among others, were on the forefront of acquiring, learning, developing and using technology and computers that are the norm nowadays, albeit in much more compact and speedy form. Indeed, change management that involves something so cutting edge and new to society as a whole and not just the institution in question would be extremely hard to pull off well. While the World Wide Web emerged in 1992, the act of universities changing and effecting change started all the way back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In short, there have been times and situations where change management that has no precedent in one or more ways has occurred and the emergence of computers at higher education institutions and other organizations is a prime example. Globalization has helped schools like the ones in California mentioned above in that they were on the cutting edge of technology and globalization. They were the pioneers and they thus they were not constrained by the norms and patterns that have emerged since. Beyond that, they were able to network and communicate with the wider world in a way that was unmatched by just about anything else in society at the time. This enriched them and laid the path for today (Petrides, 2000).
Managerial Innovation
The linchpin of which path ends up happening is proper leadership or lack thereof. In many ways, it all comes down to the methods and innovations that managers are able to pull off and which ones fall flat. As explained by Kavanaugh and Ashkanasy (2006), the impact of leadership on the change management process is extremely significant. Indeed, if the leaders of an organization do not buy into the change and sell the same to the rank and file, the change will either fail or falter. This is true of a process change just as much as it is true of a merger of two organizations. It is clear from the research that the leaders involved in the change must be competent and well-trained when it comes to what is to come in the form of resistance to change and other challenges that tend to arise (Kavanaugh & Ashkanasy, 2006). When it comes to the food and beverage industry, managerial innovation can include a number of things such as marketing effectively to emerging cultural/racial groups such as Latinos, the proper use of information technology resources for any number of job functions (as mentioned earlier) and the proper management of the overall change process, as just mentioned.
When it comes to innovation and fresh ideas, there is a lot of banter about whether external or internal people are the best ones to implement and execute changes. There are upsides and downsides to both approaches. However, there are many scholars that suggest that at least much of the catalysts for change must come from within and even middle managers can be involved in that proverbial fray. This holds true even in mission critical industries and areas such as healthcare and the like. That being said, the amount of innovation and fresh ideas that comes from the internal reaches of the healthcare sector is nothing short of “dismal” in the eyes of many. While the use of external experts and such can help, the state of affairs and norms that exist when it comes to innovation and fresh ideas from within must change and many people are pushing precisely that and for that precise reason. To dovetail both this dimension as well as the previously mentioned information technology one, Nokia Corporation had a time period where they had to wield and use innovation in a time period where technology was rapidly emerging and changing. From 1985 to about 2002, there were a lot of moving parts and entities involved with the company. Partners involved with these ventures came and went and not everything went well, of course. Despite all of those challenges and struggles, Nokia later emerged to become one of the major world powers when it comes to cellular phones and other mobile technology. Nokia did this through what has come to be known as an exploitation strategy and they followed this path through the first two main generations of their products. This strategy was pervasive when it came to both the products themselves and the legal maneuvers and partnerships they used along the way in addition to the innovations they championed when it came to mobile communication technology that was very much in its nascent stages at the time. Not unlike the prior example at the California colleges and the emergence of the World Wide Web, Nokia as on the bleeding edge of a slightly different revolution. Since then, the World Wide Web and mobile technology have merged into a monolith that dominates modern life today. In the meantime, Nokia was able to benefit greatly in terms of expanding its reach and its profits, not to mention its cultural awareness, and the rest of the society and the world is now reaping the benefits of this new synergy (Dittrich & Duysters, 2007).
Economic
One of the unfortunate economic realities that has arisen over the last generation or so has been downsizing. This downsizing has taken on two main forms. The first has been in the form of recessions and economic slowness in general. The worst two periods of this over the last generation were in the days both before and after 9/11 and the “Great Recession” in 2007 to 2009. However, downsizing has also been in the form of offshoring of jobs. The manufacturing and service sectors are the hardest hit that comes to this. Regardless of the genesis of downsizing and layoffs, there are the people that remain with the company after the company or organization loses headcount. These people are commonly referred to as “survivors” and their mindset and reaction is deemed as being of paramount importance because their attitude and reaction to the change will set the tone for what happens going forward. The commonplace resistance and reprisal against company change gets even stiffer in light of such downsizing and that pushback must be managed swiftly and decisively (Aggerholm, 2014). When it comes to change management in a downsizing environment, one pioneer when it comes to crafting models and strategies would be Arizona State University. Their contribution to the knowledge base is a variant of what is commonly known as Total Quality Management. The spin they use includes a clarification of administrative unit functions, unit self-examination and the creation of an infrastructure that facilitates the changes that are needed (Burton, 1993).
Concurrent to the paradigm just mentioned is just what spurs companies and organizations into change. Indeed, some companies get complacent and do not enact the best practices and reactions that they should until things get tight and acrimonious. If done to excess, this can lead to an overcorrection. This leads many people to point to the adage that “necessity if the mother of invention”. Meaning, many companies are spurred to change and different ways of doing things when the situation demands it. When the situation does not demand it, many organizations are prone to leave things as they are for the most part. Even agencies in the government have seen this happen. The changes in procurement management and norms in the 1990’s proved the above to be true (Kelman, 2006).
One company that got grossly complacent and slow to move was Blockbuster Video. While the name exists in an online/streaming sense to this very day, the corporation as it once existed is long gone and the main reason is that they did not see how far the streaming industry would go and how quickly it would emerge. Ironically, the company had the chance to acquire Netflix when that company was in its infancy but Blockbuster said notwice. Indeed, there is much to the credo that says “evolve or die”. Even with the fact that some regional video rental companies remain that fill the void left by departing companies, future trends are what they are. For every regional video store, there are a slew of Redbox video rental boxes and streaming movie devices like game consoles, media boxes (e.g. Roku), Blu-Ray players and so forth. Beyond that, the streaming video/music example proves that some evolving and changing is largely dependent on other industries. In the case of streaming, the emergence of faster and faster home internet speeds via DSL and cable internet is one example. The streaming industry could expand like it is without that other industry laying the frameworks and trends to allow for it. While Blockbuster as it was once known is long gone and thus is not a beneficiary of globalization and the emergency of technology that is currently in full swing, they did benefit at one time in terms of profits and exposure. They further were able to expose their consumers to new and different things that were not commonly seen (if ever) on television or even premium channels. While they have ceased to be the force that they were, Blockbuster created a great pattern and they reaped the benefits as they went along. Nowadays, Netflix and Amazon (among others) are continuing the string and are themselves benefiting others as well as themselves (Chong, 2015)
Another practice that has become fairly common when it comes to organizational change is the flattening of the company hierarchy and management structure. Just one reason this is done is to increase the budgetary efficacy and performance of a firm (Hannan, Rankin & Towry, 2010). Beyond that, there has been the emergence of another major change in many organizations over the last generation in the form of self-directed work groups. These groups often work fairly to very autonomously with little to no constant oversight from other groups. For sure, upper management gets them on a new or the right track as needed. Otherwise, this new team structure is very much self-managing (Brandon, 1996). Another ostensible and common benefit of keeping the hierarchy of an organization flatter is better quality. Rather than getting muddled down in hierarchy and bureaucracy, firms are able to get things done quicker and at a higher level of performance and adeptness (Lewis, 1994). Just one company that has done precisely the above is Volvo, as noted in a 2000 treatise by Bradford Wernle. Volvo executive Hans-Olov Olsson went so far as to ban the printing out of any organizational charts as part of his wider intent and message. Rather than focus on rank and file, Olsson said that the focus should instead be on the vision and the target of the company.
References
Aggerholm, H. K. (2014). Communicating Organizational Change Reactions:
Downsizing Survivors' Discursive Constructions of Flexible Identities. Business
and Professional Communication Quarterly, 77(4), 473-498.
Baran, J. (2016). GLOBALIZATION PROCESSES IN POLISH FOOD
INDUSTRY. Economic Science for Rural Development Conference
Proceedings, (42), 200-206.
Berman, E. R., & Johnson, R. K. (2015). The Unintended Consequences of Changes in
Beverage Options and the Removal of Bottled Water on a University
Campus. American Journal Of Public Health, 105(7), 1404-1408.
doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302593
Birken, S. A., Lee, S. D., Weiner, B. J., Chin, M. H., & Schaefer, C. T. (2013). Improving
the Effectiveness of Health Care Innovation Implementation: Middle Managers as
Change Agents. Medical Care Research & Review, 70(1), 29-45.
doi:10.1177/1077558712457427
Brandon, G. M. (1996). Flattening the organization: implementing self-directed work
groups. Radiology Management, 18(2), 35-42.
Burchell, J. (2011). ANTICIPATING AND MANAGING RESISTANCE IN
ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) CHANGE
INITIATIVES. International Journal Of The Academic Business World, 5(1), 19-
28.
Burton, J. L. (1993). Hopping out of the Swamp: Management of Change in a
Downsizing Environment. Business Officer, 26(8), 42-45.
Chong, C. (2016). Blockbuster's CEO once passed up a chance to buy Netflix for only
$50 million. Businessinsider.com. Retrieved 26 August 2016, from
http://www.businessinsider.com/blockbuster-ceo-passed-up-chance-to-buy-
netflix-for-50-million-2015-7
Dittrich, K., & Duysters, G. (2007). Networking as a Means to Strategy Change: The
Management, 24(6), 510-521. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2007.00268.x
Hannan, R., Rankin, F., & Towry, K. (2010). Flattening the organization: the effect of
organizational reporting structure on budgeting effectiveness. Review Of
Accounting Studies, 15(3), 503-536. doi:10.1007/s11142-010-9132-5
Kavanagh, M. H., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2006). The Impact of Leadership and Change
Management Strategy on Organizational Culture and Individual Acceptance of
Change during a Merger. British Journal of Management, 17S81-S103.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00480.x
Kelman, S. (2006). Downsizing, Competition, and Organizational Change in
Government: Is Necessity the Mother of Invention? Journal of Policy Analysis
& Management, 25(4), 875-895.
Levasseur, R. E. (2001). People Skills:Change Management Tools--Lewin's Change
Model. Interfaces, 31(4), 71.
Lewis, A. (1994). Flattening an organization for cost and quality gains. Suburban
Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland. Strategies for Healthcare Excellence:
Organizational Productivity, Quality & Effectiveness, 7(3), 8-12.
Petrides, L. A. (2000). Case Studies on Information Technology in Higher Education :
Implications for Policy and Practice. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Phillips, G. (2014). The production-based PhD: an action research model for
supervisors. Quality Assurance in Education: An International Perspective, 22(4),
1-21.
Roth, S. (2008). Globalization and Organization: World Society and Organizational
Change. International Sociology, 23(5), 779-782.
Sheng Wu, B., & Sui, D. (2016). Modeling impacts of globalization on desakota regions:
a case study of Taipei Metropolitan Area. Environment & Planning B: Planning &
Design, 43(2), 320-340. doi:10.1177/0265813515605216
Sturgeon, T. J. (2007). How Globalization Drives Institutional Diversity: The Japanese
Electronics Industry's Response to Value Chain Modularity. Journal of East
Asian Studies, 7(1), 1-34.
Vaira, M. (2004). Globalization and higher education organizational change: A
framework for analysis. Higher Education, 48(4), 483-510.
Wernle, B. (2000). New boss begins turning Volvo into 'flatter' organization. Automotive
News Europe, 5(21), 3.
