Short Paper 1.
Managing organizational change can be defined as a framework to manage the impact of new processes, trends in the business environment, or changes in the structure of organization. In simple words, management of organization change tends to be addressing the perception of people in management of change (Morgan, 2013). Change can be identified as a constant variable in the current era of business management, in fact, it is the only unavoidable element of any organization.
Change is of huge significance for any organization and embracing change is a crucial factor of organizational success. This is so because in the absence of change, business organizations would end up losing their competitive edge, while facing failure in meeting the needs and expectations of important stakeholders (Aladwani, 2001). There are four main factors affected if any organization does not change that are technology, needs of customer, economic stability, and opportunities of growth. All of these factors are crucial for the success and survival of the organization and trends in these factors demand change. Such demands cannot be ignored by organizations and hence, it is not possible to avoid change in an organization.
Considering the basic nature of change, it can be stated that the best approach of driving change is the grassroots movement. There can be no initiation of change until or unless there is change of behaviour. Large scale change of behaviour is difficult but it has to be viral. This has been considered as a new generation for managing change across business organizations (Ven, 2013). However, it cannot be stated that change is not driven by leadership, but majority of the leaders have been supporting grassroots movements. Hence, the underlying statement is that both, leadership and grassroots movement drives organization change, but leadership and change can be enhanced in terms of effectiveness by the grassroots movements.
As change is related to individual behaviour of the employees, it is well expected that they may show resistance to the initiation of change. There are a number of factors that trigger this resistance, but one has to accept change at some point of time, and hence, change must not be resisted at every cost as resisting it would just result in affecting the business negatively. Hence, change can be considered as good (Hancke, 2011).
Short Paper 2.
All across history, establishments in communications and technology have been going hand-in-hand, and the latest developments of technology like mobile devices and internet has led to enhance the quality of communication at a completely different level. Considering the scenario of “Invest in Information Technology and Experiment with New Formats”, information technologies have been identified as the top most priority of business organizations. Some of the key reasons for this purpose are clear advantages from gains of productivity because of an improvement in information, the change to an information- based economy, from being an industrial based economy, and the declining expense of information technologies in combination with increased capabilities. For the initiation of change, there is a specific significance to communicate the vision of change. Leaders of the hospital should begin to discover the success stories and catalyst in the initiative of change (Hancke, 2011). Analogies and metaphors can be considered as inferential techniques for transferring meaning and sense.
Sharing of information is the key essence of communication, and hence, it can be stated that information technologies are a crucial element to enhance the quality of communication across organization. There can be enhancement of extensive communication, not only with the top level management, but also with every level of management and work force across the organization (McCalman, 2008). This communication is crucial for certain aspects of the organization that include corporate operations, unit operations, performance of competitors, business goals and plans, and new technologies.
Internet and computer have been enabling communication systems to create and edit important document, while ensuring the application of features such as automatic grammar check and spell check, naturally and easily. Thus, technology has helped in speeding up communications across organizations while improving the scope of quantity and quality in a single go. The simplicity of communication and spreading methods of interactive communication like video conferencing and instant messenger have ended up increasing the value of communications, while reducing the average length. All of these factors are crucial for the success and survival of the organization and trends in these factors demand change (Hancke, 2011). Such demands cannot be ignored by organizations and hence, it is not possible to avoid change in an organization.
However, it is important to note that technology has been accelerating complexity at a fantastic speed that offer benefits and efficiencies not imagined by the previous generation. However, with increased interconnectedness and sophistication of technology and information, there have been increased messy and complicated effect that are not anticipated all the time (Ruta, 2005). Hence, it can be stated that technology does help in improving the systems of communication, but also confuses it to a certain limit.
Short Paper 3.
There is no devastating effect to overall capability of change and initiative of change than the senior leadership of an organization espousing the advances in initiation of change and then not acting with respect to those espoused advantages. In the era of communication and information technology, the organization is accustomed to the management of services in the similar manner (Burke, 2013). Major efforts are put in for running systems, there is huge significance in the prevention of outage and implementation of new applications.
“Walking the talk” can be identified as an essential element in the communication system of business organization. The process begins as behaviour is modelled in the organization by the vision of initiating change. There is also a requirement from the team of top management for policing them while initiating acts in congruency with the vision of change (Cunliffe, 2013). Uncertainty in the business environment cannot be avoided. There is an increased prominence of this difficulty when attempts are put in for dealing with uncertainty surrounding the business world on the basis of old certainties in more stable conditions of operations.
Technology impacts several attributes of change from the perspective of different components such as outreach, collaboration, innovation, diversification, unpredictability, broader horizons, influence, new skills and informed users (Hancke, 2011). Considering the phrase, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”, there is huge significance of this phrase from the perspective of organizational change and change management.
The sense behind this phrase is that if something is working well enough in the organization, then there is no need of initiating change in the organization. The underlying statement is if there is change of technology, previous solutions can no longer be considered as optimal. Therefore, it is not necessary that if something is working well in the past and is working in the present, however, initiating change based on a random estimate may turn out to be harmful (Lynch, 2001).
Organizational change may take place for a number of reasons that include expansion of markets, accommodation of growth, mergers or acquisitions, or financial concerns. No matter what the concern is, change can always be considered as difficult for majority of the employees, while wreaking havoc at the bottom- most level of the organization (McCalman, 2008). Hence, as it is evitable that change exposes an organization to a number of threats and opportunities, and unnecessarily taking up initiatives of change may expose the business to new risks and threats.
Short Paper 4.
The Department of Veteran Affairs has promised to sweep changes along with contrition in bulk, for responding the report of inspector general over a scandal regarding the delay of health care services for veterans. The key purpose is ensuring that no veteran dies at the Phoenix VA hospital that has a conclusive link with delaying care across the facility. The case has enhanced the focus of media on the hospital, highlighting the key issues of management. It has been identified that delays in manipulation and care of recording schedules had been systematic to sprawl the VA system of 820 clinics and 150 hospitals.
In this initiation of change, external expertise in ethics will be appointed for recommending on the selection and appointment of ethical staff members and leadership, regarding how there must be expected communication in terms of ethical behaviour. In the entire system of VA, there is a need for additional investment of 400 million dollars on private doctors or staff overtime for ensuring the quick treatment of veterans. The VA has considered allocating 128 million dollars in costs of private care for serving 83,000 veterans. 8,248 schedulers of VA across the nation are being provided with training to schedule the patients.
An internal board of investigation has to be created for the identification of managers at VA hospitals holding the responsibility of each and every wrong doing, while considering to take up disciplinary actions. In addition, there will be allocation of funds for sending the veterans for speedier care to the group of private doctors (Ruta, 2005). Finally, there will be a significant need for expanding the resources of mental health care like social workers, psychologist positions, and primary care staff of the hospital, rooms of examination and new clinics for outpatient.
For the initiation of this change, there is a specific significant to communicate the vision of change. Leaders of the hospital should begin to discover the success stories and catalyst in the initiative of change. Analogies and metaphors can be considered as inferential techniques for transferring meaning and sense (Silverstone, 2003).
Based on this case scenario, the methodology of Evidence- Informed Change Management can be considered. Evidences have already been put forth and hence, this methodology will require the communication of evidences with the human resource in connection with the VA system. This methodology will support to align each and every element in the management of change (Ven, 2013). The process begins as behaviour is modelled in the organization by the vision of initiating change. There is also a requirement from the team of top management for policing them while initiating acts in congruency with the vision of change.
References
Aladwani, A. M. (2001). Change management strategies for successful ERP implementation. Business Process management journal, 7(3), 266-275.
Burke, W. W. (2013). Organization Change: Theory and Practice: Theory and Practice. Sage Publications.
Cunliffe, A. L. (2013). Organization theory: modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press.
Hancke, G. P. (2011). Smart grid technologies: communication technologies and standards. Industrial informatics, IEEE transactions on, 7(4), 529-539.
Lynch, L. M. (2001). How to compete: the impact of workplace practices and information technology on productivity. Review of Economics and statistics, 83(3), 434-445.
McCalman, J. (2008). Change management: A guide to effective implementation. Sage.
Morgan, G. (2013). Riding the waves of change. Imaginization Inc.
Ruta, C. D. (2005). The application of change management theory to HR portal implementation in subsidiaries of multinational corporations. Human Resource Management, 44(1), 35-53.
Silverstone, R. (Eds.). (2003). Consuming technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces. Routledge.
Ven, A. H. (2013). Process studies of change in organization and management: unveiling temporality, activity, and flow. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), 1-13.
