Organisational Behaviour

Organisational Behaviour



Organisational Behaviour

Introduction

Organisational change is a necessary and vital part of any company, as it ensures the continuing development and renewing of a firm in order to keep up with competitors and to satisfy the customers. There are many reasons why companies decide to change their inner workings. Contributing factors from outside the organisation are, the introduction of new technology and materials, the changing needs and wants of customers, economic changes, political changes and the introduction of new government policies, and the publics changing interests in cultural activities. As well as these external factors, there are also internal factors that come from within the organisation itself (Koontz & Connell 1976).

Analysis

These are, innovations in the product design and manufacturing, new senior managers with new ideas, low staff morale that leads to poor performance, stress and high staff turnover, with unsatisfactory skill levels that suggests more training is required. Change is a natural progression and should be seen as a positive move for an organisation. In 1951 Kurt Lewin introduced his 'three phrase process'; 'unfreezing', recognising the need for change, and the need to change certain attitudes, 'movement', the development of new methods, and 'refreezing', supporting and maintaining the change (Kast & Rosenzweig 1979).

The decision to implement change, however, is a difficult one as the company may see negative reactions surface within their staff. There is a natural resistance to change, as people do not know what to expect, it is the fear of the unknown both for the individual and the organisation as a whole. For the individual, the refusal to except change can be identified in the fact that people are usually creatures of habit. The staff become accustomed and familiar with the current ways of doing things, which gives them a sense of security, so the changing of these can be met with hostility and refusal (Hellriegel & Slocum 1982).

This links in to the threatening of employees 'comfort zones', the place where they feel safe and comfortable. For example many people like to stick with tried and tested methods because they know it works, and very rarely venture outside these procedures. Another reason for individual resistance is the feeling of loss of autonomy, the idea that a certain amount of power and freedom will be taken away from you when the changes are implemented. Employees may also be resistant if they believe their pay or benefits will be reduced or their workload increases but their pay does not. Being opposed to change may also be down to the individual's own perception of how things operate and their own view on life and how these changes would affect them (Bateman & Snell 1996).

It's the firm's identity and view of the world, and the idea of 'the way we do things round here'. Its how the decisions are made, the channels employees have to go through to obtain information, what schemes are in place to gauge performance, what happens to the resources, the firms views on risk ...