Free Management Dissertations - Introduction Organisational Change Has Occupied A Key Role Within Management
Introduction
Organisational change has occupied a key role within management studies and literature recently. Huczynski and Buchanan (2001) argue that an organisation be viewed as a social arrangement for achieving controlled performance in the pursuit of collective goals. With this definition in mind it is essential to examine organisational changes from a social perspective. This needs to reflect external environmental influences as well as have a focus on major organisational activities which are largely related to corporate capabilities. In addition it is worthwhile mentioning that the ability to manage change to a large extent determines the success or failure in terms of growth of organisations over the long term. As Greiner (2000) argues each of the corporate growth phases begins with a period of evolutionary change followed by revolutionary changes in an expansionist cycle. Flowing from this then it is fair to say that management of organisational changes plays a central role in strategic decision processes faced by corporate organisations. However with these challenges of change new elements and features of the modern business world mean more difficulties in exploiting change successfully for modern managers.
These difficulties arise for example due to the rapid pace of globalisation. This has generated increasingly intensive competition worldwide for companies local and global. Added to this the development of technology, which also has accelerated the pace of globalisation through developments such as Information Technologies, mean that pressures are created in terms of organisations adapting to change. These adaptations necessary as a result of rapid technological development can be clearly seen in the new challenges for companies in terms of issues related to e-commerce and the use of the Internet particularly. The complexity of environmental changes can be seen for instance in the numerous terms and definitions relating to what may constitute e-commerce and which may all be treated as synonyms for electronic commerce, such as electronic business, e-shopping, internet business/retailing, internet commerce and new economies, (Elliot, 2002). In short organisations and individuals within organisations are subject to an unprecedented pace and number of changes in successfully managing changes successfully within the modern business world.
Discussion
Organisational Structure and Change
Carnall (2003) holds that one of the principal elements in managing organisational change is the need attention to be spread between oftentimes conflicting issues and challenges during a given business transition process. The business transition process though and its form is strongly linked to the organisation’s structure. Henderson’s (1996) framework offers a definition in which change is described in terms of components and architecture related to organisation which is experiencing the change.
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