1.  Senior, B. and Fleming. J. (2006) Chapter 2 in Organisational Change (Third edition), London: Pearson Education.

Introduction

Organisational change has many faces, and there are many different types of change. A basic distinction is made between convergent types of change and transformational change that is organisation wide and is characterised by radical shifts in strategy, mission and values as well as associated changes of structures and systems. There is consideration also, of the idea that some change emerges while at other times change can be planned.

Change in one organisation is not the same as change in another. Examples on page 2.

“Change may be constant but it is not always the same” (Strebel 1996, p5, Financial Times)

Varieties of Change

Grundy 1993 – Three Varieties of change

1.  Smooth incremental change – change that evolves slowly in a systematic and predictable way. This was mainly reminiscent of the UK and US situation from 1950s-early 1970s. Happens at a constant rate.

2.  Bumpy incremental change – periods of relative tranquillity punctuated by acceleration in the pace of change. Triggers for this type of change are likely to include those from both the environment in which organisations operate and internal changes such as those instigated to improve efficiency and ways of working.

3.  Discontinuous change – changes which is marked by rapid shifts in strategy, structure or culture, or in all three.

Organisational convergence and upheaval

Criticism of Grundy: somewhat simplistic and appear to be based on observation rather than investigation and research.

Balogun and Hope Hailey 2004 identification of change paths, go one step further in suggesting 4 types of change:

Incremental change divided into adaptive and evolutionary;

Big bang change divided into reconstruction and revolution. The end result of theses varieties of change is either realignment of transformation (Figure 2.2, pg 4)

Tushman, Newman and Romanelli 1988 – On the basis of an examination of numerous organisational studies and case histories, these writers propose a model of organisational life that consists of ‘periods of incremental chance, or convergence, punctuated by discontinuous changes’.

They suggest there are two types of converging change: fine tuning and incremental adaptations. Both these types of change have the common aim of maintaining the fit between organisational strategy, structure and processes. However, whereas fine tuning is aimed at doing better what is already done well, incremental adaptation involves small changes in response to minor shifts in the environment in which organisations operate.

Both fine tuning and incremental adjustments to environmental shifts allow organisations to perform more effectively and optimise the consistencies between strategy, structure, people and processes. Yet Tushman et al show how as organisations grow, become more successful and develop internal forces for stability, these same forces eventually produce resistance when an organisations strategy must change. At times of major change, most organisations will be required to undergo discontinuous of frame breaking change. Thus in an organisations life cycle, periods of relative tranquillity will be punctuated with periods of frame breaking change.

The need for discontinuous change springs from one or a combination of the following:

·  Industry discontinuities- sharp changes in the legal, political or technological conditions that shift the basis of competition.

·  Product life cycle shifts – changes in strategy from the emergence of a product to its establishment in the market, the effects of international competition

·  Internal company dynamics – the implications of size for new management deign, new management style as inventor-entrepreneurs give ay to the need for more steady state management, revised corporate portfolio strategy that can sharply alter the role and resources assigned to business units or functional areas.

The scope of frame breaking change includes discontinuous change throughout the organisation. Frame breaking change is usually implemented rapidly and is revolutionary changes of the system as opposed to incremental changes in the system.

Frame breaking change usually involves the following features:

·  Reformed mission and core values – new definition of company mission

·  Altered power and status – reflecting shifts in the basis of competition and resource allocation

·  Reorganisation new strategy requires a modification in structure, systems and procedures, change of organisation form

·  Revised interaction patterns – new procedures, work flows, communication networks, decision making patterns

·  New executives – usually from outside the organisation

Frame breaking change is revolutionary in that the shifts reshape the entire nature of the organisation. It requires discontinuous shifts in strategy, structures, people and process concurrently. Reasons for the rapid, simultaneous implementation of frame breaking chance include the following:

·  Synergy – the need for all pieces of the organisation to pull together

·  Pockets of resistance – have a chance to grow and develop when frame breaking change is implemented slowly

·  Pent-up need for change – when constraints are relaxed, change is in fashion

·  Riskiness and uncertainty – the longer the implantation period, the greater the period of uncertainty and instability.

Fine Tuning and Corporate transformation

Dunphy and Stacey 1993 – four descriptions that represent their scale of change

Benefit of model – detailed description of each scale type and its testing with the executives, managers and supervisors of 13 Australian organizations from the service sector. Organisations operating scale 1 and 2 type changes were in the minority, leading the researcher to conclude that modular and corporate transformations had become the norm rather than the exception.

Criticism: small sample from one sector of industry

Planned and emergent change

The idea of emergent change has been linked to Wilson 1992 with the concept of organisations as open systems. The organisational system is constantly sending its environment in order continuously adjust to maintain its purpose and optimum state.

It cold be speculated that, in an ideal world, organisational sensing of the environment would be s effective as to render frame breaking change unnecessary. If organisations respond continuously to the need for change, they would have no need for the periodic upheavals that sometimes seem inevitable. In other words, through their assessing continuously the environments in which they operate, changes should emerge almost naturally.

However writers such as Tushman et al 1998, Johnson 1988 and Johnson, Scholes and Whittington 2005 describe a phenomenon whereby managers and other organisational personnel become so comfortable with how things are done and what they hold as important, that they also become impervious to warning signs of impending difficulties from the environment. According to Tushman et al, this is the effect of what they call the double-edged sword’ of converging periods of change. Thus the habits, patterns of behaviour, finding out the best way to do things and commitment to values that have been built up during periods of converging change can contribute significantly to the success of the organisation. However the organisational history built up during this period can also be counterproductive in restricting the vigilance needed towards the environment and may become a source of resistance to the need for more radical forms of change.

The process of strategic drift forces organisations into a more conscious deliberate planning of change. The distinction between planned and emergent change is not clear cut.

Criticisms of planned change:

Wilson 1992 –

·  Planned change is a management concept which relies heavily on a single view of the way change ought to be done. This view assumes that the environment is known and therefore, that a logical process of environmental analysis can be harness in the service of planning any change. This view emphasises the role of human agency, that is, that chief executives and managers are able to invoke the changes they feel are necessary and that this process is not problematic. His argument is that this view does not take into account of the context in which change must take place, for instance, the cultural and political components that influence most, if not all, implementations of any planned change.

Comments and conclusions

Organisational change can be conceptualised in simple terms, as Grundy’s three types of change show. However, the nature of organisational change is much more complex than this, as other typologies of change demonstrate. Not only are there different types of changes, which manifest themselves in different organisations, change also appears differently at different levels of an organisation and in its various functions. The discussion in this chapter has demonstrated the multi-dimensional nature of organisational change.