MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Power and leadership have a major impact on organisational change ,so also does
organisational politics. In organisations power operates principally through direct
control. However this may not always be valid in all organisations structure, people
are working at different hierarchical levels within the organistions Power binds this
hierarchical structure and he relationship between organisational members.

What is change?
In a very general sense, change can be defined as to make or became different, give
or begin to have a different form.

Some of the notable changes that have been witnessed are:

Globalisation of markets with companies competing in international market and

local companies exposed to foreign competition
Technological changes influence both product and process.
Political realignments
Changing customer preferences
Organisational restructuring

Internal forces of changes

Inadequacy of administrative process:
An organisation function through a set of procedures, rules and regulations.
With changing times and the revision of organisations goals and objectives,
some of the existing rule, procedure and regulations could be at a variance
with demands of reality
Individual/group expectation:
The organisation as an entity is a confluence of people, each one aiming to
satisfy his/her needs and aspirations.
Structured focused change:
It is a change that alters any of the design. Organisations make structural
change to reduce costs and hike profitability.
Technological change:
Change that affects the actual process of transforming input into output is
referred to as a technological change.

External forces of change

Political forces
Economic forces :
 The uncertainty about future trends in the economy is a major cause of
change
Technological forces:

Government forces
Government interventions in the forms of regulations also lead to
change
Increased global competition.

Organisational power and control

Organisational control through power implies the general ability of managers to

direct and organize the efforts of the employees. In organisations, there are different
types of control, such as simple, technical and bureaucratic control.

Sources of power
It can be classified as:
1. Organisational sources
There are three kind of organisational sources
Coercive power
Leaders exert this power to dispense punishment to those who do not
comply with requests or demands.
Reward power
A supervisor has reward power over staff. Through the staff appraisal
process, he/she can open up doors to promotion, allocate overtime or
more interesting work
Legitimate power
The member accept an authoritys legitimate right to require and
demand compliance.

2. Individual or personal sources

Expert power
This power derives from the recognition that the power holder

has valued skills and abilities in an area critical to members success.

Referent power
 This power is based on personal identification with and respect for a
leader figure who is followed because of his personal qualities or
characteristics.

Organisational politics

Politics is inseparable from organisations. This is obviously due to the involvement of

people. Organisations overrun by politics are typically identified by the type of
managerial decisions which encourage hypocrisy, secrecy, deal making, rumours

Organisational politics can be reduced when organisations

Measure performance
Pay off on performance
Publicize performance data
Reveal the reasons for decisions
Openly consider all good ideas
Shun deal making
Do not enter into secret deals
Avoid all political behaviour

Conclusion

Organisations should try to adopt a change strategy which people are most likely to accept.
This cannot be done just by selling the ideas of change. Employees can only cooperate in the
change management process when they understand the need for it. Consultative
communication infuses in them a sense of ownership and then they support change process
spontaneously. This part, organisation need to arrange frequent training programmes and
workshops to increase the level of awareness about the change process, the change
objectives and the proposed initiatives .The possible problem of manpower redundancy for
integration or elimination of tasks also needs to be clarified.

References

BOOKS

Kumar, Deepak. organisational change and development new delhi: oxford university press

Hall, brian. Performance management USA: Harvard business school publication

JOURNAL

International journal of management, accounts and economics

Vo 2, no. 10, October 2015

ISSN 2383-2126
 California management review

Vol38, no.4 summer1996