Change in Organizations: Analyzing Structure, Power, Leadership, Decision Making, and Communication

1. Change in organizations dr. hab. Jerzy SupernatInstitute of Administrative StudiesUniversity of Wrocław

2. Change in organizations The analyses of structure, power, leadership, decision making and communication have shown that organizations are dynamic. In other words, organizations change. Change for the better. Change can be beneficial and bring growth. Change for the worse. Change can be detrimental and bring decline or even an organizational death: organization ceases to exist. Organizational death may also be the result of not introducing changes. An important type of change is the innovation. dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

3. Change in organizations • Definition of organizational change • Jerald Hage (born 1932): Organizational change can be defined as the alteration and transformation of the form so as to survive better in the environment. • This definition of organizational change is a good one, with the major exception that it overlooks organizational goals in this formulation of change. • Analyses of organizations that do not include goals are shortsighted since organizations engage in many activities and make many decisions that are not related to survival in the environment but are related to goals. Therefore one should make a distinction between: • environmentally-based changes (stressed by J. Hage) • goal-based changes dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

4. Change in organizations • The potential for change • forces for change • forces against change We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery. Herbert George Wells If you don't like something, change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Mary Engelbreit Change your thoughts and you change your world.Norman Vincent Peale dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

5. Change in organizations Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), The Prince One should consider that there is nothing more difficult to accomplish nor more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.This is true because those that are pleased with an old order of things will be against the reformer while those whose situation could be changed for the better will be, at best, his cautious friends. dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

6. Change in organizations Punctuated equilibrium Michael L. Tushman, E. Romanelli: Organizations go through relatively long periods of stability. These are punctuated by short periods or bursts of fundamental change, which are in turn followed by another period of stability. Michael L. Tushman dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

7. Change in organizations Learning organizations. The concept has been offered mainly by Chris Argyris, Donald Schon i Peter Senge. • Peter Senge: • Learning organizations [are] organizationswhere: • people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire • new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured • collective aspiration is set free • people are continually learning to see the whole together Chris Argyris (born 1923) Donald Schon(1930-1997) Peter Senge (born 1947) dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

8. Change in organizations • Change process • Organizational change process can be described with the aid of the life-cycle concept and terminology. • Nota bene the biological analogy is potentially confusing: • there isonly one method of human conception, whilst organizations can be created by entrepreneurs, by legislatures, by other organizations, and so on • organizations can, at least hypothetically, lastindefinitely dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

9. Change in organizations • Organizational life cycle • organizational birth • transformations • adaptation to the environment • cooperation and agreements with other organizations • movement into new areas of activity • change of management • accidental changes • organizational death dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

10. Change in organizations • Innovation in organizations • John R. Kimberly: An innovation is • a departure from existing practices or technologies and represents • a significant departure from • the state of the art at the time • it appears. • Forms of innovation in organizations: • programmed innovation • non-programmed innovation • distressedinnovation (forced on the organization) dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

11. Change in organizations • Gerald Zaltman, Robert DuncanJonny Holbek • Characteristics of an innovation that make it more or less attractive and thus more or less likely to be utilized by an organization: • cost (the economic cost and the social cost) • return on investment • efficiency • risk and uncertainty • communicability (the clarity of the results) • compatibility (the more compatible the innovation is with the existing system, the more likely it is to be adopted; this implies that organizations are likely to be conservative in their innovations or technological policies, since what is compatible is unlikely to be radical) dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

12. Change in organizations • complexity (more complex innovations are less likely to be adopted; again this is a strain toward conservatism) • scientific status (if an innovation is perceived to have sound scientific status, it is more likely to be adopted) • perceived relative advantage • point of origin (innovations are more likely to be adopted if they originate within the organization) • terminality (this involves the timing of the innovation: in some cases an innovation is worthwhile only if it is adopted at a particular time or in particularsequence in the organization’s operations) • status quo ante (this refers to whether or not the decision to innovate is reversible) dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

13. commitment • interpersonal relations • publicness versus privateness (if an innovation is likely to affect a large part of the public, it will typically involve a larger decision-making body than an innovation that is limited to a private party; the larger decision-making body will tend to impede adoption) • gatekeepers (this refers to the number of steps of approval an innovation must pass through) • susceptibility to successive modification • gateway capacity (the adoption of one innovation or the development of a technological policy is likely to lead to the capacity to involve the organization in additional such actions) • gateway innovations (this refers to the fact that some innovations, even small changes in an organization’s structure, can pave the way for additional innovations) Change in organizations dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

14. Change in organizations • Innovating organization • Jerald Hage and Michael Aiken have found that the following organizational characteristics are related to high levels of innovation: • high complexity in the professional training of organizational members • high decentralization of power • low formalization • low stratification • low emphasis on volume (as opposed to quality) of production • low emphasis on efficiency in the cost of production or service • high level of job satisfaction on the part of organizational members dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat

15. Concluding remark We change, whether we like it or not. Ralph Waldo Emerson dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat