Introduction to Management

Chapter Summary

Change refers to any alteration of the status quo. Forces that cause organizational change include the nature of the workforce, technology, economic factors and competition. Change has always been a part of the managerial environment, and the most common characteristic of the change process has been people's resistance to it. The sources of individual resistance to change include habit, security, economic factors, fear of the unknown, and selective information processing. There are at least six ways in which managers can overcome the initial resistance to change: education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and co-optation, and explicit and implicit coercion.

Organizational change may be viewed as a process, since it usually involves several steps. According to Kurt Lewin, organizations should follow three steps to achieve acceptance to change: (1) unfreeze the status quo, (2) move, and (3) refreeze the new change.
Organization Development (OD) is a systematic, integrated and planned approach to improving enterprise effectiveness. It is a change effort that is planned, focused on an entire organization or a larger subsystem, aimed at enhancing organizational effectiveness, and based on planned interventions made with the help of a change agent, or a third party, who is well versed in behavioral sciences.

The OD process consists of three major steps: (1) diagnosis, (2) intervention (3) and evaluation. The chapter examined two major approaches to manager development: (1) on-the job training, (2) and internal and external training. The different on-the-job training techniques are: planned progression, job rotation, "assistant-to" positions, temporary promotions, committees and junior boards, and coaching. The different internal and external training techniques are: sensitivity training or T-groups, conference programs, university management programs, readings, business simulation, experimental exercises, and use of expert systems.

Finally, the chapter examined the nature of organizational conflict. Conflict may arise within the individual, between individuals, between the individual and the group, and between groups. The various sources of conflict include competition for scarce resources, time pressure, unreasonable standards/policies/rules/procedures, communication breakdowns, personality clashes, ambiguous or overlapping jurisdictions, and unrealized expectations. Conflict can be managed in different ways. The different conflict resolution techniques are: avoidance, problem solving, compromise, forcing and smoothing.

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