Organizational Change

The dynamic nature of the external environment in which today's organizations operate necessities a proactive approach to change. Change is inevitable in the business world. The survival of organizations depends on their adaptability. It becomes necessary for them to be able to predict change and be prepared for it. Organizational change programs require a great deal of planning before implementation. People's reluctance to change their style of working or to learn a new method of performing tasks makes them oppose change. It thus becomes imperative for managers to undertake comprehensive change-related programs in organizations to counter the resistance of employees.

Organizational change implies a change in the employees' manner of working and behavior. The change may sometimes increase the workload of employees drastically and put undue pressure on them, leading to stress. Under severe stress, performance of employees' declines and this in turn affects performance of the organization.

Change is concerned with changing status quo or making things different. The changes that occur in organizations suddenly without any significant effort or involvement on the part of the employees or management are called unplanned changes. On the other hand, when organizations initiate change activities deliberately and consciously in order to accomplish certain organizational goals, it is known as planned change or managed change. The type of change that is being discussed as part of this paper is a planned or managed change as the organization is planning a major change initiative which involves an acquisition of another organization and a major restructure. There are two basic goals of any such planned change of an organization. They are:

To enhance the ability of organization to adapt themselves to the changes in the external environment: For example, if competitors introduce innovative products, organizations may respond by initiating a competing project. This initiation of a competing project may be supported by other activities like encouraging employees to think creatively and introducing team culture and self-managed teams to face tough competition. All these are deliberate activities undertaken by organizations to adapt to new changes in the environment.

To change the behavior of employees: Sometimes organizations may have to take up change activities aimed at changing attitudes or behavior. For instance, when

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