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of Organizational Theory and Critique

of Organizational Theory and Critique

Innovationsand Change Management

Kipperset al. (2014)assertthat changeis the only constant and inevitable factor in organizationalmanagement. The article is a systematic review of articles to showthe process of change and the corresponding outcomes relative totheories of change. From the article, it is clear that studies havenot adequately looked at the role of theories in implementation ofchange this makes the theories irrelevant. Change management inpublic organizations is complex and should be pinned to theoreticalapplication. The lack of insights on processes involved results fromstudies focusing on predictable change events ignoring the changingprocesses, outcomes, contexts and contents of public sector. However,in the private segment of the business divide, change is good as itcomes with discomfort, discontent, and dissatisfaction but ultimatelyyields results (Kippers et al., 2014). This brings new perspectiveswhen it comes to change processes and attempts to fill the gap in thetransitioning theories of change to application.

Thearticle has done well to highlight the nature of change inorganizations. This emphasizes on the impact of change and itsrelated theories on core organizational standards. Questions shouldbe asked about this expectation would organizations in differentenvironments implement change in the same way, do the theories ofchange respond to varying organizational context, how can one relatethe outcomes of change and theories? The article seemstobe concerned about what organizations are not doing but ignoring thefact that theories of change could be obsolete in the global context.Today, companies respond to the rapid market changes and technologieswithin the framework of the conditions given (Beer, 2000). This factis also supported byVan der Voet (2014) who said that theconcept of “no free lunch” in economics in the production theoryargue that every input must be viable enough to produce the muchneeded output, human resource included. This means that theories haveso little to offer unless they are suited to changing times.

OrganizationalBehavior Change

Inhis article, “Leadorganizational change by creating dissatisfaction and realigning theorganization with new competitive realities”, Beer (2000) assertsthatbusiness world whether in the public or in the private sector, shouldalways review the organizational needs and requirements for them tobe at par with the rest of the world. To elaborate this point, hecites the example of rise and fall of Apple Inc. as the leading brandto show the dangers involved in mismanaging change in organizations.Apple Inc. grew because all the industry needed was technology,user-friendliness and new design and decline due to failure toaccommodate new competitive realities that emerged. Clearly, allentities and enterprises are competing at a global level and the teamof executives must mobilize energy for change by being dissatisfiedwith the status quo. The article shows that in the contemporaryworld, organizations are an open system influenced by externalfactors. Organizational design, the environment, strategic tasks,people selected and behavior of the leaders are key terms. Changes inthe environment and other variable disturb the equilibrium. Byaligning towards the equilibrium, a persistent culture will develop.

Beer(2000) intelligently acknowledges that the dissatisfaction andrestlessness in the industry may be the impetus for change and thatmany questions come up from the role of organizational behaviors.This argument is a contradiction of Kippers et al.’s (2014)assertion that a lack of application of theory is to blame for woesof most businesses. To Kippers et al. (2014), theory must inform theleadership processes and account for outcome. Beer (2000) is able toshow that the changing market conditions, uncertainty and innovationscontribute a great deal to success of organizations. The main area ofcritique is based on the use of private companies as success stories.The conditions of management in private firms are different fromthose in public companies. Realigning the company’s operations andfunctioning of the entity is one of the most delicate things businessexecutives and the board could engage. It is argued that the workerswould feel as if they are being subjected to torture and bullyingwith which the new systems come with (Beer, 2000). This is supportedby Denhardt, Denhardt, and Aristigueta (2002) who say that there ishigh likelihood of resistance of the systems rejecting the new ways.The article ignores the fact that while implementing change andinnovation, to achieve results, human beings are dehumanized if thisis done constantly. This has forced policy makers to go back to thedrawing board and review the policies in ways that seek to balanceorganizational cultures, new technologies and preferences ofemployees.

HumanBehavior Change

Inthe book “Managing Human Behavior in Public and Non-ProfitOrganizations,” Denhardt, Denhardt, and Aristigueta (2002) proposethat new requirements and demandsinthe workplaces has become of great interest to the employers today.The key words in the selected chapters include organizational change,managing conflicts, and resistance to change. The authors regardhuman capital as one of the most mutable asset any organization hasas it is the only communicating organ of the enterprise. They assertthat employees should be treated with dignity while introducing anyform of change for the commitment to service and to value additionfor the whole company to be realized. Most employees resist changebecause of the way it is fronted to them. The management should besensitive when introducing change at organizational and personallevel. Though the manager must respond in a firm manner, they shouldbe open to dialogue and be ready to concede space for employees’opinions.

Clearly,the employees are regarded as the internal stakeholders where theyare enthusiastic. There self-driving make organizations successful.This implies that the prosperity of a business is collective whilethe individual effort is recognized as it is as important as the oneoffered by the executive. The policy makers at organizational levelshould endeavor to ensure that human capital and workforce isproperly motivated and involved in decision making process of theorganization (Denhardt, Denhardt, and Aristigueta, 2002). Policiesabout change should be geared towards making decision making processfully inclusive through brainstorming and idea fronting. That wouldmake the employees more enthusiastic when they know that their ideasand opinions are considered for implementations.

LeadershipChange

Abusiness entity or a public organization should have a well carvedchange management strategy. In the article “TheEffectiveness and Specificity of Change Management in a PublicOrganization: Transformational Leadership and a BureaucraticOrganizational Structure”by Van Der Voet (2014) hinges change management strategies on thetype of leadership. Whereas transformative leader contributes toseamless change, direct supervision if implemented in this leadershipstyle is an impediment to planned processes of change. The studylooks at change management strategies in private sectors and seeks toextent such strategies to public sector. The context of publicorganization makes it a unique field of study in change managementwith many studies concluding that implementing change in publicsector is complex and difficult. The article aims to address theeffectiveness and specificity of change management in public sector.It is found that type of leadership plays an important role. Ideally, an enterprise should have a chief executive for a maximum ofeight years in the writer’s opinion as beyond that they would haverun out of ideas. Van Der Voet (2014) asserts that transformation isthe only way through which bureaucracy is simplified and lessfrustrations realized by those who would love to do business with anorganization. It is further felt that any executive that comes intoan organization and does not give better terms to all stakeholdersboth internal and external has no reason for being in leadership.

Thepublic policy is affected in the sense that bureaucratic leadershipand processes frustrates the new team leaders and should be done awaywith. There are hypothetical cartels in organizations which see andfeel change as a threat(Denhardt, Denhardt, &amp Aristigueta, 2012).This means that the buck is not just with managers employees alsobare responsibility in case leadership fails. The book agrees withBeer(2000) on the fact that conflictssuppress innovations and therefore organizations will be unable tomeet their full potential. The article correctly identifies the typeof leadership as the problem leading to failure of organizations tomeet its targets as this is validated by research and evidence onchange and leadership. It is hypothesized that the first one year ofany business executive and team leader is usually meant forrestructuring, storming and forming as there are radical changes (VanDer Voet, 2014). This fact implies that the changes are usually meantto help the executives to achieve the results they promised thebusiness owners when joining the company.

Inthe four articles, the general argument is that during implementationof change, there is high resistance where the old order fights back,but with time the business stabilizes with new structures in place.Theory has failed to address major dilemmas facing organizations inmanagement of change. Instead, organizations are influenced byinternal and external factors that are mutable. The arguments arecompelling as the writers identifies new technology, reviewed code ofconduct, and new job description and targets as crucial areas ofchange.

References

Beer,M. (2000). Lead organizational change by creating dissatisfaction andrealigning the

organizationwith new competitive realities. Handbookof principles of organizational

behavior,370-386.

Denhardt,R. B., Denhardt, J. V., &amp Aristigueta, M. P. (2012). Managinghuman behavior in

publicand nonprofit organizations.Sage Publications.

Kuipers,B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., &amp Vander Voet, J. (2014). The

managementof change in public organizations: A literature review. Public

Administration,92(1),1-20.

Vander Voet, J. (2014). The effectiveness and specificity of changemanagement in a public

organization:Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizationalstructure.

EuropeanManagement Journal,32(3),373-382.

of Organizational Theory and Critique

of Organizational Theory and Critique

Dynamicsof teams

Thearticle “What Google learned from its Quest to build the perfectTeam,” Duhigg is an intelligible argument about the role ofteamwork in running multinationals. Duhiggin shows that psychologicalsafety, a key variable of successful teams, comes when team normschange. The team is stronger and diminishes the weaknesses inindividuals. Rozovzky and her friends were keen to explore groupnorms given that it was dominant in psychological studies aboutteams. Creating and working with team is valuable to any organizationand hinges on the established traditions and management style. Fromthe reading, there are two approaches to teamwork encouragingarguments and brainstorming and coming to consensus to avoidconflicts. These depend upon the individual and group norms.Particularly, the author argues that in global commerce, employeeperformance optimization is not enough the bulk of work isteam-based.

Asmuch as Duhigg’s article is not peer-reviewed, he presents anintelligible argument and creates useful hypotheses. For instance,the role of norms in group dynamic cannot be negated. To begin, inbetter teams, the article show that speaking is almost in the sameproportion. There are groups that are dominated by members whileothers see power shifting from a team member to another. Also, betterteams had high average social sensitivity. This one hints at the roleof emotional intelligence in team work. These aspects lead topsychological safety, a shared believe held by members of a team thatthey are safe. In such teams, there is acceptance, mutual trust andrespect making members comfortable. The only weakness of the articleis the inadequate support from other studies. As much as much of thediscussion resonates with findings from peer-reviewed articles, itcannot be validated.

Chapters14 to 11 of Denhardt, Maria and Aristigueta (2012) are about ManagingHuman Behavior and change. The authors argue that human behavior isrelative and not absolute as it is not entirely defined in a certainstructured way. They argue that employees seeking to be moreefficient find ways to enhance productivity in the most effectivemanner and at minimum cost(Denhardt, Maria and Aristigueta, 2012).In such doings, the workers have to be innovative and must overcomeconflicting situations. Conflicts arise from the interpersonalrelationship or differences in ideologies. Further, for any unit ofservice delivery or production to survive in the market it operates,conflicts are inevitable and all nature of procedures are followed toget the output, changes and improvements therein are imminent. Italso discuss on the various strategies of managing conflicts inorganizations.

Thebook is very informative and grounded in research but ignores thediscussion of how to channel conflict to benefit the organizations.Whenever there exist conflicting relationships in the workingenvironment, there comes serious discussions, arguments, dissentingviews, different ideas, diverse preferences and tastes, values, andpersonal styles of doing things. Out of these, what ends upapparently coming out is creativity on how to balance all thesediverse views, feelings, and takes so that all can benefit by beingpart of the team. However, the process of achieving this is notclearly stated. Conflict and innovation in teams are born out of sucha series of issues coming up in the workplaces where team members arein conflict but have to stay together as a team to foster a commongoal of delivering their mandate as one. This can either built ordamage the organization depending on how it is handled. Conflicts canbe channeled to be constructive. Clearly, the chapters have handledthe topic of change well and the themes are there for taking.

Innovation

ManagingBehavior and Change

DeDreu’s article “When too little or too much hurts: Evidence for acurvilinear relationship between task conflict and innovation inteams” argues that whentoo much or too little hurts, innovation takes center stage and ismore efficient when conflict is moderate, and not too high or toolow. At all times, when there is cooperation in an organization,brainstorming of ideas comes into play. Thus, creativity isdemonstrated which culminates into the question of how the ideasbrought out could be applied in the workplace.

Innovationis the deliberate introduction of an application as a new tool forwork in a role, function, group, and an organization of ideas or inprocesses, procedures, and products (De Dreu, 2006). The author doesnot appreciate that the application is designed or made in a mannerpeculiar to the benefit accrued to the use. It is clear thatinnovation is distinct from creativity but intricate in nature sinceit is the application of creativity (De Dreu, 2006). However, theissue of change brings in a new component of operation in anorganization which ensures that full employment of resources isrealized. It is not necessarily true that when full employment isachieved, efficiency and costing elements of the supply side comeinto play. Wastage of resources as referred to pilferage is takencare of by innovation. The article fails to show how the newapplication or change in this regard has to be relevant to the lineof operation.

Communicationapproaches

Inthe article &quotExploring Public Sector Communication Performance,&quotit is noted that whenever there is a blockage in the communicationline within the organization, serious problems are likely to arisewhich would have been solved (Pandey and Garnett, 2006). Thechallenge in communication brings out poor performance which isdubbed &quotperformance predicament&quot (Pandey and Garnett,2006). Performance predicament predicates a severe crisis within anorganization which should be fixed with urgency and carefully, so asto ensure that in the future, the crisis does not occur anymore. Thebenefits of investing in the most effective communication method andhaving it operational are outweighed by the expenses of the saidinvestment(Denhardt., Denhardt, Aristigueta 2012).However, without that investment, the organization would be in chaossince all the parties operating there would be doing what deems bestfor them thus plunging the enterprise into massive losses.

Effectivecommunication should give clear goals of the business entity, wellexplained and how they are to be achieved (Pandey and Garnett, 2006).It should further provide timelines and deadlines for certain tasksto begin and the expected dates of completion such that delays areneither realized nor anticipated (Pandey and Garnett, 2006). Thearticle ignores the fact that all that happens internally and themode of internal communication is installed within the company andoperated by the team members. Pandey and Garnet (2006) do not fullyaccount for how external communication should be well taken care ofsuch that whatever is communicated to the stakeholders is suitablysieved and well put so as not to hurt the intended audience. The goalof the enterprise, the size, and the culture should be wellcommunicated in a manner that does not disclose secrets of theorganization but only the most crucial and that markets the course ofthe enterprise is released to the members of the public. Also, theinternal communication should be seamless and without fear, as shouldbe happening both upwards and downwards across all the cadres withinthe entity. This is only possible in an ideal situation and thearticles ignore other related factors.

Itis hypothesized that goal clarity has a positive correlation tocommunication performance (Pandey and Garnett, 2006). When thetargets are set, and all team members are made aware of where theywant to be at the end of a given period, they will work together as ateam to achieve the goal. If the goal is not clear to the teammembers or not communicated at all, that becomes the recipe for thechaotic end of the period when it is realized that it would not havebeen possible to attain the set goal.

Conclusion

Conflictand innovation in organizations should not be allowed to be part ofthe negative organizational culture as it could hurt the performanceof the company but could be managed by in a way that they yieldoptimum results. Past that, the code of conduct should be followed asit would regulate arguments and personal feelings about an issueamong teams working together. On matters communication performance,the management of the corporate bodies should understand that thesector is as important as any other in the process of making profitsfor the firm. Internal and external stakeholders should be treatedwith the same respect.

References

DeDreu, C. K. (2006). When too little or too much hurts: Evidence for acurvilinear relationship

betweentask conflict and innovation in teams. Journalof management,32(1),83-107.

Duhigg,&nbspC.(2016, February 25). What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build thePerfect Team New research reveals surprising truths about why somework groups thrive and others falter.&nbspTheNew York Times Magazin.Retrieved fromhttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html?_r=2

Pandey,S. K., &amp Garnett, J. L. (2006). Exploring public sectorcommunication performance:

Testinga model and drawing implications. PublicAdministration Review,66(1),37-51.

Denhardt.R., Janet V. Denhardt, Maria P. Aristigueta . (2012) ManagingHuman Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations.Thousand Oks, Calif: Sage.