Slajd 1

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Change in organizations
dr. hab. Jerzy SupernatInstitute of
Administrative StudiesUniversity of Wroclaw
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Change in organizations
Learning organizations. The concept has been
offered mainly by Chris Argyris, Donald Schon i
Peter Senge.

• Peter Senge
• Learning organizations are organizations where
  
• 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
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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 is only 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, last
  indefinitely

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
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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
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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
• distressed innovation (forced on the
  organization)

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
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Change in organizations

• Gerald Zaltman, Robert Duncan Jonny 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
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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 particular sequence in the
  organizations operations)
• status quo ante (this refers to whether or not
  the decision to innovate is reversible)

dr. hab. Jerzy Supernat
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Change in organizations

• 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
  organizations structure, can pave the way for
  additional innovations)

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