LO 16-1 Compare and contrast various conceptualizations of the change process.

The DADA syndrome experienced by individuals faced with unwanted change consists of four stages: denial, anger, depres­sion, and acceptance. Lewin’s basic change model is a three-stage model of planned change that explains how to initiate, manage, and stabilize the change process by unfreezing, trans­forming, and refreezing. Lewin’s force field analysis model is a decision-making technique that helps assess the reasons for and against making certain changes.

LO 16-2 Identify the forces for change in organizations.

For organizations to succeed they need to adapt to external forces, or outside influences such as customers’ demographic characteristics, technological advancements, customer and market changes, and social and political pressures, and internal forces, or inside influences such as management changes, orga­nizational restructuring, and intrapreneurship.

LO 16-3 Describe where resistance to change comes from and how to reduce it.

Some individual sources of resistance to change are fear of the unknown, insecurity, and habit. Organizational sources include structural inertia, limited focus of change, group inertia, threat to expertise, and threat to established power relationships.

One of the most common ways to address resistance to change is education and communication before the change takes place. Other methods include participation, negotiation, manipulation, and coercion.

LO 16-4 Describe the concept of organizational development in organizations.

Organizational development (OD) is a planned system that uses behavioral science knowledge to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization. OD researchers tend to follow three basic steps in an OD model: diagnosis, interventions, and progress monitoring.

LO 16-5 Identify types of OD change interventions.

Structural intervention is carried out in three different ways: changing rewards systems; changing the culture; and reor­ganizing the structure itself. Task-technology interventions restructure tasks, redesign roles, or reconfigure sociotechnical systems. Sociotechnical systems redesign improves the interac­tion between human behavior and technical systems. The con­cept of the sociotechnical system was established to improve the relationship between people and machines to increase orga­nizational effectiveness and efficiency.

Quality of worklife (QWL) interventions focus on employee sat­isfaction with pay, compensation, job security, responsibilities, performance, work/life balance, health, and career opportuni­ties. Finally, organizations can use different types of people-fo­cused interventions during times of change.