Model
Model
Model
Abstract
A good planning and genuine implementation of change is something that every organisation must do to remain
competitive in the ever dynamic business environment. Unarguably, the impact of environmental dynamism
accounts for most of the major cause of organisational change and development, which may either be
spontaneous or is being influenced by a radical leader in his quest for a better business process solutions in
reaction to a competitors action.This paper therefore, discusses organisational change and development in its
simplest form by looking at the major causes of change, change agents, and the different approaches of change
management. Incidentally, it has been discovered from the review of extant literature that rather than being a
concept of its own, organisational development is one of the major approaches to managing organisational
change. Therefore, this paper proposes that organisational development as a much broader concept and not just
as one of the approaches to managing change and explore it various interventions mechanism, with their relative
organisational behaviour implication.
Keywords: change, development, external environment, internal environment, organisation
1.0. Introduction
It is symbiotically imperative that for one to fully understand the importance of the construct of organisational
change and development there is a need to appreciate what an organisation is in terms of its characteristics as an
open system. It is indeed the good knowledge and grasps of the characteristics that will pave the way for a better
analysis and understanding of organisational change and development, with special emphasis on strategies for
managing organisational change. Marshak (2008) made some significant contribution to the literature on
organisational change and development in his paper on the “hidden barriers to organisational change.” Bushe
and Marshak (2009) did a great write up in “Revisioning organisation development: Diagnostic and dialogic
premises and patterns of practice”. Buchanan, and Dawson, (2007) wrote on “discourse and audience:
organisational change as multi‐story process”. Brown and Humphreys (2003) wrote on “epic and tragic tales:
Making sense of change.” This study will review the literature to better understand the construct of
organisational change and by extension, development. Going by the way economists analyze the concept of
economic growth and development, one would have assumed that the concept of organisational development
should be a broader concept than organisational change. To the economist, economic growth is an increase in the
gross domestic product of a country over a period of time, while economic development is defined as economic
growth plus change. In other words, an economy may be growing but cannot be said to be developed. In the
same line of thinking, the author assumes that organisational change is a subset of organisational development.
This means that for one to talk about organisational development, he must of necessity, talk about organisational
change. According to Bushe organisational development is not “about change”, but about creating great
organisations (as cited Bushe & Marshak, 2009). Under these specific conditions organisational development is
very good at helping leaders create change while developing great organisations. However, “there is no one
viable, generalised model of a great organisation because any solution to a problem of organising inevitably
creates another problem” (Bushe, 2017, p. 212). This study will review the extent literature to identify the
position of the two concepts: organisational change and organisational development. But before then we will
look at what an organisation is.
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organisational change” (Cummings, Bridgman, & Brown, 2015, p. 43). His model is based on premises that
before introducing a change into an organisation, the individuals in the organisation must be prepared for the
change, there must be motivated to change and there must be an established and integrated mechanism for
bringing about the change in behaviours of all the organisational members (Chand, 2015).
Unfreezing the status quo: This involves recognizing the need for a change and improvement (Mullins,
2007). According to Marquis and Huston, “during this stage change agents and all those involved in leading the
process of change source for information required to solve the identified problem or lapses” (as cited in Mitchell,
2013, p. 9). This step is very important because it requires that leaders and managers should educate and
motivate their subordinate so that they can buy the idea of change (Change Management Coach, 2015, p. 1). It is
very important to state at this point that any change process initiative involves two divergent types of forces. It is
therefore necessary at this stage to identify the driving force of the change as well as the restraining forces of
change which is alternatively referred to as the benefits and costs of the change implementations (Change
Management Coach, 2015, p. 1).
Movement to a desired position: This involves the development of new behaviour and attitudes and the
execution of the change program (Mullins, 2007). This is a very critical stage and according to Change
Management Coach (2015), the following must be done to ensure a successful movement. “You must provide
continuous education on the need for the change that is taking place, you must provide extensive support to staff
especially those that are resistant, and you must maintain an undiluted flow of communication with your
subordinate regarding the change process, especially the benefits to be derived” (Change Management Coach,
2015).
Refreezing: This means “stabilizing a change intervention by striking a balance between the driving forces
of change and the restraining forces through policies, procedures, structures and cultural norms (Robbins, &
Judge, 2007, p. 659). For this stage to be successful, two things must be noted here: “The employees must not
be rushed, therefore, they must be given ample time to adapt to the new change, and there is need to emphasize
the benefits of the change initiative” (Change Management Coach, 2015. p. 2).
One of the criticisms of the Lewin model is that it is broad and rather too abstract (Eldrod II, &Tippett,
2002). Furthermore, Lewin’s model assumed that organisations operate in a stable state, which to a great extent,
is not true. Moreso, Kurt Lewin model appears to be only relevant for managing small-scale change projects, and
did not take into cognizance the concept of viewing an organisational as a political system (Burnes, 2004. Still
on small or incremental change, Sorensen (2002) argues that organisations with strong cultures are very good
when it comes to incremental changes, but they do not do well when it comes to radical changes (as cited in
Robbins & Judge, 2007). Furthermore, Child (2005) argues that “Lenin’s postulations appear to be too rigid and
his thinking of ‘refreezing’ cannot be applied in today’s complex and dynamic world that requires more of
fluidity than rigidity” (p. 293). However, several other authors like McAleese, Creed and Zutshi (2013), have
countered some of those criticisms. For instance, the above authors argue that “there has been an unparallel
adaptation of Lewin’s theoretical heritage is sufficiently robust to withstand the criticisms of the refreeze stage”
(McAleese, Creed, & Zutshi, 2013, p. 104).
1.4.2 Kotter 8- Steps Change Model
Kotter and Cohen (2002) investigated the various issues and impediments that people encounter in the course of
initiating organisational changes, and came to a logical conclusion that a change initiative can only be successful
when individuals are able to change their cognitions and behaviour by sincerely talking to their hearts. It was on
the basis of the above shortcomings that Kotter suggested the following eight steps plan for implementing
organisational change. The idea behind his insight is that when there is a vision for the change process, there will
be a reduction in the rate of errors; this will lead altogether to an increase in the rate of success (Kotter, 2014).
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used to solve a specific organisational identified problem. Action research requires the “active involvement of
the organisational change agent so as to identify, promote and evaluate the issues at hand and recommend
practical solutions as the case may be” (Fellows & Liu, 2003, p. 21). Generally, action research can be divided
into three categories (Collis, & Hussey, 2003).
Classical action research views research as a way of testing tentative statement in a real world environment.
Contemporary action research focuses on logical ideas of both individuals and group when undertaking research
(Collis, & Hussey, 2003). Critical action research is a specific type of action research that adopts a deep-rooted
approach with the objective of improvement performance (Collis, & Hussey, 2003). The ability of participants to
actually perceive the need for a change and be willing to collaborate in the process of change is indeed one of the
major characteristics of action research (Meyer, 2000). When this is done, all stakeholders will perceive the
change process and the outcome of the process to be meaningful, reliable and actionable. Just like a normal
scientific research process, action research has five basic logical steps (Terrance, 2000, p. 9).
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McLean (2010) views organisation development as “any process or activity, based on the behavioural
sciences, that, either initially or over the long term, has the potential to develop in an organisational setting
enhanced knowledge, expertise, productivity, satisfaction, income, interpersonal relationships, and other desired
outcomes, whether for personal or group/team gain, or for the benefit of an organisation, community, nation,
region, or, ultimately, the whole of humanity” ( p. 9).
It is an “applied behavioural science approach to planned changes and development of an organisation
because the emphasis on OD is more on improving organisation capabilities rather than the actual organisational
processes and it is about large scale organisational change that is based on people’s perception and behaviour”
(Mullins, 2007, p. 720).
Shvindina (2016) views organisational development as consistent with organisational transformations,
which means the accumulation of organisational capabilities to solve organisational problem and to react to
external challenges. Organisational development is not about restructuring or a reducing organisational layer,
that is why Church defines OD by first outlining what he considers not being OD for instance, downsizing and
process consolidation are not part of OD. He thereafter defines OD as a systematic organisational change (as
cited in Maier, Leban, & Orr-Alfeo, 2001). The idea here is that it is not every change that can be classified as
organisational development.
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stage. Participants are encouraged to form groups or categories for the purpose of creating special projects.
Destiny/Delivery stage: This stage was initially called delivery stage, until Cooperrider changed it to destiny
when he discovered that delivery seem to be associated with traditional management change approach. This has
brought about a lot of criticism from appreciative inquiry researchers (as cited in Bushe, 2011).
According to Obiewe (2016) all organisation development interventions or strategies that are rooted in the
engineering, industrial psychology and in the applied fields of sociology and humanities are referred to as socio-
techo structural interventions. The following fall under the socio-structural interventions: Job enlargement; Job
enrichment; Structural design; Downsizing; Re-engineering; Total quality management, and Work design. The
purpose of which is to (1) increase efficiency in work content, enhance task completion method, and building a
mutual relationship among workers, and (2) reduce operational costs by replacing outdated materials and
equipment.
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