Reference no: EM133092421

During the last decade, increasing dissatisfaction with traditional organizational development (OD) has surfaced (Jelinek & Litterer, 1988). In his distinguished speaker address to the Academy of Management 6 years ago, Robert E. Quinn (1993) Editor's Note: The publication of this article on " . . . The Emergence of a New Profession" reflects UBS's commitment to providing a forum for reporting and examining innovative developments in applied behavioral science. The views expressed in the article are those of the authors. On some matters they do, and on others, they do not, reflect points of view held by members of the JABS Editorial Board. The editor welcomes thoughtfully prepared comments about this article if readers are stimulated to write about their reactions. If the journal receives a number of such responses, we shall publish some or all (depending on the number and quality) in a subsequent volume and will provide the original authors with an opportunity to respond to them. concluded that OD has become irrelevant. The demand for better ways of managing change is enormously high, but Quinn argued that the field is invisible to the majority of executives, that OD practitioners do not understand business, that there is little growth in OD departments, and that OD has failed to generate any interest among MBA students. He described a vision for a new profession based on the idea of "the legitimate change agent"-a person who should understand both the world of business and the world of human relationships. We would argue, however, that there is no need for creating a new profession: The legitimate change agent is already here. Whereas Quinn (1993) talked about a vision for a new profession, today it is meaningful to speak about the emergence of a new profession. OD principles and techniques are experiencing a renaissance, thanks to the growth of the field of change management, which is dedicated to tackling the kind of large-scale change that Quinn described. We observe that the major consulting firms- including those that in the past dealt exclusively with strategy or operations-now have separate divisions or competency groups specializing in change management; many of these have published books on the topic. Examples include "Real Change Agents" from McKinsey & Co. (Katzenbach & Becker, 1996), "Accelerating Change" from Arthur D. Little (Maira & Scott-Morgan, 1997), and "Transforming the Enterprise" from Gemini Consulting (Gouillart & Kelly, 1995). In terms of scale, Firm A is the leading firm, with approximately 5,000 professionals in its change management competency group and 53,000 consultants in total (see Table 1).1 The consulting firms that we spoke with indicated that they expected further growth in the number of change management consultants. We also note a growing number of universities with research units dedicated to the study of organizational change. Examples include the Australian Graduate School of Management and Warwick and Sheffield universities in the United Kingdom. Moreover, we observe that the importance of the human side of business change plays a central part in the rhetoric employed by high-profile top managers. For example, the CEO of a major U.S. corporation stated, "the 90s are the decade when soft becomes hard. Being able to manage the unpredictable human side becomes a significant differentiator between winners and losers." In other words, quite in contrast to Quinn's (1993) observations regarding OD, we find an area of tremendous growth with high visibility to top managers. But to what extent does change management differ from OD? Does the emergence of change management signal a shift to a new paradigm for effecting organizational change? It should be emphasized at the outset that comparisons of this type are not straightforward. The field of OD has evolved over time since its beginnings in the 1930s. Even today, many different conceptions of OD exist in the literature. In the business world, many change efforts have been casually labeled "OD" even though they might have borne little resemblance to the type of programs prescribed in the literature. Nevertheless, we believe that there is sufficient commonality to make the comparison possible. A review of the literature suggests four key dimensions to OD. First, most authors define OD as planned interventions aimed at increasing organizational effectiveness (Beckhard,1969; French & Bell, 1990). Second, OD relies heavily on concepts and research findings from the behavioral sciences, primarily from psychology (French & Bell, 1990). Third, OD is a long-term and continuous effort (French & Bell, 1990). Fourth, OD is largely focused on human relations variables (such as culture and climate, communication, leadership styles, and job satisfaction). Typical intervention strategies have been focused on the micro-level and include process consultation, team building, survey feedback, and work restructuring (French & Bell, 1990). Variations exist both in terms of theory and practice of OD (Dalin & Rust, 1983). For example, some OD consultants have focused on only one of these intervention strategies, whereas others have used different strategies in different phases of a change effort. Early work treated OD in a "humanistic" manner as a social technology that should be governed by employees (e.g., Walton & Warwick, 1973); other authors (e.g., Beckhard, 1969) emphasized that OD should be managed from the top. In some cases, the human process focus has been complemented with interventions aimed at changing structure and work processes, such as socio-technical design principles (e.g., Pava, 1986). The remainder of this article is divided into two sections. In the first section, we contrast OD as defined above with change management as defined by major consulting firms. We will explore the possibility that change management is a new and distinct field rather than an extension of OD. In particular, we will focus on three key areas of difference: (a) the underlying theory and the analytical frameworks being used, (b) the role of the change agent or the interventionist, and (c) the intervention strategies that are employed. In the second section, we describe two major challenges associated with implementing large-scale change: integration (i.e., creating congruence between strategic, OD, and technological/business process perspectives) and navigation (the temporal management of the "change journey" as it unfolds over time). Finally, we mention the development of models and tools that are intended to assist companies in integration and navigation. The analysis draws on our previous experience with a large consulting firm, which was one of the first to establish a separate change management practice. We have participated as consultants in a number of large-scale change programs; we also have observed how the firm is developing analytical tools and working approaches to assist corporations in implementing strategic change. Although we have worked with only one consulting firm, we have interacted with consultants from practically all major consulting firms in our current role as academics and executive teachers. We also conducted a telephone survey and reviewed published material about the change management activities of other leading consulting firms.

THEORY AND ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

In terms of its scope, the term change management is currently used in a manner that encompasses theory and intervention strategies associated with what is known in the academic literature as OD, human resource management (HRM), project management, and strategic change. One of the firms in our survey defined its change management activities in the following way:2 Change Management is the discipline that ensures organizations and employees meet new and existing performance targets rapidly and effectively. We do this by helping clients create the right management disciplines and processes, organization structures, culture, competencies, and capability for superior human performance so that change goals are achieved and sustained. At its essence, Change Management is based on two concepts: That human performance is at the core of business performance; therefore we help clients build human performance in their organizations. That it's possible to optimize an organization's revenue and profit delivery during change; therefore we help clients determine ways to manage the change process effectively to ensure this occurs. In this definition, change management is clearly broader than OD in that it includes a wide range of intervention strategies that may enhance human performance directly or indirectly, including process consultation, work restructuring, strategic HRM planning, and the design or development of information technology (IT) solutions (e.g., user interface design). A crucial feature of change management is that it is seen as only one component of a larger organizational change effort, the other components being strategy, business processes, and technology. The main objective is often to integrate these components, for example, by creating a higher degree of congruence between strategic objectives and human resource policy (cf. Nadler, 1988) or by building a new IT infrastructure to support cross-functional teams (cf. Davenport, 1993). An important part of the knowledge base of change management is the academic research on strategic change. Pettigrew and Whipp (1993) and Kanter, Stein, and Jick (1992) have provided theoretical frameworks with their studies of major change over time.3 In line with practitioner models of holistic change, these studies emphasize that moving from an old state to one adapted to the future environment often requires comprehensive change that involves many components, including human behavior, culture, organizational structure, work processes, and IT/infrastructure. The focus on individual change as a part of wider strategic and corporate-level change is something that until recently received scant attention in OD theory. The same can be said about the enabling role of IT. Well-known OD theories such as those of Argyris, Schein, and Senge still focus on individual skills and attitudes with little regard for the role of structure and systems (cf. Edmondson, 1996). Katz and Kahn (1966) stated more than 30 years ago, "the major error in dealing with problems of organizational change, both at the practical and theoretical level, is to disregard the systemic properties of the organization and to confuse individual change with modification in organizational variables" (p. 390). This is not to say that the aforementioned theorists are totally unaware of these problems. Argyris (1970, p. 337) pointed out that the success of process consultation was dependent on follow-up changes in organizational structure and even technology. However, it is only recently that relevant analytical frameworks have emerged and that a profession has evolved that is dedicated to implementing change by interventions aimed simultaneously at multiple components of the organization.

THE ROLE OF THE INTERVENTIONIST

The classic view of the OD practitioner is the human process consultant or "facilitator." The facilitator is a neutral third party who, according to classic OD, should not get involved in the substantive content or provide specific recommendations (French & Bell, 1990). Picture an Argyris intervening to alter managers' "defensive routines," a Senge trying to draw "mental models," or a Schein collecting "clinical insights" about "tacit assumptions in the culture" (Edmondson, 1996). The theories of Senge, Argyris, and Schein have informed change management and continue to be used by its professionals, yet the facilitator model does not correspond very well to the role of a change management professional. The most important difference is that change management consultants work in teams. These teams consist of people with complementary skills in such areas as strategy formulation, IT or business process analysis, and organization design and development. Unfortunately, whereas the role of the facilitator is well understood and extensively documented thanks to the research of people like Lewin, Argyris, Senge, and Schein, there is surprisingly little research on how teams of change management consultants interact with managers overtime during large-scale organizational change projects. One typical view in OD textbooks (e.g., French & Bell, 1990) is that consultants act as "outside experts" and therefore often fail to gain sufficient commitment for their recommendations. Although this might still be a potential risk with some strategy consultants, this view of the consultant role is essentially an outdated one. Practically all major consulting firms now seek long-term partnerships with their clients, and most of the time, the teams consist of a combination of client managers and consultants. Client commitment and ownership are built through a joint process of diagnosis, planning, and implementation. It is often impossible to single out specific reports as being the "consultant reports," because more often than not they express the consensus of all members in a team consisting of both consultants and client managers. In this manner, change management essentially blends human process consultation with technical interventions aimed at changing systems and structures.

Question

1. What is the objective in organization development and change management in this article?

2. Explain a summary of what are you understand in this article?

3. Give 5 suggestions on how to settle problems in this article?

4. Explain the 5 advantages and disadvantages of this article

5. Explain what do you understand about organization development and change management in this article?