Changing Nature of Organizations

A change is a shift in some condition or situation from its present state to a new and different state. A change can range from minor shifts in procedures or technology to a revolutionary shift in roles within a society.  The word “change” is often used to refer both to a shift that occurs in the organization’s external environment, as well as the changes that occur inside of the organization in response to shifts in its external environment. In this paper, the term, environmental change, will refer to external shifts and the word organizational change will refer to the internal shifts made by an organization as it responds to external shifts. Organizations evolve and come to be seen as dynamic, coping systems, the concept of how they change and methods by which they manage change have continued to be refined. Managing a process of change in an organization can be a highly complex task and is often essential for effective organizational development (OD). Imagine you went to sleep and woke up to a work day in 1960. How different is your work life today, compared to what it was 40 years ago? Clearly, there would not be a Starbucks on every corner or a cell phone in every pocket but what else has changed and why? In today's world, the structure, content, and process of work have changed. Work is now more cognitively complex, more team-based and collaborative, more dependent on social skills, more dependent on technological competence, more time pressured, more mobile and less dependent on geography. In today's world, you will also be working for an organization that is likely to be very different due to competitive pressures and technological breakthroughs. Organizations today are leaner and more agile, more focused on identifying value from the customer perspective, more tuned to dynamic competitive requirements and strategy, less hierarchical in structure and decision authority, less likely to provide lifelong careers and job security, continually reorganizing to maintain or gain competitive advantage. In this paper I would like to discuss various key drivers, dynamics, technological and critical aspects of change in organizations.