Planned Organizn Chang Ils 158

Garth N Jones

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136254079
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

This is Volume IX of eighteen in a series on the Sociology of Work and Organisation. First published in 1968, this is a study of change dynamics and represents the author's latest research and thinking on change.

PART ONE

The Setting of the Study

Change is not something unique to human experience. The speed of and the need for change in contemporary society, however, is a unique social phenomenon. Nevertheless, change within both its planned and natural forms is a neglected subject in the scholarship of social science. Only recently have scholars, few in number, devoted attention to learning how to plan and implement changes in organizations with the objective of the smallest amount of social pain and disorganization. This study fits within the work of these scholars.

I

INTRODUCTION

Nature, Scope and Objectives

Rationale for the Study

The Conceptual Design and Methodology

The Conceptual Design: Leading Fundamentals and Elements

The Methodology

Overview of the Empirical Data

Source of the Case Studies

The Statistical Data

Perceivers of the Change

Contents of the Study

I

Introduction

Societies the world over are caught in a situation that demands wholesale changes in their organizational structures and social dynamics in order to deal with the present complex technological, economic, and political relationships. On this subject one outstanding scholar has written that: ‘If the human race is to survive it will have to change its way of thinking more in the next 25 years than it has done in the last 25,000 years’.¹

While this is seemingly the case, little social science knowledge and technology is available to plan, initiate, and manage organizational change. Nevertheless, organizational change is an inevitable and universal phenomenon, a characteristic of every human situation. On the other hand, change rarely occurs in a smooth and balanced manner. Resistance is commonplace, with pain and social disorganization generally characterizing the social process.

As a reaction to this situation, there has emerged the notion that change can be effected, structured, coordinated, and controlled in a planned and systematic way.² Change need not be a haphazard occurrence with its frequent problems of dysfunctionalism. Organizational setting can be changed by the skillful employment of social science knowledge and technology in that they become more effective in utilizing their energies and resources for goal attainment.³

Within these terms ‘social science becomes operational’.⁴ The social scientist not only observes, records, and interprets social phenomena (a passive onlooker), but he also develops and applies theories of social action to influence society (an active social participator). The positive social action concepts of Marx, Mannheim, and Myrdal win out over the pessimistic ones of Freud, Weber, and Sumner.⁵ The social scientist becomes a true professional. He is capable of performing a useful, reliable and high level service for the benefit of society.

Nature, Scope and Objectives⁶

The study attempts to develop a broad model or concept which is based largely upon empirical evidence and which operationalizes social science knowledge and technology for the purpose of implementing planned changes in the type of social entities commonly designated ‘organizations’. In simple analytical terms, two general types of organizations are treated. The first is formal-type organization which is defined as a social unit deliberately constructed and reconstructed to seek specific goals. Such types of organizations are corporations, armies, schools, hospitals, and government bureaux.

The other is community-type organization which is a form of social organization. Included here are only communities which cover somewhat definable geographical areas.⁷

Organization as a concept is treated as an open and dynamic social system. By this is meant that there is a continuing process of input, transformation, and output accomplished by the means of some type of social entity. The totality of this activity and the social structure is called an organizational system or simply organization.⁸

Organizational input includes people, materials, and energy in relationship to time and space. Organizational output takes typically the form of goods and services, and, in some instances, psychological benefit (satisfaction) to the members of the organization. Openness of the organization means that it is dependent upon its environment for the absorption of its products and services and for the transformation process and the maintenance of the organization.⁹ The boundaries of the organizational system are determined by the relationships and patterns of behavior which carry out the continuing cycles of input-transformation-output.¹⁰

Building further, the approach used in this study attempts to conceptualize the many parts, activities, relationships, and interactions of an organization as woven into some complex ‘whole’.¹¹ In the words of one scholar, this approach:

… does not concern itself particularly with how to accomplish a specific objective, but instead concerns itself with identifying the basic factors and the interrelations between them necessary for any task or goal to be accomplished.¹²

Emphasis is, therefore, centered upon the system of interrelationships of the parts and not on the component parts of an organization. The parts of the system that appear to be of strategic importance are the individual, the formal and informal structures, the status and role patterns, and the environment of organizational dynamics. These are woven into the configuration called the organizational system.¹³

The systems approach lends itself to asking a number of pertinent questions on change in organizations such as: (1) What are the strategic parts in the system? (2) What is the nature of their mutual dependency? (3) What are the main processes in the system which link together the parts and facilitate their adjustments? (4) How are higher and/or lower order systems linked together? (5) What are the power and communication centers and patterns? (6) What are the goals of the organizational system(s)?

Change is a somewhat self-explanatory term and requires at this time no extended elaboration. Change relates to movement from one state of organizational affairs to another state.

In several ways the most difficult word of the title of this study is ‘planned’. A number of ideational terms have been used in the subject of applied social science. Two common ones are planned and managed. While these two terms are frequently used interchangeably, there is a significant difference in meanings.

The word ‘planned’ means to devise or project a course of action. The important feature is that a plan can take place only before the inception of the social action. A plan must include a goal or goals which are formulated against a sound understanding of the nature of the environment and of the variables operating therein.

This is an unusual situation for administrative action. Administrators are seldom in a position to initiate a program from its inception, nor do they work with a sound or full understanding of the factors found in their organizations. They operate within what may be termed an imperfect knowledge of the organizational situation.¹⁴

However, there are situations which do measure up to the dimensions of planned activity. For example, the Mormon communities in the Far West of the United States were planned and laid out from their inception.¹⁵ The same is true for many large suburban communities developed since World War II. Many industrial complexes also meet the basic requirements set forth here.¹⁶

The more typical situation is where the basic problem(s) have already emerged and corrective action, consciously and unconsciously, has been initiated. The principal job of the administrator is to live with the continuing problem of change and to make the necessary adaptations or adjustments within his organizational system to cope with the internal and external demands being placed upon his operations (organization).

Furthermore, contemporary organizational life is a highly complex matter. Organizations are multilevel-multigoal-seeking systems.¹⁷ The administrator, as noted before, seldom has sufficient organizational knowledge. In short, he works in an imperfect situation which is characterized by imperfect goals, imperfect knowledge of the organizational environment, and imperfect awareness of the organizational structure and operations.

In the final analysis, the difference...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• LIST OF TABLES, GRAPHS, FIGURES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• PART ONE THE SETTING OF THE STUDY
• PART TWO AGENTS IN PLANNED ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
• PART THREE ORGANIZATIONS IN CHANGE
• PART FOUR INSTRUMENTALITIES OF CHANGE
• PART FIVE EVALUATION OF CHANGE
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• APPENDICES
• INDEX