Managing Organization with Wide Change in Hierarchical Organization:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most
intelligent but the one most responsive to change”

- Charles Darwin

In a world of new technologies, transforming economies, fluctuating
consumer preference and dynamic competition, it is not a question of
whether firms should change but rather when, where and how they should
change. While change could be seen everywhere not all is of a
strategic nature. Much of it is ongoing operational kind. From an
organisation context change can be considered from 3 perspectives:

§ Crisis - When a need arises to respond to a situation that will
cause a loss or damage to the organisation. This type change is
usually reactive. It may involve finding temporary solution to a
problem.

§ Non-crisis – Such change is in response to a problem situation that
does not have a degree of urgency. The change here is again reactive.

§ Opportunity - This type of change is directed at creating a new type
of alignment to gain competitive business advantage. This type of
change is proactive. Such changes have an impact on the way the firm
does business and on the way the firm has been configured.

Most of the time, change is due to external forces originating from
customers, competitors, technology, economic forces and the internal
arena. On the other hand there are internal forces too that drive
change. If for example top managers select a goal of rapid expansion,
internal business processes or actions need to be changed to meet the
growth. Demands by employees, labour unions or product inefficiencies
all can generate a force to which management must respond with change.
An overall model for planned change is depicted in Figure 1. Four
events make up the change sequence: (1) Internal and external forces
that drive the change; (2) organisation managers monitor these forces
and become aware of the need for change; (3) the perceived need
triggers the initiation of change and (4) the change is...