Organizational Change and Development - Annotated Bibliography Example

CRITICAL ESSAYS By (Name) Presented to (Name of Professor) (Name of Institution, City, Sate) (Date) Weick, K.E. and Quinn, R.E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review Psychology vol. 50, pp. 361-386. This entry endeavors at providing a critical review and analysis of Weick and Quinn’s article ‘Organizational change and development’. In this article, the authors aim at enhancing an understanding of the tempo of change, which is understood as the rhythm, pattern, or rate of activity or work. Weick and Quinn provide a distinction amid episodic change and continuous change. This article relates to Voet’s article on the effectiveness and specificity of change management within organizations (Voet 2013, p. 1) as well as Ramnarayan’s edition on change management (Ramnarayan 2006, p. 100). Weick and Quinn divide change in organizations into two principal categories explicitly the continuous change, and the episodic change. This allegation bases on Porras and Silvers’ (cited in Weick and Quinn 1999, p. 362) assertion that a significant contrast in change distinguishes between discontinuous, intermittent, and episodic change and evolving, incremental, and continuous change. Weick and Quinn highlight that tempo of change is an incredibly vital aspect. Accordingly, their article compares episodic and continuous change on Dunphy’s framework. The five properties that Dunphy supposes are found within any comprehensive theory of change include metaphor of nature of organization, analytical framework to aid in understanding the process of organizational change, idyllic model of an efficiently functioning organization, intervention theory, and explanation of the function of change agents (Weick and Quinn 1999, p. 365). Weick and Quinn make an appealing statement in their article. They assert that change is essential if employees within an organization perform their tasks right. I concur with this declaration since the changing environment cannot be overlooked. As employees embark on doing their tasks right, the environment tends to change unpredictably. For instance, innovation is the principal aspect that leads to organizational change. The novel emergent technologies are inclined toward channeling change within organizations. As Ramnarayan (2006, p. 102) emphasizes, the setting constantly changes. If an organization proves incompetent in adapting to the changing setting, then the organization’s existence remains in danger. Whilst this line of deliberation is compatible with Weick and Quinn, these authors fail to explicate how the failure of adapting to change is capable of leading to the instant annihilation of an organization. Weick and Quinn allege that episodic changes are presumed to take place during an era of divergence as organizations move away from equilibrium conditions. Episodic change is usually infrequent, less complete, more strategic, more formal and deliberate as compared to emergent change, slower, more disruptive, and is instigated at higher organizational levels (Mintzberg and Wesley as cited in Weick and Quinn 1999, p. 368). The three vital processes in these episodes encompass of inertia, prompt of change, and replacement. Episodic change is highly allied to premeditated change, as it obliges both transition to a newly initiated equilibrium and equilibrium breaking. On the other hand, Weick and Quinn define continuous change as the evolving, cumulative, and ongoing change. Orlikowski (as cited in Weick and Quinn 1999, p. 375), emphasizes that change is emergent, implying that it is a realization of novel patterns of organization in absence of overt priori intentions. Hence, it entails a constant movement within an organization without premeditated plans. Overall, Weick and Quinn’s article is interesting, thus capturing the reader’s attention. Te authors offer a comprehensive insight in episodic and continuous change. Moreover, they have made effective use of other author’s view, thus deeming the article rich in info. Van de Ven, A.H. and Sun, K. (2011). Breakdowns in implementing models of organization change. Academy of Management Perspectives pp. 58-74. This entry endeavors at providing a critical review and analysis of Van de Ven and Sun ‘Breakdowns in implementing models of organization change’. In this article, the authors aim at addressing the gap posed by process theories of executing change, which seem to be lagging behind the theories of organizational change and development. Accordingly, the authors examine widespread breakdowns in executing process models allied to organization change, which include life cycle, teleology, evolution, and dialectics. This article is related to Jansson’s article ‘organizational change as practice’, which aims at challenging the taken-for-granted activities that are allied to organizational change (Jansson 2013, p. 1003). The authors appear knowledgeable within the field of management. Andrew Van de Ven is a professor of organizational innovation and change within the University of Minnesota and Kangyong Sun is a professor of International Corporate Strategy within Hitotsubashi University. Burke (as cited in Van de Ven and Sun 2011, p. 58) explicates that even though organizations aspire to predict, control, and explain the change process, change within organizations does not always assume the expected manner. Breakdowns are manifest where organizations fail to change in a way consistent with the conceptual model. Accordingly, the breakdowns stipulate two genres of actions namely reflection and action. While action strategy focuses on change management as an action-driven approach to problem solving, reflection strategy lays focus on revising an individual’s mental model to fit the change process in an organization. However, action strategy is self-defeating without reflection (Van de Ven and Sun 2011, p. 59). Van de Ven and Poole (as cited in Van de Ven and Sun 2011, p. 60) asserts that the query pertaining to what produced changed can be addressed by recommending a typology of process models, which encompass of teleology, life cycle, dialectics, and evolution. In this context, the methodology applied in evaluating breakdowns includes a comprehensive analysis of these typologies. Teleology change views development as the repetitive progression of goal creation, execution, assessment, and amendment of the envisaged end state. The progression emanates through resolute communal construction among people within the organization undergoing change. The life cycle model describes the change process as it progresses through the prescribed stages over time. These stages are regulated by logical, natural, or institutional routines. The dialectical theories depict change and stability in terms of relative balance of authority amid opposing entities. Stability emanates from resistances and accommodations, which uphold the status quo amid oppositions. Evolutionary change emerges as a probabilistic and recurrent series of variation, retention, and selection strategies. Van de Ven and Sun is quite fascinating as it explicates on the diverse sources of breakdowns. Given the understanding of the sources of breakdowns, change agents are capable of devising the appropriate action and reflection strategies. Moreover, Van de Ven and Sun’s article appears informative because it has borrowed back-up info from numerous authors. References Jansson, N. (2013). Organizational change as practice: a critical analysis. Journal of Organizational Change Management vol. 26, no. 6, pp. 1003-1019. Ramnarayan, V.N. (2006). Change management: altering mindsets in a global context. SAGE, California. Van de Ven, A.H. and Sun, K. (2011). Breakdowns in implementing models of organization change. Academy of Management Perspectives pp. 58-74. Voet, J. (2013). The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure. European Management Journal pp. 1-10. Weick, K.E. and Quinn, R.E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review Psychology vol. 50, pp. 361-386. Read More