Factors Influencing Organizational Change

Nowadays in the era of technology, accelerated innovation and increased competition, there is a pressure on companies to embody change in order to stay relevant and competitive, this is especially true in the technological field. There are several factors that may affect companies’ technological strategies including resources, market fluctuations and organizational structures (Khan et al, 2017)). “Company X” was the leader in the mobile phone industry dominating completely the industry until the louche of a revolutionary product by “Company Y”, “Company X” technology was not even close, and the company struggled in catch up as “Company Y” sales escalated. The question is, how such a successful company, a market leader, cede to other companies

Its very important to every organization to have the ability to manage change and for that reason the management of organizational change is a very important managerial skill. Although the importance of the issue there is a high failure rate in change programmes, Bailogun and Hope, 2004 described “ a failure rate of around 70 per cent of all change programmes”, these numbers are very concerning, the reason for this poor success rate may be in the fact that change is unpredictable and for that reason most organizations implement change as a response to a crisis ( reactive change) and not as a continuous business strategy. Another explanation for this numbers may be in how organizations implement change, in a very simplistic perspective, change can be implemented merely in the operational system or more broadly, change may include human behaviour. Organizational Development recognizes that companies are made of people and to change an organization requires changing how people work, OD sees “management of change as management of people” (Todnem ,2005). Project management is associated with the development of a product or service however a project plan is very important in implementing change in a organization. Cleland, 1994 affirmed that project management is one of the most important forms for implantation of

Resistance to change is defined as an circumstance that has the ability to affect change by delaying it, opposing it and increasing its costs (Oreg,2006). Resistance can manifest itself in different forms, lack of punctuality, resignations and sabotages (Carr and Brower,2000). Resistance usually associated with fear of the unknown, lack of understanding on why the change is needed or an intrinsic prejudice towards change however Dent and Goldberg, 1999 defended that people don’t resist to change but to “loss of status, pay and comfort”. The relation between efficacy of organizational change and resistance is such that the success of change is believed to be almost entirely dependent on the response of individuals to change. The change in an organization is only possible if the personnel believes in that change and consequently change their behaviour. Overcome resistance is very important, managers should encourage and support employees to accept change (Woodman and Dewett,2004). In “Company X “ there was some voices of resistance that compromised the efficacy of the change process, the response to this phenomenon should include a strong and consistent change leadership, a better definition of the company vision and