Literature Review On Organisational Culture And Responses To Overcoming Resistance To Change

Changing Organizational Culture

Write a Literature Review on Organisational Culture and responses to overcoming resistance to Change.

Organisational change is an integral part of the culture of all business institutes. However, it is common for every business organisation to encounter challenge while implementing cultural change within the organisation. The stakeholders of the organisation are the biggest resistance that the management has to face in order to implement change within the workplace culture (Such & Mutrie, 2017). Nevertheless, there are certain unique theories of change that are implemented in the current days by various business organisations in order to deal with the resistance. With proper implementation of these theories it is possible for the organisation to overcome all the challenges and resistance that prevent Change management. It is mostly the duty of the leaders and managers of the organisation to implement policy in order to dissolve the challenges of change.

The current essay will aim to highlight upon the existing literature of organisational culture and the response of the organization to implement to overcome the resistance of change. It will focus upon the various Change management theories that are implemented by various Organisations in order to bring about cultural change among the stakeholders.

According to the paper of Jones and Jones(2010), the current age is regarded as the time of radical and turbulent changes. Changes in the labour market and Technology along with financial aspects of an organisation and the few key elements those are responsible for organisational change. It is important in this perspective for all organisations to have the ability to adapt to the change according to their own risks. Alvesson andSveningsson(2015), have mentioned in the context that most of the business organisations in the current days have accepted the fact that changed is an important part in order to survive in the tough competitive market environment.

The contemporary ideas of change are based upon the fact that it is the duty of the managers of an organisation to have the ability to adapt with the changing environment. It can be also said that the rate of success of an organisation is entirely dependent upon its ability to quickly adopt the change of business environment.Williams et al., (2017), have added in the context that most of the organisational change involves changes in the culture of the organisation. Hence, culture is often regarded as one of the key elements of organisational change that helps all the stakeholders to accept the part of change. It is often seen that frequent neglect aspects of the organisational culture is one of the major reason for many organisation for failing to deal with the changed environment.

Theories related to organisational culture and change

The research paper of Jippes et al.,(2015), have also highlighted up on the fact that organisational culture is viewed as one of the major element to deal with all the challenges of changes that are encountered within the organisation and also the resistance that is obtained from the stakeholders. The combination of efficiency and focus along with flexibility and engagement, organisational culture is believed to be one of the key aspects of organisational competitiveness. Culture is also believed to have the ability to overcome the strategic challenges. Hence it is important for the organisation to consider the culture as an integral part of change. It is therefore believe that the organisational culture is the prime element in the matter of organisational change. It is also believed to be one of the key aspects that are needed to overcome the resistance of change.

The analysis done by Burke(2017), has suggested about the stage theory of organisational change which, consists of a series of steps that are encountered by an organisation as they implement organisational change. There are several stages that an organisation needs to adopt in order to implement new innovation within the culture. It is also important for each step to have specific set of strategy, which can help the organisation to easily adapt with the changing environment. There are four phases of the stage theory. In the very first phase it is important for the organisation to be fully aware of the problem and also have the ability to implement possible solutions according to the situations. The very next step the organisation has to take decision for adopting innovation that can help them easily accept the organisational change. This is followed by the phase or stage of redefining the innovation and brings about significant modification in the structure of the organisation in order to accommodate the cultural change. Finally, it is important to institutionalize the innovative techniques as a practical part of organisational culture and objective (Shafritz, et al., 2015).

Schneider et al.,(2013), have argued upon the fact that in spite of the popularity of this stage theory, there has not been extensive research done on the factors that can influence the organisation to move from one phase to another. It is important duty of the managers and leaders of the organisation to act as the agent of change that can help a company to accept the change of culture. Individual organisation uses their own strategies that are totally dependent upon the nature of the change and also the business environment.

Corporate sustainability and organisational culture

As per the analysis ofBenn et al., (2014), the comfort growth and panic zone model is one of the effective devices that can explain the necessary modification needed as a part in order to adapt the major organisational changes. The dynamic of this model can also explain upon the resistance that are encountered by an organisation while adopting the cultural change that is an integral part of modern day business. This model is based upon the fact that all systems within the organisation have the ability to strive for balance. The comfort zone of the organisation is based upon the experience and learning capability of the workers.Kuipers et al., (2014), have added in the context that the inability of most of the workers to seek out of the comfort zone is one of the major resistances according to this model that prevent implementation of change. Hence, this can be regarded as the major internal resistance that can be the major challenge of organisational cultural change. On the other hand, the high expectation level of the stakeholders and the society are regarded as the major external factors that prevent implementation of change. It can be said in the context that for the society and stakeholders it is very common to expect high level of increase productivity immediately after the process of change implementation. There are also the factors related to inability of learning among the stakeholders and workers of the organisation that is also one of the major challenge and resistance of change.

There are two different kinds of elements that are involved with the process of change. The outward image of the institution is dependent upon the principles of Marketing. It is important for the organisation to change the principles of Marketing in order to accept the change. The major challenge in this context is there is always the risk that the customers of the organisation might not accept the new principles of Marketing and hence, deny the acceptance of new service or products. The second element is the most complex one, which is about the inward process. This is the internal factors related to change that is totally dependent upon the deep cultural aspects of the organisation. It is important in this aspect for the organisation to have a strong commitment among themselves in order to understand the positive effect of changes. This can help them to overcome all the major challenges that are related to resistance from internal and external factors.

The research paper ofChung et al., (2014), have explored the fact related to corporate sustainability that is related to organisational cultural change. It is often believed that one of the major aspects of maintaining sustainability of a company is entirely dependent upon their ability to accept change. In this context it can be said that many business organisations in the past have not been able to survive mainly due to the fact of the inability to accept cultural change.Linnenluecke and Griffiths (2010), have argued upon the fact that over dependent on cultural change can never help an organisation to maintain sustainability in the business environment. Hence, the theories that are used to emphasize on cultural change to maintain sustainability might not be effective in every business environment.

Nevertheless, the cultural change within an organisation is believed to be one of the major driving factors that can help in maintaining organisational sustainability.

Conclusion

In the concluding note it can be said that all the existing current literature related to organisational change focuses upon the importance of organisational culture. It is important for a business organisation to have the ability to adopt new cultural change in order to accept the overall organisational change. Theories related to organisational culture and change have been able to focus upon the resistance that has been encountered by organisation while implementing change. The degree of corporate sustainability is also dependent upon the ability to accept change within the culture

References

Alvesson, M., &Sveningsson, S. (2015).Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress.Routledge.

Benn, S., Dunphy, D., & Griffiths, A. (2014).Organizational change for corporate sustainability.Routledge.

Burke, W. W. (2017). Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.

Chung, G. H., Du, J., & Choi, J. N. (2014). How do employees adapt to organizational change driven by cross-border M&As? A case in China.Journal of World Business, 49(1), 78-86.

Jippes, M., Driessen, E. W., Broers, N. J., Majoor, G. D., Gijselaers, W. H., & van der Vleuten, C. P. (2015). Culture matters in successful curriculum change: an international study of the influence of national and organizational culture tested with multilevel structural equation modeling. Academic Medicine, 90(7), 921-929.

Jones, G. R., & Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change

Kuipers, B. S., Higgs, M., Kickert, W., Tummers, L., Grandia, J., & Van der Voet, J. (2014). The management of change in public organizations: A literature review. Public Administration, 92(1), 1-20.

Linnenluecke, M. K., & Griffiths, A. (2010).Corporate sustainability and organizational culture.Journal of world business, 45(4), 357-366.

Schneider, B., Ehrhart, M. G., &Macey, W. H. (2013). Organizational climate and culture.Annual review of psychology, 64, 361-388.

Shafritz, J. M., Ott, J. S., & Jang, Y. S. (2015).Classics of organization theory.Cengage Learning.

Such, E., &Mutrie, N. (2017).Using organisational cultural theory to understand workplace interventions to reduce sedentary time.International Journal of Health Promotion and Education, 55(1), 18-29.

Williams, N. J., Glisson, C., Hemmelgarn, A., & Green, P. (2017). Mechanisms of change in the ARC organizational strategy: increasing mental health clinicians’ EBP adoption through improved organizational culture and capacity. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 44(2), 269-283.