Learning Outcomes

• Discuss the layers and functions of organizational culture.
• Describe the three phases of organizational socialization.
• Discuss the external and internal forces that create the need for organizational change.
• Describe Lewin's change model and the systems model of change.
• Explain why employees resist change, and identify strategies for overcoming resistance to change.

Chapter Summary

1. Discuss the layers and functions of organizational culture. The three layers of organizational culture are observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic underlying assumptions. Four functions of organizational culture are organizational identity, collective commitment, social system stability, and sense-making device.

2. Describe the three phases in organizational socialization. The three phases are anticipatory socialization, encounter, and change and acquisition. Anticipatory socialization begins before an individual actually joins the organization. The encounter phase begins when the employment contract has been signed. The third phase involves the period in which employees master important tasks and resolve any role conflicts.

3. Discuss the external and internal forces that create the need for organizational change. Organizations encounter both external and internal forces for change. There are four key external forces for change: demographic characteristics, technological advancements, market changes, and social and political pressures. Internal forces for change come from both human resources problems and managerial behaviour/decisions.

4. Describe Lewin's change model and the systems model of change. Lewin developed a three-stage model of planned change that explained how to initiate, manage, and stabilize the change process. The three stages were unfreezing, which entails creating the motivation to change, changing, and stabilizing change through refreezing. A systems model of change takes a big picture perspective of change. It focuses on the interaction among the key components of change. The three main components of change are inputs, target elements of change, and outputs. The target elements of change represent the components of an organization that may be changed. They include organizing arrangements, social factors, methods, goals, and people.

5. Explain why employees resist change, and identify strategies for overcoming resistance to change. Resistance to change is an emotional/behavioural response to real or imagined threats to an established work routine. Ten reasons employees resist change are (a) an individual's predisposition toward change, (b) surprise and fear of the unknown, (c) climate of mistrust, (d) fear of failure, (e) loss of status and/or job security, (f) peer pressure, (g) disruption of cultural traditions and/or group relationships, (h) personality conflicts, (i) lack of tact and/or poor timing, and (j) nonreinforcing reward systems. Organizations must be ready for change. It is very important to communicate with employees throughout the process. Employee participation is another generic approach for reducing resistance.