There has been a big gap between scholars and practitioners in various fields. The academic society has been keen on seeing their counterparts take part in more theoretical evidence-based work. They feel that both points of view will help practitioners make better decisions in their everyday work lives. Practitioners, on the other hand, value the immense contributions made by the scholarly group. Yet, they think that more theoretical study is based on logical thinking and not the actual workplace experiences. The exertions that will be put to review and conduct an inquiry on the basis of scholarly work take more time for the decision making process.
Surveys are held to indicate that individuals who rely on both scholarly and practitioner information are known to be more effective and efficient than those who rely only on one of those. However, it has been argued that putting together these two categories of work is always untenable. There is a significantly big gap between the scholarly oriented work and the practitioners’ perspective. The four articles are written by For and Ford (1994), Beech and Coupland (2009), Cadwell(2005), and Rhodes et al. (2010) show the divergent way of approaching issues. Despite the fact that Lewin’s concept of change has been taken as expert advice, it has had to work through numerous alterations in order to fit into some various traditional organizational patterns.
A lot of models have been challenged for their practicability on their functionality both practically and theoretically. Organizational change is something that can be achieved as long as the process is managed rationally with a transparent agenda. This will assist in avoiding confrontations and chaos brought about by change of systems. Nevertheless, there is a need for new and flexible forms of confronting and restructuring workplaces with regard to sources and consequences of change.
There is also a need to fully comprehend the questions regarding how changes have come into being and what implications they have for an organization. How well can one utilize the resources in the organization in order to accomplish change and what will be done to all the concepts that are no longer viable to an institution (Caldwell, 2005), are questions that must be reflected upon? To fully understand the essence of change in an organization, there is a need to find out the characteristics that bring about the change, and how they can be utilized to create opportunities.
Observing all critical levels in concepts being put across is important because it allows an agent to know change’s functionality. The challenges affecting these concepts emerge with their effects being far-reaching. Examples that have been developed to offer organizational flexibility are radically undermining other new forms of technology with the sensory faculty that most organizational success is dependent on traditional bureaucratic modes of functioning (Caldwell, 2005).
For effective change to take place, it will be extremely dependent on how an organization views and handles the different scenarios with regard to understanding change. The rationale behind it is that each system has a way of dealing with change. This provides room for more study that can be used to come up with consistent and different perceptions (Ford & Ford, 1994).
The concept of change will be highly dependent on the strategies formulated for a system. Nevertheless, these strategies will not be dependent on the main theory, merely on the persuasiveness of an organization to fully comprehend, interpret and carry through a concept. Researchers have shown that organizations will only bring forth positive change if they are capable to adopt a reading culture. This happens because only learning organizations can be capable to apply theories that have been developed and practically infused in their systems to accomplish their goals (Ford & Ford, 1994).
Despite all this, there are forces that bring about uncertain choices and unpredictable outcomes. One thing that should be noted is that most favourable changes and outcomes result from human actions. Humans are emotional beings and are very hard to control. A change makes people fragile, and it is impossible to determine what their next plan of action is. It is safe to assume that a lot of work is put into confronting many diverse possibilities of human action (Beech, MacPhail & Coupland, 2009).
A major part of change is controlled by humans because they monitor the system. It is, therefore, important to analyze all the possible reaction scenarios that might play out. Past stories and narratives from people will help them make sense of change and in the end, accept it. However, it is vital to remember that it is not always that the same scenario will be played again. Most people have a need to fulfil and go through listening to their story that organizations will be able to move on (Beech, MacPhail & Coupland, 2009).
In the end, it is fair to stress that a lot of organizations would like to pursue interests that will be beneficial to them. This might be very good and profitable to them, but they should know that there is more to change than profits (Rhodes, Pullen & Clegg, 2010).
Organizations need to provide legitimate needs for a change without being irrational or inconsiderate. There is a lot more room for doubt as per the reasons behind the organizational change. Organizations need to limit their actions and deliberate more on the most important issues. Change is inevitable in any establishment, but the main question is the motive behind it. There is a need for organizations to have logical and legitimate reasons that will show the value of change and the opportunities that come with it.
References
Beech, N., MacPhail, S. A., & Coupland, C. (2009). Anti-dialogic positioning in change stories: Bank robbers, saviours and peons. Organization, 16 (3), 335-352.
Caldwell, R. (2005). Things fall apart? Discourses on agency and change in organizations. Human Relations, 58 (1), 83-114.
Ford, J. D., & Ford, L. W. (1994). Logics of identity, contradiction, and attraction in change. Academy of Management Review, 19 (4), 756-785.
Rhodes, C., Pullen, A., & Clegg, S. R. (2010). ‘If I should fall from grace…’: Stories of change and organizational ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 91 (4), 535-551.