Introduction
The problems of improving the quality of management, the achievement of high end results of industrial-economic activities in enterprises, and the increases of their competitiveness, as major economic problems, mark a special importance and urgency in modern conditions, reflecting the characteristics of fundamental changes, as well as management conditions. Organizational change is the formation of new organizational device adequate to the nature of changes in the business and organizational environment.
Organizational changes can be accompanied by a breakdown of certain habitual and mutual values shared by the employees, the norms and action patterns, and also the traditional ways of decision-making which might become an obstacle in the process of the adaptation of the organisation to the pace and direction of market changes. In another sense, considering the information technology as an additional business environment, implementing new technology can lie within the framework of managing changes. In that matter, facing the challenges when implementing new business information system, a change agent might refer to the tools and the perspectives that can be used to manage these challenges.
Main Text
One of the perspectives of implementing organizational change is the rational perspective. According to the rational perspective, management is the rational administration of the organization, where the organization is a set of resources designed to achieve particular goals. In that sense, “rational perspective assumes that the intended final destination of an organization is the guiding power behind change attempts.” (Graetz et al. 11) In the case of using the rational perspective toward implementing the new Business Information System, the main argument will become using the logic.
The decision maker in that case – the manager, addresses the initial problem which required the change, analyzes all the alternatives that address and deal with the same problem, and presents the proposed change as being the only ‘rational’ in that case. The important issue is to provide logical explanation of why the New Business Information system is essential for the company’s goals. Observationally, it can be assumed that the most challenges on the path of implementing new innovations are concerned with the employees of the organization being unready for adequately perceive and assess these innovations.
The employees might not get used to effectively working in constantly changing conditions, where the inclination for stability in the organizations might prevail. In that sense, the change agent when using the rational approach should assert that the new system will increase the stability of the company, as well as filling an existing gap in informational technology which prevents the company from achieving its goal. An example of the rational perspective is when a company need new security system; managers will relate the reason for this change with the change itself. This relation can be stated as, ‘we have breaches in security which result in our information being stolen’, i.e. the cause, and ‘new security system will solve this issue’, i.e. the change.
Another perspective that could be used as a tool is the psychological perspective. The psychological perspective is the concern of “with the human side of the change perspective.” (Graetz et al.) Understanding this perspective, it is necessary to outline the great importance of the emotional conditional of the personnel participating in the change process. This perspective considers that organizational change can succeed only when the attention paid to the emotional and behavioural aspects is no less than the industrial and technical. Many leaders give consideration exclusively the technical aspects of the change, while the adoption of new working methods requires the reconstruction of the spirit and the mentality of the employees and their approach to work. For the changes to take effect, the subject of changes should be not only systems and machines, but also the minds and hearts of the employees. The challenges that might arise in that context, concerning the implementation of the new BIS, might be reflected psychologically on the employees. The employees might perceive the new initiations negatively, especially when similar initiation have been introduced previously and were not completed.
The new system and its consequences can become the subject of discussion for all employees. They might feel anxiety and worry when they all know that there is a change is coming and they do not comprehend what it is. The emotions accompanying any changes might overflow and distract from productive work. In that sense, using the psychological approach implies that the leaders, during the stage of realizing the changes, should explain the goals and the plans of implementing the changes, and convince them that this plan is beneficial, creating a stimulus for the participation in its implementation. The delivery of information to the employees has an exceptional importance, especially if it is required to make the employees change their attitude toward the work or start working differently.
Thus, it can be seen that considering the organizational change perspective is essential in times of change in organization. Reviewing the preferred perspectives, it can be said that they focus on the importance of communication and how it should be applied and managed. The rational perspective was more concerned with the communication with supervisors and CEOs, in terms of demonstrating the rationality of the changes. At the same time the psychological perspective was more concerned on the communications with employees, in terms of assessing the psychological and the emotional effect of implementing the changes and their possible consequences.
National City Bank Change
A top ten largest bank in the US, ‘Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, National City Bank offers a full line of financial services ranging from retail banking to corporate and personal investment management.’ (“National City Bank”) Until 1997, the bank’s management of accounts was handled fully by paper. In that matter, the number of accounts was limited where they served about 1000. After thorough analysis, the bank was recommended to replace Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System, within which the bank’s legacy system was replaced by modern customer information system that could be tailored to meet the specific performance and access requirements of National City Bank. In light of the aforementioned, the following perspectives were analyzed:
Works Cited
Graetz, Fiona, et al. Managing Organisational Change. 2nd Australasian ed: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2006.
“National City Bank”. 2000. Real Financial Systems. Web.