Title – Change management And Organizational Resilience :
Exploring how organizations effectively manage change and build resilience in the face of disruptions.
Author Name – Manasvini Vadke
ABSTRACT
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations face an ever-present need to adapt to change and build resilience to withstand disruptions. This study explores the strategies and principles that enable organizations to effectively manage change and bolster their capacity to navigate unexpected challenges. It delves into the importance of clear vision and communication, leadership commitment, and employee involvement as foundational elements of successful change management. Furthermore, it emphasizes the role of training, resilience-building practices, and the cultivation of an adaptive culture in fostering an organization’s ability to thrive in turbulent times. The paper also highlights the significance of continuous improvement, agility, and the smart use of data and technology in enhancing an organization’s adaptability and resilience. Supply chain diversification and crisis management planning emerge as critical components of organizational resilience. Lastly, the study underscores the essential role of stakeholder engagement in fostering trust and support, ultimately contributing to an organization’s long-term success. By examining these key elements, this research aims to provide insights into best practices for organizations seeking to navigate change and disruptions effectively while building a sustainable and resilient future.
Article 1.
Schwarz and Thompson (1990) argued that one approach to mitigate risks is via a closer analysis of organizational culture. In same way, [19] Douglas (1985) and later on [51] Lerner and Keltner (2000) coined the term cultural approach to risk management and they emphasized that decisions related to risks are affected by emotions, affects and cognitions. Since organizational culture is defined as the shared and collective beliefs, assumptions as well as behaviors within an organization ([66] Pettigrew, 1979); it is conceivable to view organizational culture as a predictor of subcontractor riskiness versus non-riskiness ([103] Keltner and Lerner, 2010). Drawing from the operational management related studies of [62] Naor et al. (2010), we argue that the uncertainty avoidance, future orientation and performance orientation dimensions of organizational culture ([102] House et al. , 2004) are most relevant in understanding and categorizing the riskiness of subcontractors.
Article 2.
From a theoretical perspective, it is important to situate a study of beliefs and
behaviors as part of a dynamic, open, systemic approach to the social organization of the
firm. The firm is an entrepreneur’s means of controlling factors of production and their
costs through internal, rather than external, transactions (Coase, 1937). One of those
factors is labor. For fixed or fluctuating pay, employees agree “to obey the directions of an
entrepreneur within certain limits” (Coase, 1988, p. 37). The concept of the firm as a social
organization flushes out those limits. In short, there are human needs to be satisfied.
A social organization is a continuing system of differentiated and coordinated
human activities utilizing, transforming, and welding together a specific set of
human, material, capital, ideational, and natural resources into a unique problem[1]solving whole whose function is to satisfy particular human needs in interaction
with other systems of human activities and resources in a particular environment.
Vogus and Sutcliffe (2007) challenged organizational theorists to develop “a
resilience perspective” about “how organizations and the individuals and units they
comprise continue to achieve desirable outcomes amidst adversity, strain, and significant
barriers to adaptation or development” (p. 3418). Mamouni Limnios et al. (2012)
commented that various behavioral characteristics have been proposed as contributors to
organizational resilience. While they acknowledged “some merit in this research stream,”
they criticized interpretations that “do not link behavioral responses to complex system
dynamics” (p. 3). They do suggest that behaviors could be said to operate as “subsystem
dynamics that may evolve in small or regional scales and aggregate to influence the whole
system” (p. 10). Their observation, behaviors as subsystems, provides a way to
conceptualize resilience capacity so organizations can act upon it. Behaviors, defined as
subsystems of beliefs, attitudes, or evaluations, as well as actions, become appropriate
targets for study. This approach has its roots in the resilience work of Weick (1993)
Article 3.
Hackman (2002) defines organizational resilience as intrinsically oriented organizational systems that rebound to maintain or regain a “dynamically stable state” that enables operations to continue during major upheavals or stressful crises. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a catalyst for organizations such as health and human services, public and nonprofits to operate within an increasingly unpredictable environment, with the pace of change remaining constant and, at times, accelerated, as the pandemic has demonstrated (Testoni et al., 2019; Kiltz et al., 2013; Brown et al., 2005; Henderson 2005). Therefore, this disruptive landscape of work, coined “a new normal,” requires organizations to maintain relevance and dynamism through “resilience-building strategies.” This issue is critical for all organizations, sectors, leaders, and employees. Organizational resilience is becoming necessary for organizational survival, recovery, growth, and development and for creating and maintaining a resilient-oriented workforce. Nevertheless, within health and human services organizations, this focus on organizational resilience is understudied, despite the tremendous challenges and crises that require similar strategies for effective management (Kiltz et al., 2013; Wise, 2008; Henderson, 2005; Springston, 2005).
Considering the above, organizational resilience for leading in disruptive times can be examined using a multi-pronged theoretical frame that accommodates for the complexity of workforce-oriented resilience-building strategies to emerge across diverse organizations and sectors. Thus, organizational resilience is grounded in positive psychological theory, constructive leadership theory, conservation of resources theory (COR) theory, organizational behavior theories (such as organizational learning, teams, and communication), and dynamic (leadership) capability theory. These theories have different genesis but intersect in areas such as network leveraging behaviors and critical cross-disciplinary competencies required for organizational leadership during disruptive times to build and promote resilient organizational strategies. Moreover, these theories and perspectives also significantly influence organizational resilience capabilities for thriving during crises (Vera et al., 2020).
Article 4.
Organizational unlearning is the prerequisite for effective learning activities of firms to occur [32,54]. In particular, previous research identified the cognitive, behavioral, and normative influences that organizational unlearning may shed upon firms and individuals: cognitive influence eliminates existing cognitive structures that may filter out new ideas and knowledge, thus enabling individuals and firms to receive previously unperceived and/or perceived-as-inappropriate new knowledge [55]. Behavioral influence stimulates changes in current routines, process, and behavioral patterns, thus consciously and subconsciously detaching employees from habitual practices [56]. Normative influence eliminates the legitimacies of old routines, processes, and knowledge in the value system of firms, thus accelerating the process of establishing new ones [57]. The confluence of these sets of influences enable firms to discard ‘obsolete routines, beliefs, knowledge, and value to make room for new ones [58]’ and results in the positive and negative effects of organizational unlearning.
While the positive effects of organizational unlearning upon the innovation [40,59] and performance [57] of firms have been extensively addressed, its negative effects receive relatively scant attention [56]. In fact, with regards to the intentional and/or conscious process of individuals [41,60], the consequence of the value judgement of individuals to ‘ascertain whether the unlearned knowledge is inferior to the newly acquired [61]’ is uncertain. Thus, inevitable unintended knowledge loss may occur: (1) when firms inappropriately select the ‘still-valuable’ knowledge as the objects of unlearning [32], and (2) when the loss of one part of knowledge may decrease the value of other parts [62]. Also, the ‘unlearning of supposedly outdated practices could obstruct organizational functioning [63]’, thus leading to temporary weakness in the current competencies of the firm [57]. In addition, organizational unlearning would engage firms with more innovative learning and innovating activities, thus it may compete with their other sets of activities for financial, operational, and managerial resources [56,61].
Article 5.
Strategic HRM was developed to facilitate the strategic management of organizations, and Wright and McMahan [13] give a more representative definition of this concept. They consider strategic HRM to represent an organization’s plans for human resource deployment and behavioral norms with the aim of achieving the organization’s goals. This definition emphasizes both the vertical and horizontal fit of strategic HRM: vertically, strategic HRM refers to the match between and mutual adaptation of HRM practices and the organization’s strategic management process, whereas horizontally, strategic HRM emphasizes the coherence among various HRM practices based on the planned action model. The vertical and horizontal fit of strategic HRM ensures that HRM is fully integrated into strategic planning to guarantee that HR policies and practices are generally accepted and widely used by managers and employees, such that companies can obtain inimitable or alternative competitive advantages by leveraging their HR strengths [9,14]. According to conservation of resources theory, strategic HRM, as a strategic organizational resource, represents an organic combination the talent resource elements in an organization as well as the allocation of resources among members of the organization; thus, strategic HRM emphasizes the flexible adjustment of staffing policies and practices, training and development programs, performance standards, selection criteria, and rewards and punishments in response to changes in external contexts, thus providing strategic tools to promote resource integration, crisis prevention and control, and learning and innovation in organizations [15].
The concept of resilience originated in the fields of physics, ecology, and environmental science, and Meyer [16] first introduced this concept into the field of management, thereby opening up a new chapter in the study of organizational resilience, which was quickly and widely studied in the fields of crisis management, disaster management, and high-reliability organizations. Previous research on organizational resilience has been focused on two main research perspectives: the rebound perspective and the rebound + overtake perspective [10]. The rebound perspective views organizational resilience simply as the ability of the organization to recover from an accident, stress, or crisis to return its original state, i.e., the ability of an organization to take countermeasures to return to its precrisis level of performance. The rebound + overtake perspective views organizational resilience not merely as the organization’s ability to respond to challenges and changes to return to its original state but also as the organization’s ability to develop new capabilities or create new opportunities for the organization to continue to thrive and grow
Article 6.
Organizations operating in complex and dynamic environments inevitably face adversity that challenges performance or even threatens their survival (Williams, Gruber, Sutcliffe, Shepherd, & Zhao, 2017). A wide variety of sources generate heterogenous adversity, ranging from natural events (e.g., earthquakes, wildfires, tsunami) to man-made events (e.g., regulatory changes, terrorism, civil wars, disruptive innovation) (Williams & You, 2018). Consequently, these discrete events cause various forms of disruption to organizations, thus leading to potential major crises. For example, extreme climate events (e.g., heatwave, storms) can have a direct impact on the airline industry, resulting in weather-related flight cancellations and delays, which may result in other forms of adversity to other actors, such as a liability risk to insurance companies and demand disruption to hotels, amongst others. According to a recent report from the Institute for Crisis Management, crisis news stories in 2020 exceeded almost one million more than in 2019, reaching 1,709,419, of which 614,944 were associated with Covid-19 (Hileman, 2021).
Organizations, as open systems, operate in a nexus with other actors (e.g., organizations, individuals) with which they conduct essential activities for their survival or improved efficiency (e.g., supplier-buyer activities, R&D alliances, co-marketing). This implies that all organizations are embedded in an environment of other organizations and a complex of societal norms, values, and collectives. Any small changes occurring in the environment may affect the entire ecosystem (e.g., the butterfly effect). The 2020 McKinsey Global Institute Report states that greater frequency and severity of climate hazards create more disruptions to global supply chains, including interrupting production, raising costs and prices, and having a negative impact on corporate revenues. The potential magnitude of organizational disruption can be influenced by how well members of organizations work together in preparing for and responding to adverse situations (You, 2022). This includes cognition (how people understand the nature of disruption), behavior (how people act in the face of disruption), and emotion (how people feel about disruption). These factors can often be interconnected and interact with each other in a nonlinear fashion, thus leading to complex organizations.
Article 7.
Resilience in health care can be described as a character[1]istic of individuals, as well as a property of teams, and of
the whole organization (Jefcott et al. 2009). Recent health
systems adversities such as the Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016
and the global fnancial crisis of 2008 have increased the
interest in the concept of organizational resilience (Barasa
et al. 2018). In addition, Hanefeld et al. (2018) highlight the
need to make nowadays health systems more resilient.
Organizational resilience (OrRe) is organization’s ability
to survive and even strengthen itself in times of crisis. It is
more visible after a natural disaster; however, in everyday
life, organizations have to handle a variety of adversities
in which organizational resilience is extremely important on occupational health would have a greater impact in the
elderly, (4) the work role would have a moderating role in the
impact of individual resilience on occupational health, (5)
organizational resilience would have a moderating efect on
the infuence of individual resilience on occupational health.
Article 8.
adopting a problem-solving orientation. This theme illustrated the ability to prioritise between tasks, focusing on core activities as being central to resilience capability in a crisis. The respondents’ statements revealed that the crisis enabled the organisation to adopt a problem-solving and action-oriented mindset, through which the most pressing matters (care of patients) were prioritised over routines (anchoring work) and democratic decision-making processes. The action-oriented discourse present in the empirical material entailed the rewarding of “doers” and short decision-making processes over administrative work and staff polling. This theme mirrors previous studies linking the prioritisation of patient-related core activities to healthcare organisations’ resilience in crisis
Article 9.
cooperation, peer support, and trust — demonstrated how the crisis brought about cooperation across professional and organisational boundaries, which, in turn, contributed to a better overview for those involved. A sense of community within and across professional and organisational boundaries is described as having facilitated operations and ensured flexibility. Uniting behind a common cause and striving towards a shared goal promoted resilience and constituted a counterforce in the face of exhaustion and mental breakdown of HCWs. A recurring comment was the common desire among staff to help solve problems and together make the best of the situation. Our findings support the previous studies emphasising a supportive culture and social setting to promote resilience and reduce stress and anxiety at work
Article 10.
Organisational learning and knowledge acquisition — shows how resilience capability is related to the degree to which an organisation, during a crisis, is receptive to and engages in learning. Gaining knowledge quickly is essential in a crisis where information is constantly being added and updated and the state of knowledge is continuously increasing. When the crisis concerns a new condition, as during COVID-19, it is important that the organisation can absorb and incorporate new knowledge into its operations. The fourth theme illustrates how all themes are interrelated and overlapping. Knowledge acquisition is closely linked to the first theme’s emphasis on access to information. Relationships and communication across professional and organisational boundaries, highlighted through the third theme, act as facilitators for knowledge acquisition to take place. This theme ties in with the previous research that has highlighted the ability to assimilate new knowledge and adapt to new circumstances as prerequisites for creating security and predictability in a crisis situation
REFRENCE
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1469847615/C378A37E506A497APQ/1?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1777582116/C378A37E506A497APQ/6?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2863220024/C378A37E506A497APQ/8?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2700790639/C378A37E506A497APQ/10?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2756665068/C378A37E506A497APQ/14?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2867143766/C378A37E506A497APQ/17?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2619059007/C378A37E506A497APQ/25?accountid=28682
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2822121904/C378A37E506A497APQ/34?accountid=28682
SUMMARY
Organizational resilience and change management are two related concepts that help organizations adapt to new situations and overcome challenges. Organizational resilience is the ability to recover from difficulties and cope with stress, while change management is the process of implementing new or modified products, services, processes, or practices smoothly .Both require planning, communication, and flexibility.
In summary, effective change management and resilience building involve a structured approach with clear communication, leadership commitment, employee involvement, and the development of an adaptive culture. The use of technology, supply chain diversification, and crisis management plans are critical to navigate disruptions successfully. Continuous improvement and stakeholder engagement are key components of long-term organizational success in a constantly changing environment.
