UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, JAMAICA
MANAGING CHANGE AND INNOVATION – LECTURE NOTES
1.
Organizational change is defined as the adoption of a new idea or behavior by an organization.
Forces for change exist in both the external environment and within the organization. External
forces originate in all environmental sectors including customers, competitors, technology,
economic, and international events. Internal forces for change arise from internal activities and
decisions.
2.
Demands by employees, labor unions, and production inefficiencies can all generate a force to
which management must respond with change. Rapidly increasing competition in all areas is
driving the need for innovation. One vital area for innovation is introducing new products and
technologies. These new products and technologies, in turn, require substantial changes in
virtually every aspect of organizations.
3.
The three innovation strategies managers implement for changing products and technologies are
exploration, cooperation, and entrepreneurship. Exploration involves designing the organization
to encourage creativity and the initiation of new ideas. Cooperation refers to creating conditions
and systems to facilitate internal and external coordination and knowledge sharing.
Entrepreneurship means that managers put in place processes and structures to ensure that new
ideas are carried forward for acceptance and implementation.
4.
Creativity is the development of novel solutions to perceived problems. Creative individuals
develop ideas that can be adopted by the organization. An idea champion is a person who sees
the need for and champions productive change within the organization.
5.
People change pertains to just a few employees, such as sending a handful of middle managers
to a training course to improve their leadership skills. Culture change pertains to the
organization as a whole, such as shifting the basic organizational mind-set from a focused on
rules and policies to one focused on doing whatever is necessary to ensure customer
satisfaction.
6.
According to Thomas and Bennis, “planned change is one deliberate design and implements of
a structural innovation, anew policy or goal, or a change in operating philosophy, climate, or
style.” Planned change attempts at all aspects of one organisation which are closely
interrelated; technology, task, people, structure.
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
Technology related changes may include: Introduction of automated data processing devices like computers to facilitate
managerial planning and control.
 Change in methods of production like conversion of unit production to mass
production.
 Task related changes more focuses on: High internal work motivation and
 High quality work performance.
 Structure related changes: Changing the no hierarchical levels.
 Changing line-staff to functional authority.
 People related changes: Skill change and
 Behaviour change.
7.
Organization development (OD) is a planned, systematic process of change that uses
behavioral science knowledge and techniques to improve an organization’s health and
effectiveness through its ability to adapt to the environment, improve internal relationships,
and increase learning and problem-solving capabilities. It focuses on the human and social
aspects of the organization and works to change attitudes and relationships among employees,
helping to strengthen the organization’s capacity for adaptation and renewal.
8.
Organization development is an effort (1) planned, (2) organizationwide, and (3) managed
from the top, to (4) increase organization effectiveness and health through (5) planned
interventions in the organization’s “processes,” using behavioral-science knowledge – Richard
Beckhand Organization development (OD) is a response to change, a complex educational
strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structure of organizations so that
they can better adapt to new technologies, markets and challenges, and the dizzying rate of
change itself.
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9.
Organization renewal is the process of initiating, creating and confronting needed changes so
as to make it possible for organizations to become or remain viable, to adapt to new conditions,
to solve problems, to learn from experiences, and to move toward greater organizational
maturity.
10. Organizational development steps,
 A seven step model for understanding Organizational development was proposed
o There are different approaches to OD process but the typical process consists of seven
steps
 initial diagnosis,
 data collection,
 data feedback and confrontation,
 action planning and problem solving,
 team building,
 inter group development and
 evaluation and follow-up.
11. Process of planned change
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12. Resistance to change: Employees appear to resist change for several reasons, and
understanding them helps managers implement change more effectively. It can be managed
through education and communication, participation, negotiation, top management support,
and coercion.
13. Overcoming Resistance to Change: it can be managed through i) education and
communication, ii) participation, iii) negotiation, iv) top management support, and v) coercion.
14. Classic psychological reactions to change
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15. What are barriers to change? Kotter describes this in his “Leading Change” book. Familiarize
yourself with a change model.
Range of barriers to change:
1. Cultural Barriers: ideologies, tradition and heritage, economic well-being, values and
beliefs, cultural ethnocentrism, incompatibility of a cultural trait with a proposed change.
This is in many ways the most significant area of resistance for multi-national companies or
for organizations wanting to link with others in different countries.
2. Organizational Barriers: threat to power and influence [e.g. mergers], technological barriers,
behaviour of top level administrators, structure and bureaucracy.
3. Social Barriers: group solidarity, rejection of outsiders, conformity to norms, conflict, lack
of group insight/awareness.
4. Individual Barriers: perception, homeostasis, conformity, commitment, personality, lack of
conceptual and inquiring skills, low tolerance of ambiguity.
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