MGMT628 - Organizational Development GDB Solution Spring 2013

There are different types of challenges for the modern day organizations. Adopting new innovation and globalization trends is the crucial factor for the organizational development. The three major trends that are shaping change and are the challenging factors for all types of organizations for the purpose of survival and growth.

Increases production and saves time: Business use technology to automate tasks. A good example is a bakery which uses automated temperature censors to detect any drop or increase in room temperature in a bakery. These censors will send information directly to the operator and report any temperature change. This saves the bakery time and it also results into quality products.



Improves communication through communication technology: With the help of communication technology tools like phones, video conferencing , electronic mail, databases just to mention but a few. Movement of information with in an organization or business has become easy and first. Employees can easily move information across departments without having any interruptions. Tools like electronic mail , e-fax, mobile phones and text messaging enhance the movement of information among employees , customers and business partners or suppliers.


Negative Impact of Globalization

Developed countries can stifle development of undeveloped and under-developed countries.
Economic depression in one country can trigger adverse reaction across the globe.
It can increase spread of communicable diseases.
Companies face much greater competition. This can put smaller companies, at a disadvantage as they do not have resources to compete at global scale.

Implementation Expenses: Small businesses fail to afford this expensive technology so they end up losing their clients to a business which has improved its technology and provides a better service or product.
Job Elimination: Technology has replaced most positions which humans used to occupy. Accounting is now being done by software, so accountants run out of opportunities.
Security Breaches: Since businesses store their data on remote cloud servers which can be accessed with a user name and password, they risk losing that data to wrong minded knowledge works, hackers or viruses, which can harm he business.

The Growth and Relevance of OD:
Organizations must adapt to increasingly Organization Development –
complex and uncertain technological, economic, political, and cultural changes. The rapidly changing conditions of the past few years have shown that the organizations are in the midst of unprecedented uncertainty and chaos, and nothing short of a management revolution will save them. Three major trends are shaping change in organizations: globalization, information technology, and managerial innovation.

First: globalization
is changing the markets and environments in which organizations operate as
the way they function. New governments, new leadership, new markets, and new countries are emerging and creating a new global economy. The toppling of the Berlin Wall symbolized and energized the reunification of Germany: entrepreneurs appeared in Russia, the Balkans, and Siberia as the former Soviet Union evolves, in fits and starts, into separate, market-oriented states; and China emerged as an open market and as the governance mechanism over Hong Kong to represent a powerful shift in global economic influence.

Second: information technology
is redefining the traditional business model by changing how work is performed, how knowledge is used, and how the cost of doing business is calculated. The
way an organization collects, stores, manipulates, uses, and transmits information can lower costs or increase the value and quality of products and services. Information technology, for example, is at the heart of emerging e-commerce strategies and organizations. Amazon.com, E-Trade, are among many recent entrants to the information economy, and the amount of business being
conducted on the Internet is projected to grow at double-digit rates for well over ten years. Moreover, the underlying rate of innovation is not expected to decline. Electronic data interchange, a state-of-the-art technology application a few years ago, is now considered routine business practice. The ability to move information easily and inexpensively throughout and
among organizations has fueled the downsizing, delayering, and restructuring of firms. The Internet and the World Wide Web have enabled a new form of work known as telecommuting; organization members can work from their homes or cars without ever going to the office. Finally, information technology is changing how knowledge is used. Information that is widely shared reduces the concentration of power at the top of the organization. Organization members now share the same key information that senior managers once used to control decision making.
Ultimately, information technology will generate new business models in which communication and information sharing is nearly free.

Third: managerial innovation has responded to the globalization and information technology trends and has accelerated their impact on organizations. New organizational forms, such as networks, strategic alliances, and virtual corporations, provide organizations with new ways of thinking about how to manufacture goods and deliver services. The strategic alliance, for example, has emerged as one of the indispensable tools in strategy implementation. No single organization, not even IBM, Mitsubishi, or General Electric, can control the environmental and
market uncertainty it faces. Sun Microsystems’ network is so complex that some products it sells are never touched by a Sun employee. In addition, new methods of change, such as downsizing and reengineering, have radically reduced the size of organizations and increased their flexibility, and new large-group interventions, such as the search conference and open space, have increased
the speed with which organizational change can take place. Managers, OD practitioners, and researchers argue that these forces not only are powerful in their own right but are interrelated.
Their interaction makes for a highly uncertain and chaotic environment for all kinds of organizations, including manufacturing and service firms and those in the public and private sector. There is no question that these forces are profoundly affecting organizations. Fortunately, a growing number of organizations are undertaking the kinds of organizational changes needed to survive and prosper in today’s environment. They are making themselves more streamlined and nimble and more responsive to external demands. They are involving employees in key decisions and paying for performance rather than for time. They are taking the initiative in
innovating and managing change, rather than simply responding to what has already happened.