Organizational Change refers to processes that result in changes to the existing organizational culture within an organization. Although changes to organizational culture can occur as part of the natural evolution of an organization, the term organizational change is usually attributed to an organization actively implementing changes to their existing organizational perspectives and practices.
With an ever-changing business environment, organizations may implement organizational change to improve their business functioning, efficiency and effectiveness. This allows organizations to meet new demands and challenges that the current organizational culture may be ill-equipped to deal with. For example, economic downturns may prompt organizations to streamline their operations and restructure so as to minimize their costs. Organizations may also undergo significant organizational change processes when conducting corporate acquisitions or mergers so as to assimilate employees within the new organizational culture.
The process for implementing organizational change can be difficult and requires that all members of the organization be open and committed to realising such changes. Organizations also need to be aware that organizational change processes are typically lengthy as existing organizational culture is difficult to change and employees require time to get used to new practices. Planning and executing such changes require significant effort from all stakeholders for organizational change to be successful.
