Managing Change and Innovation

Besides the controversies about humanoids taking over this world by replacing us, capturing most of our jobs causing mammoth workforce redundancies due to inbuilt vast robotic knowledge, their reigning work style, rapid rate of learning and the data capturing; question arises that why humans are not accepting the reality of preparing and modifying themselves to meet the futuristic demands. We certainly will need appropriate organizational and social reforms to challenge the new revolutionary era of humans and humanoids interface while being in control overall. Purpose of this literature review is to indicate here my initial understanding towards theory of managing change & innovation and my thoughts about artificial intelligence (AI) – humans’ interactions. This exercise will certainly help me to analyze the importance of innovation in creating competitive advantage in contemporary organizations and assists me to cover necessary research elements exploring past articles, books and magazines on similar topics.

  

 The only thing constant is change! Managing change and innovation is a new chapter in my life which directs me to readjust my conventional boundaries, thinking outside the box, challenging the existing norms, broaden my understanding with futuristic vision, comparing contemporary with the expected future trends, swimming against the streams, reduce my sensitivity and lessen my resistance to change. It is all about new drift to understand that how to manage an evolutionary change in organizational structure by transforming its enterprise environment factors and how to expand organizational strategic goals by aligning its core values with new innovative and technological reforms.

Different authors and researchers have suggested different change management models mentioning various types of change management perspectives such as life-cycle, teleology, dialectics, evolution, social cognition, culture, biological, rational, institutional, resources, contingency, psychological, political, system and postmodern. Earlier in year 2010, Claire V. Brisson-Banks have studied eight (8) change and transition models including 3-Step Model by Kurt Lewin (1951), Burnes (2004), Richard Beckhard (1969), K. Thurley (1979), Bridges (1991), Rouda and Kusy Jr (1995), Armstrong (2006) and Kotter (2007) and she concluded “All these models are just guides to assist organizations through the world of constant change which exists today. While no one exact and perfect model exists for everyone, each has positive ways to handle change and can be adapted according to the organization”. She further mentioned “Change is evident everywhere from the simplest everyday changes to the most difficult situations encountered by human resource (HR) managers as management grapples with reorganizations, downsizing and/or cutbacks. A crucial factor in the effectiveness of an organization is the ability to adapt to change.” ⁽¹⁾

Managing change and innovation consists of numerous processes including initiating, planning, executing, controlling, improving and maintaining by providing necessary frame of works, trainings, supervision and inventive policies considering positive institutional, cultural, economic and social impacts. Management of everyday tasks, we all carry out intentionally or/and unintentionally but in general we don’t have regular flexibility to face changes even innovative or contemporary.  Graetz, F., Rimmer, M., Smith, A. and Lawrence, A. (2011) considered “change is a normal part of business life. In fact, the ability to enact meaningful change is critical to an organization’s competitive success however, successful change management is both challenging and intense. Four variable i.e. culture, context, knowledge and technology affect change. The purpose of change is to make an organization more productive by change can also fail as a consequence of organization members’ resistance to or lack of motivation towards the challenging of change”. ⁽²⁾

Changes for a private firms are different from government organizations due to laws enforcement and applied regulations. Smaller businesses and private companies may adopt new technologies, innovative reforms and reorganization (acquisition, merger, and joint venture) smoothly as compared to larger setups and government corporations. Transformation, tuning, re-creation and change adaption may also depend upon the people’s psyche, organizational processes, management priorities, fear of losing control and jobs both on micro and macro levels. “change and innovation are over-lapping phenomena which involves the growth and/or development of one or more of a number of elements of a public service such as services design, organization structures, management and administration and skills require to manage” Osborne P. and Borwn K. (2005). ⁽³⁾

Wallace, Mike., Fertig, Michael and Schneller, Eugene Stewart. (2007) expressed “the evolutionary profile of innovation that programmatic reforms generate has to be implemented in intermediate administrative agencies and service organization. Each innovation may be at a different stage of implementation and is likely to compete for priority with other innovation, responses to unplanned chronic environmental pressure or temporary crises and the rest on ongoing service provision”. ⁽⁴⁾  Differences in the employees’ preference and employers’ expectations may also cause barriers in adopting new technologies and innovative changes. Moreover, it is also observed that the same model of managing change may result different outcomes due to external and internal influences such as existing change drivers, levers, enactors and affecters. Some management theories suggest overall organizational changes while in parallel few managing change models indicate step by step improvement.

Dawson. P. and Andriopoulos. C. (2009) stated “Managing change in the uptake and use of new ways of doing things, generating and selecting ideas, translating ideas into innovations, and moving the organization forward to meet the shifting demands of dynamic business environments is a complex business”. ⁽⁵⁾ In the same text they further stated “Managing change, creativity and innovation requires the utilization of an array of skills and competencies in the continual adaption to changing contextual circumstances. It is complex, demanding and difficult as it involves orchestrating interweaving and sometime contradictory processes towards a set of objectives that may themselves be refined and change over time. These processes have an ongoing history that is never static but open to change”. ⁽⁶⁾

Our collegial and collaborative efforts of increasing awareness will make the actual transformation towards our sustainable future through Incremental, modular, radial innovations. We all have to overcome orthodox organizational confronting, technological barrier and social obstacles by developing more homogenous strategies. The organizations’ internal and external environment, industry dynamics and management processes are changing sequentially and rapidly. We are already experiencing visible societal impacts of fourth industrial revolution augmenting artificial intelligence and unbeaten technological pace. Therefore, we must be well familiar with the futuristic needs and ongoing hi-tech developments. Important is to comprehend our successful survival while adapting innovative and vibrant managerial as well as administrative practices in the evident evolution of humanoids (NAO, Baxter and Ardie).

References:

1.       Brisson. B.  2010, Managing change and transitions: a comparison of different models and their commonalities, vol. 31, no. 4-5, pp. 241, viewed 7 September 2017, http://zh9bf5sp6t.search.serialssolutions.com

2.     Graetz F., Rimmer M., Smith A. and Lawrence, A. (2011).  Managing Organisational Change, Third Australasian edition. Milton, Qld: John Wiley. pp. 1-10

3.     Osborne P. and Borwn.K (2005). Managing Change and Innovation in Public Service Organization. New York: Routledge. p.5

4.     Wallace, Mike., Fertig, Michael. and Schneller, Eugene Stewart. (2007). Managing change in the public services, Victoria, Australia, Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.p102

5.     Dawson P. and Andriopoulos. C. (2009). Managing change, creativity and innovation. Singapore: Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. p.280

6.     Dawson. P. and Andriopoulos. C. (2009). Managing change, creativity and innovation. Singapore: Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. p.334