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Change
Management MGMT625
VU
LESSON
#7
THEORIES
OF CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS
Before
discussing theories of change let us
first discuss one such term
used frequent in
management
literature.
The term is theoretical pluralism.
Pluralism is widely popular term in the
western society
which
means to satisfy differing
interests and needs of cross section of
society. Here it
means
pluralism
also exist in the case of simultaneous
acceptance of differing and
multiple explanations of
reality.
This has been realised by
Koontz who referred to this
situation as management
theory
jungle.
There is problem of too much
conflicting, overlapping, alternative and
varying theories of a
single
phenomenon in management literature
related to motivation, leadership,
decision-making,
objective-setting
(MBO) etc. This lead to the
fragmentation and compartmentalisation
of
perspectives
resulting in the persistence of the
problem of theoretical divide;
whether it is an
isolated
line of research or nullify
each other or support or reinforce
each other. There fore we
have
to
understanding different explanations
theories stated below.
These
theories explained below are narrated by
Van de Ven & Poole in
his article published in
the
Academy
of Management Review tried to
give a comprehensive picture of various
theories on
organization
change ranging from
child development to evolutionary
biology, incorporating
various
concepts, as organisation life is a
complex phenomenon with interplay and
juxtaposition of
multiple
contrasting forces. He categorised various theories
into a set of four theories
which are:
1.
Life cycle theories
2.
Teleological theories
3.
Dialectical theories
4.
Evolutionary theories
This
is a significant framework gives a
parsimonious and prudent explanation of
organization
change.
The framework serves a
normative function and provides
useful standards to evaluate
the
form,
completeness and tightness of specific
developmental theories. The framework
supports
inductive
research by identifying characteristics
of the four motors and the conditions
under which
they
operate
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