Organizational Change Management: A Conceptual and Analytical Framework

Abstract

At present, most organizations are constantly developing strategies to adapt to environmental dynamics. Change, more than stability, has become the state that characterizes the organizational environment. In order to cope with the continuously dynamic complexity of the broader social and economic context, organizations must also evolve and make the necessary changes to stay competitive, be it technological, procedural, strategic changes, or changes in the structure and training of the staff. The efficiency of transformations and various forms of transition in an organization can be achieved through change management, through which strategies are designed and developed, in order that employees accept change and organization adapts to the dynamics of the environment and to the new conditions. In this paper, a conceptual and analytical framework is delineated to address change management in organizations. Starting from the term of change as it has been conceptualized in sociology, in the paper there are discussed the main aspects of organizational change, as well as the principles of effective change management. Moreover, since the resistance to change is a phenomenon encountered inclusively at the level of the groups and organizations, the paper deals also with this concept and, in this context, addresses the barriers and obstacles to organizational change, analysing their causes and the possible measures to combat them in the situations in which change would be beneficial.