Download Evolutionary Theory of Change in Organizations: Principles and Implications and more Exercises Change Management in PDF only on Docsity! Change Management –MGMT625 VU © Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 33 LESSON # 13 THEORIES OF CHANGE IN ORGANISATIONS 4. Evolutionary Theory of Change First thing we know is that it is also the concept of evolution which is also equated with change. Darwin, the famous biological scientist is known as the leading protagonist of this theory. The term organic evolution means how a living organism grows and shrinks over time. We are also familiar with the debate between mechanistic versus organic organization. Therefore the question is; are organization like living organism follow principles of natural evolution? The metaphor is borrowed from biology, and as in biological evolution change proceeds through a continuous cycle of variation, selection and retention. In context of organization these terms have the following meanings: Variation refers to the creations of novel forms of organisations are often viewed to emerge by blind or random chance. Variation may be strategic or structural or operational in nature for e.g. Innovation in organisational functional areas. Implied here is the relationship of organization and its environment changes over a period of time. Changes in strategy and structural activities characterise this relationship or in other words, organizations continue to define and redefine its relationship with environment. Therefore external change leads to change in strategy which eventually culminates in change of structure. For example, growth (opportunity) in industry (part of environment) will result in the growth objective (increase in sales) of organization, will lead to in manpower (HR) and hence will lead to change in management form/practices. Imperative might be the transformation of autocratic style to participative style of decision making. In other words a single organization cannot grow indefinitely and still maintain its original form. Variation is bound to be there and this variation depends on adaptive capacity varies (of technology, capital, trained personnel, etc) Selection of organisation occurs principally through the competition of scarce resources and the environment selects entities that best fit the resource base of an environmental niche. Some organisms or variants perform better as changes occur in environment while other die or become extinct. Retention involves forces (including inertia and persistence) that perpetuate and maintain certain organisational forms. Retention serves to counteract the self-reinforcing loop between selection and variation. The same concept is known as evolutionary thinking. Now change managers, CEOs and consultants want to make organization as an evolutionary organization. The evolutionary thinking is described to entail the following features: 1. All events are time bound 2. No such thing/phenomenon is absolute 3. Focus on historical particular for explaining causation 4. Study of context is important 5. The theory also accounts for diversity of the organic world. 6. Account for variations in organizational strategy and its structure Therefore evolution explains change as a recurrent, cumulative, and probabilistic progression of variation, selection and retention of organisation entities (forms and practices). Organization mutates; mutation in biological terms means change in genetic character which means transformation in genetic codification. Change in genetic character is a matter of random variation (chance). In context of organizational innovation in different functional areas of organization (managers in various departments) in a random manner discover efficient and effective ways of management. The discovery of such changes could relate to two broader categories; systemic docsity.com
