Organizational Development and Technology Adoption

This assignment examines the influence of technology adoption on organizations. It delves into how organizational development initiatives can facilitate successful technological integration, highlighting potential challenges such as employee resistance and financial constraints. The discussion emphasizes the role of communication, employee engagement, and continuous improvement in driving efficiency and effectiveness within organizations adopting new technologies.

Running Head: Organizational Development
Organizational Development

Organizational Development 1
Contents
Part –A.............................................................................................................................................2
Identification Problems in the organization.................................................................................2
Part -B..............................................................................................................................................2
The major sources of resistance to change in the organization...................................................2
Strategies to deal with the resistance by the employees..............................................................4
Communicating the benefits of the technology to the employees...........................................4
Proper training facilities..........................................................................................................4
Timing of the changes.............................................................................................................5
Role of leadership in the case study............................................................................................5
Part -C..............................................................................................................................................6
Summary of the key problems.....................................................................................................6
Role of organizational development............................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

Organizational Development 2
Part –A
Identification Problems in the organization
The problems in the organization are a blend of primary culture, technological or structural. The
case study talks about the implementation of technology in the project to make the services more
effective for the customers. The company who is willing to implement the changes related to the
technology is a publicly owned company. The change in the new information technology will
result in the changes in the work processes and practice. In the organization, there are
approximately 500 employees. The average age of the employees in the organization is 48 years.
The level of education of the employees consist of 10% holds PG degree, 25% are graduated and
60% have upper secondary education and rest 5% completed 6-year basic education. The culture
differences in the organization lead to the problem. The employees who are PG might expect that
they will get the promotion. Though, due to the company's structure, they face the
discrimination. Employees of the company also feel that they are not valued in the organization.
The structure of the organization is rigid. The promotion of the employees is based on the
seniority and the years of service.
Part -B
The major sources of resistance to change in the organization
In the case study, it is clearly visible that there are many reasons due to which employees of the
organization resist the change.1
1 Burke, W. Warner. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications, 2017.

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 Technology change will create problems for the employees who didn’t perform well in
the organization. Technology will enable performance management and goal setting in
the organization. There are many employees in the organization that did not perform well
in the organization and later they gave justification for their behavior by blaming other
departments for the delay and inefficiencies.2 With the emergence of the new technology
company can easily check the employee's performance. This will become problems of the
employees who didn't perform well.
 The new system might create stress and confusion for the employees in the organizations.
There are some employees in the organization who knows the benefits of the new system.
Though, they were unwilling to start it due to lack of confidence. The employees were
not able to understand the idea behind the usage of the technology.3 The senior
employees in the organization were afraid of losing the face in front of the younger
employees who were friendlier with the use of technology.
 The role of the union in the organization didn't smooth the implementation process. The
union team decided to step against the changes taking place in the organization. Union
also started an argument on the extra allowance from the company. They said that there
might be some of the benefits of the technology but employees should be rewarded for
the extra amount for the use of the technology. 4The amount should be added to their
salary. This was the chance for the employees to bring the rise in the amount of the
2 Katzenbach, Jon R., and Douglas K. Smith. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization.
Harvard Business Review Press, 2015.
3 Allen, David. Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin, 2015.
4 Burke, W. Warner, and Debra A. Noumair. Organization development: A process of learning and changing. FT
Press, 2015.

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salary. On this argument, the top management stated that it is not possible to increase the
salary. For the company, the change management was an expensive deal.
 Lack of trust among the management and the employees. The company was characterized
by the poor change history. Previously, the organization tried to bring an expensive
consultant to implement the sequence of improvement in the company. At that time the
management of the company got replaced and the new management wants to bring new
changes. These results in no change in the system at that time and majority of people
didn't believe in change. This leads to lack of trust among the managers and the
employees. 5
The above paragraph talks about the reasons for the resistance to the employees in the
organization. The organization should take some of the strategies to deal with the resistance.
Strategies to deal with the resistance by the employees
The organization should try to implement some of the strategies to deal with the resistance in the
organization by the employees. 6I believe that these strategies will help the organization in
dealing with the employees.
Communicating the benefits of the technology to the employees
Communication among the top management and the employees is must in the organization. The
company should try to communicate the benefits of implementing the new technology in the
organization. Technology is not only beneficial for the company's working but also for the
personal development. The employees will get to know about the technologies, they will be able
5 Wang, Dan-Shang, and Chia-Chun Hsieh. "The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust and employee
engagement." Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal 41, no. 4 (2013): 613-624.
6 Bridges, William, and Susan Bridges. Managing transitions: Making the most of change. Da Capo Press, 2017.

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to keep themselves updated. Implementation of new technology in the organization will increase
the productivity and efficiency of the company.7 This will enhance the customer satisfaction
which results in a decrease in the daily arguments among the customers and employees.
Proper training facilities
In the case study, the top level management of the company decided not to increase the budgets
of the training and decided to perform the on-job training. Over here, the management needs to
understand the requirement of the employees along with the reason for the resistance.
Considering that the organization should try to increase the budget for the training of the
employees. Training of the employees will make it easy for the employees to adopt the changes
taking place in the organization.8
Timing of the changes
The organization should make sure that the timings for bringing the change should be perfect.
Basically, if company talks to bring huge changes in the company than the top management
might face resistance from the employees.9 The company should try to bring changes gradually
in the organization. The employees of the organization become used to the changes. The
employees will be able to adapt the changes more easily.
Role of leadership in the case study
Supervisor or the leader plays a vital role in the organization. In the case study, the decision
taken by the top management was communicated first to the supervisor of the company. The
7 Cornelissen, Joep, and Joep P. Cornelissen. Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage, 2017.
8 Smither, Robert, John Houston, and Sandra McIntire. Organization development: Strategies for changing
environments. Routledge, 2016.
9 Nicholas, John M., and Herman Steyn. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor &
Francis, 2017.

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supervisor further communicates the decision to the employees.10 The way the information is
communicated by the supervisor to the employees matters a lot. Once the leader understands the
situation he can give feedbacks and suggestion to the top management. In this case, due to lack
of education and seniority level, the supervisors were not friendly with the new systems. In some
of the departments, the younger employees of the organization need to show their superiors how
to use the new systems. The superior and older employees don't feel comfortable in asking a
question if they find any problem. The leader in the organization tries to pay overtime to those
employees who want to work after the shift time. Though, union prevented a majority of people
to take participation.
The leader in this situation needs to understand that the development of the organization is a
must. The role of the leader is to make the employees understand that these changes will bring
development and new opportunities for the business. 11Though, in the case study the leaders are
not aware of the use of the technology though they can encourage the active participation of the
employees. Leaders should ask the question if they find any problem. This will enhance the
participation of the employees in the changes.
Part -C
Summary of the key problems
The case study talks about the changes taking place in the public owned company. The
organization is willing to bring new technology. The case talks about the resistance to the
10 Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications, 2015.
11 Shin, Yuhyung, Sun Young Sung, Jin Nam Choi, and Min Soo Kim. "Top management ethical leadership and firm
performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate." Journal of Business Ethics 129, no. 1 (2015):
43-57.

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change. There are some of the problems faced by the top management. The employees of the
company don't want to adopt the changes related to the technology. Over here, the manager
should make the employees understand the importance of technology. The structure of the
organization is rigid and promotion is based on age and experience. The organization should
check the eligibility, skills, and capabilities of the employees and according to that organization
should give promotions. The level of education is diversified in the organization. These are some
of the key problems that occur in the organization. The union asked for the extra allowance from
the company for using the technology. Later this became one of the problems with the
management as they were not able to pay the extra amount to the employees for using the
technology.
Role of organizational development
Organisation development is the study of successful organizational change and performance. The
aim of the organization development is to enhance responses of an organization to adapt market
changes and technological advances.12 The development of the technology across the world
enforces company to adopt technology in their business as well. These changes in the
organization lead to increase the convenience in the work. At the same time, these changes could
bring the efficiency and effectiveness in the organization.
Organisation development enhances the communication among the employees in the
organization. A continuous improvement in the organization makes the employees interact or
share the views. This will make the employees more familiar with the changes. The development
12 Cummings, Thomas G., and Christopher G. Worley. Organization development and change. Cengage learning,
2014.

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will lead to product and service enhancement. 13Employee engagement in the organization will
increase the creativity and innovation. Product innovation takes place by using the market
research, customer expectations, competitive analysis etc. Product innovation will help the
organization in increasing the profit of the company. Profit of the company will rise once the
organization will be able to work with efficiency and effectiveness. This shows that the
organization development could help in bringing the efficiency and effectiveness in the
organization.14
13 Waddell, Dianne, Andrew Creed, Thomas G. Cummings, and Christopher Worley. Organisational change:
Development and transformation. Cengage Learning, 2013.
14 Kuipers, Ben S., Malcolm Higgs, Walter Kickert, Lars Tummers, Jolien Grandia, and Joris Van der Voet. "The
management of change in public organizations: A literature review." Public Administration 92, no. 1 (2014): 1-20.

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References
Allen, David. Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin, 2015.
Bridges, William, and Susan Bridges. Managing transitions: Making the most of change. Da
Capo Press, 2017.
Burke, W. Warner, and Debra A. Noumair. Organization development: A process of learning
and changing. FT Press, 2015.
Burke, W. Warner. Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications, 2017.
Cornelissen, Joep, and Joep P. Cornelissen. Corporate communication: A guide to theory and
practice. Sage, 2017.
Cummings, Thomas G., and Christopher G. Worley. Organization development and change.
Cengage learning, 2014.
Katzenbach, Jon R., and Douglas K. Smith. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-
performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press, 2015.
Kuipers, Ben S., Malcolm Higgs, Walter Kickert, Lars Tummers, Jolien Grandia, and Joris Van
der Voet. "The management of change in public organizations: A literature review." Public
Administration 92, no. 1 (2014): 1-20.
Nicholas, John M., and Herman Steyn. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Northouse, Peter G. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications, 2015.
Shin, Yuhyung, Sun Young Sung, Jin Nam Choi, and Min Soo Kim. "Top management ethical
leadership and firm performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate."
Journal of Business Ethics 129, no. 1 (2015): 43-57.

Organizational Development 10
Smither, Robert, John Houston, and Sandra McIntire. Organization development: Strategies for
changing environments. Routledge, 2016.
Waddell, Dianne, Andrew Creed, Thomas G. Cummings, and Christopher Worley.
Organisational change: Development and transformation. Cengage Learning, 2013.
Wang, Dan-Shang, and Chia-Chun Hsieh. "The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust
and employee engagement." Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal 41, no. 4
(2013): 613-624.