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HBO - Change and The Social System
HBO - Change and The Social System
HBO - Change and The Social System
Social systems are never perfectly frictionless; hence never reach and idyllic state of
perfection without conflicts or problems.
When a change is minor and within the scope of the correcting program, adjustment
is fairly routine but when a change is major or unusual, more serious upsets may
occur.
The shape work can take is decided by the available technology, adjusted to the
social structure of the time and then fitted into the prevailing values.
"work change" - refers to any alternation which occurs in the overall work
environment.
Change can alter cultural values, personal values, attitudes and feelings of
individuals within the work environment. Work changes operate through each
employee's attitudes and feelings toward the change.
Attitudes, in turn, are not the result of change; they are learned, they are caused.
These could be traceable to personal history, his background, social experiences,
and work environment.
Feelings and logic are two different things. Logic alone is an ineffective way to try to
modify feelings.
Effect of Changes in Attitude
RESPONSE
CHANGE
ATTITUDES
(SENTIMENTS
PERSONAL HISTORY
REFERENCE GROUP
SOCIAL SITUATION
AT WORK
2. Management has developed a number of ways to gain support for change brought
about by planned or unplanned changes:
2.1 to set up various controls and pledges to protect employees from economicloss
from change,
Grievance systems give the employee a feeling of security that his benefits will be
protected and differences about them fairly resolved.
2.2 to permit workers to share in the benefits which result from change,
2.3 communication is essential in improving support for change. Even though a
change will affect only one or two in a work group of ten persons, all of them need to
know about the change in order to feel secure and maintain group cooperation.
3. Change requires unlearning old habits as well as learning new ones, and the
unlearning may be really more difficult than the new learning.
4. Modern management has given emphasis to human resource development (HRD)
which is concerned with the human and social implication of change in internal
organization, methods of working and of economic and social changes in the
community.
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATION
1. Building trust and confidence - is important in overcoming resistance to change.
Trust and confidence in management are directly related to past experiences.
Trust builds up if management deals with employees in an open and straight forward
manner.
2. Group participation - is an effective way to build support for change. Usually more
than one person is involved and a person's behavior is firmly grounded in the
different groups to which he belongs; hence the utilization of group forces will
encourage anindividual to change.
Values which can influence the acceptance or rejection of change:
a) the kindship pattern
b) the compadre system
c) the amor propio
Management's responsibility for change is summarized as
1) Make only useful, necessary change.
2) Recognize the possible positive and negative effects of change and introduce it with
adequate attention to human relations.
3) Share the benefit of change with employees.
4) Diagnose the problems remaining after a change occurs and treat them. Change,
when improperly handled manifests itself in slowdowns and showdowns. When
properly managed and controlled it can lead to creativity, improvement and progress.