With the developments and changes in the business markets, societal cultures and traditions, financial markets and the innovations in technology, makes the organizational change inevitable. Every organization currently is undergoing or expecting various changes in its departments and areas of operations which will affect the overall performance of the organization. Indeed, each organization has a written and considered objectives and operations, but during everyday operations, certain constraints and factors challenge the leading objectives for an organization to adopt a new strategy to deal with the changes. Each management seeks to address change in the fastest and the most strategic way even if the process of change proves to be complex, hence, the need for proper preparations and strategies to deal with all kind of changes is required. Therefore, organizations and businesses need to cope with the expected change in order to be able to compete favorably and achieve the set objectives. Factors that drive organizational change can be divided into two; external and internal. Internal factors are those factors that are within the organization which leads to various changes in the organization. External factors comprise f those from outside the operations of the organization that affect the operations and way of business. External factors are the most common and if not noted earlier can led to the overall collapse of an organization.
Internal Factors
As stated above, internal factors are factors that are derived from the organization’s management and operation policies and styles, management systems and the overall procedures. The most common factor for that can be employee attitudes. Indeed, management styles and strategies can in many ways drive change in an organization. Majorly the desire of management for organizational growth can in one way or another drive change. To attain growth, an organization will have to adopt a new set of operations hence change all operational activities and objectives. An example of change operation is the substitution of the products’ names that will drive organizational change. The need to improve processes can also drive organizational change, as there will be the need to eliminate and update certain processes to achieve such an objective. Labor issues and personnel change are the reasons of changes even not significant ones. Labor issues concerning employees of an organization can also drive an organization to adopt certain human resource policies. More internal factors are engaged in the involvement of company in legal procedures and capacity of the organization. If these factors threaten the survival of the organization then they could drive certain chances in organizations.
External factors
External factors contribute too much to the changes in an organization. These are political and social, economic and technological factors that affect the organization in cause of its operation. In modern business technology has been one force that has shortchanged a number of organizations. Modern technological innovations have changed every part and structure of business hence unavoidable changes are introduced. These have led to incorporation of computers, information management technology and internet services and operations in organizations. Technological changes can be very beneficial to an organization. Another external factor is government regulation. Government regulations and laws are important for the proper, efficient and easy operations of organizations, such matters like tax, management and operational ethics, environmental issues and safety, business conduct laws and trade rights change can totally affect the operations of an organization. The government puts regulations to preserve the interests of the public and d achieves a certain level of business, these objectives may affect or not go in line with the objectives and operations of a corporation. Competition is another factor that heavily drives organizational change. Entrance of a net firm or new product by a competitor to the market would force an organization to change its strategies and operations to keep with the completion.
In conclusion let us look how mergers and acquisitions affect or drive change in an organization. A merger happens when two common corporations engage in the same business together, while acquisition is the process of taking over the organization by another totally. As a result of such processes the recreation of organization’s structures and policies and change in the organization is an outgrowth of it. An example is the British Airways which merged with Iberia in order to expand their area operations, share costs and maximize profits. Upon signing the merger, both corporations changed their management and undertook a major restructuring which saw job cuts and allowances and benefits reduction on its employees.