Change and Social Organization

Organizations continually adapt to external organizational imperatives such as technology, population, knowledge and values. The increasing rate and intensity of these imperatives necessitates fhanges in services irrespective of the organization's formal intentions to change. It is suggested that organizational characteristics amenable to handling change do not occur randomly. Six organizational characteristics are discussed. It is emphasized however, that these six organizational characteristics are not in themselves, sufficient to insure the successful implementation of change. A changing relationship between individuals, as well as a process of routinization must also be dealt with if the imperative for organizational change is to be effectively met. Three stages in this process of routinization are suggested. These are: (1) the provision of a functional input information base; (2) relating changing programs to explicitly defined goals; and (3) the implementation of management by objectives as a tool for providing the organizational characteristics discussed in this paper. It is suggested that these three stages should provide an appropriate environment for working towards a more sustained and effective implementation of organizational change. What is often overlooked in the pursuit of detailing the multitude of problems facing social organizations is that underlying forces affect these organizations irrespective of any particular set of problems. I propose to examine one of these fundamental underlying forces, review some pertinant literature on organization characteristics that are related to this underlying force, and then suggest a procedure that could be undertaken by these social organizations to improve their effectiveness in adapting to this imperative. CHANGE: AN ORGANIZATION IMPERATIVE The particular force or imperative I am referring to is CHANGE 2 itself. Changes in technology, changes in expectations, in value, in knowledge, in population, in clients demanding service, indicate a few of the changes in the external environment affecting social organizations. In other words continued adaptations to external forces such as these, necessitates changes in services irrespective of the organizations formal intentions to change as expressed by its staff