Organizational Change, Human Resource Management and Behavior Modification

With the continuing globalization of the world economy bringing about shifting changes in business paradigms across the board, one of the most pressing problems facing human resource management on an international scale is organizational change. The planning, implementation and realization of organizational change-whether on a mass scale or a smaller component-based scale-was the focus of the article Managing the Human Resources in Organizational Change: A Case Study, by Lindsay Nelson.

According to Nelson, the foremost human resource management problems when dealing with organization change are overcoming resistance to change, and learning how to deal with employees throughout the labor hierarchy. The problems are actually two sides of the same coin because lower level employees often feel alienated and dissociated from management. The company that capably promotes the value of organizational change, either through coercive techniques or more subtle behavioral modification, is the successful company.

The problem that stems from the failure to successfully define and implement organization change can range from the loss of highly valued contracts to forcible downsizing and even eventually to bankruptcy. In the fast paced world of global economics, even a slight delay in instituting organizational change can potentially result in disastrous consequences.