What are the strengths and limitations of current theories about planned change?
具体要求在附件名字为 要求1 的附件里
管理
硕士
4000
Tip: Examine theories of change and theories of management and use examples of planned
change in an organisation with which you are familiar to develop your response to this essay
topic.

What Are the Strengths and Limitations of Current Theories about Planned Change?
1. Introduction of the current theories about planned change
Planned change is a field of organizational development that concerns the flexibility of both the inner and outer environment of an organization. According to the current theories of planned change, the development of organization is an effort planned and managed from the top (Dorfman, 2007). The purpose of planned change is to increase the competitive strength of an organization effectively and efficiently through planned interventions during the operations process of the organization. It is a process closely related to the change of the organizational structure as well as the behavior of individual employees at workplace within the organization. According to many scholars, organization development can be considered as the result of different management models dealing with the change of the organization so as to enhance its competitive strength in the marketplace (Schultz, 1994). So, to understand the practice of organizational development, people have to be familiar with the factors influencing the change of an organization in both its inner and outer environments. The key word to understand the theory of planned change theories is planned, which means the careful scheming of an action by the manager of the organization in order to achieve specific management objectives.

One of the main features of modern organizations is that the management process is full of changes that depend on the competitive environmental conditions. As a result, planned organizational change is considered to be one of the essential contents of organizational management in the ever-changing competitive conditions of organizations (Watkins, 2003). Generally speaking, the current theories of planned change of organizations can be summarized in some main aspects ranging from structural change to environmental change. The former type of change includes all the processes and factors concerning the management process or the form of organizational structures, whereas the latter type of change includes the competitive situation of an organization in the marketplace featured by specific cultural settings.

Academically, change management deals with the potential risks and opportunities of an organization during the whole process of the management and market competition. So, the theories of change usually deal with the whole process of an organization in identifying these risks and opportunities (Crockford, 1986). Change management is thus very important because the ever-changing business environment of an organization usually determines the management style and the competitive strategies of an organization. With the constant changes of the business environment, the whole management processes of an organization are usually featured by uncertainty of unpredictable factors (Cortada, 2003). As a result, the function of the methodology used by the organization is to detect these factors and to work out effective competitive strategies. The function of the theories of organizational change is thus used to determine the contexts of change and can thus be used by organizations to prepare for the potential impacts produced by the changes. Obviously, the strength of these change theories lie in that they can provide methodologies for competition. However, in the meanwhile, these theories also have some limitations (Hubbard, 2009). In this essay, the strengths and limitations of the major change theories are to be discussed according to their diversified perspectives in organizational management.

2. Evaluation of the major change theories