2.6 Limitation of the current change theories
Though the planned change theories have contributed greatly to the strategic development of organizations, it also has a variety of limitations. One important limitation is that the planned change theories at the present time have assumed that the operations of organizational management occur under stable conditions. However, it is by no means the stable conditions of organizations that are functioning continuously for the development of an organization. On the other hand, the development condition of an organization is keeping constantly changing. For example, as to the management of human resources, the planned change theories usually consider that the premise of the development of human nature is unchanged. But the real fact is that people’s characters are impacted by the surroundings and their behavior and life style are being influenced by the people around them. In this way, to manager human resource effectively, managers should focus on the profound study of the psychology of human beings. It is not just enough to know some general principles of communication at the workplace within an organization. The second limitation of the planned change theories is that the theories at the present time all assumed that the change management is directed from the top management in a linear pattern. However, the reality is that the management job of an organization is the result of the cooperation between a diversity of functional departments and the mutual interaction between different groups of people rather than the obeying of orders from the top management. As a result, the flexibility of the whole management process is the prerequisite of the development of an organization. The simple principles proposed by the change theories are not sufficient to guide the detailed jobs of the organizational management in complication situations.
2.7 Evaluation of the function of the change theories in guiding organizational management
Despite the limitations of the planned change theories, they are important to the strategic development of organizations in that these theories successfully provided some general principles for the planning of development strategies for modern organizations. These functions can be roughly divided into three major aspects. First of all, these theories prescribed the overall principles to conduct the daily management jobs of an organization. For example, these theories have stressed the importance of catering for the change of the organizational environment. In this way, organizations can develop suitable competitive strategies so as to cope with the potential changes impacted by the particular environmental factors (Hofstede, 2001). Secondly, the change theories proposed some methods to deal with the change of the people. In this way, the managers of organizations can design the individual career development schemes according to the diversified talents and competence of individuals within an organization. So, the change theories can provide guidelines for the effective motivation of the employees by the manager of a modern organization. Thirdly, by stressing the systematic feature of the organizational development, the change theories have focused on the function of organizational management in making up strategic competitive methodology so as to gain advantage in competition. In this way, the planned change theories can be instructive in promoting the strategic development of organizations.
3. Conclusion
To summarize, the present planned change theories have guided the development of modern international organizations from the particular perspective of competition. This is of special importance to business organizations whose marketing needs strategic development in the ever-changing conditions of the international background. Today’s organizations are full of changes. In order to find its way to cope with the new problems accompanied by these changes, organizations have to be creative in making up strategies suitable for the conditions of competition and development during the process of their expansion into the targeted marketplaces. This is largely because of the fact that international business management is far more complicated than the handling of a local business. The difference in people’s way of life and way of thinking, along with the different style of work of the staff members in different target market areas determine the complexity of the management of the organization on the international scale. So, the adaptation and change to cope with this complicatedness is both important and necessary for the sustained development of modern organizations. The planned change theories require modern organizations today to adopt flexible strategies in dealing with the change management. This is an important step for these organizations to avoid the potential risks that may arise from the changing conditions of the organizational environment. In fact, this has become one essential feature of the strategic management for organizations today.