Comparison of Organizational Development and Transformation - Admission/Application Essay Example

            Currently, there are various changes taking place within the world of commerce. This calls for different organizations and institutions to recognize the need for instituting change. In the 21st century, organizations need to adapt to changes taking place in the market, come up with new products to suit customer needs through innovation, look for ways to expand the client base, and manage their growth to remain operational in the competitive global market. There is a need for organizations to undergo some changes to ensure improved efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness. Every organization was created with the purpose of continuity; therefore, the institution of appropriate changes ensures survival in the competitive business environment. An organization tends to undergo changes in forms of organizational development and transformation. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the two concepts while bringing out differences and similarities between the two.

            Organizational development entails the application of a wide range of scientific knowledge to planned developments and reinforces organizational changes. This is ensured through the initiation of strategic structures and processes to ensure improvement of the effectiveness within the organization (French, Cecil & Zawacki 120). While undergoing organizational development, an institution applies a wide range of efforts to ensure an improvement of the organization’s problem-solving skills. This is done through effective and collaborative management of the culture through the initiation of appropriate technology and accepted behavioral science. Instituting change requires a change agent who will be charged with getting people to solve their individual problems in the organization through the study of human behavior (p. 120). However, there is the need for the change agent to apply various intervention techniques to be successful. Organizational transformation entails a change of an organization’s aspect in a way that there is little or no resemblance with the previous aspect. With the process of transformation, organizations change all their fundamental operations, especially when in crisis and there is the need for systematic change (p. 121). During such events, all processes and structures are examined regardless of whether actual change took place or not in addition, organizational transformation calls for the integration of employees within the organization, processes, and different activities to institute rapid and wide adoption of the new systems, processes, and rules and regulations. Organizational development differs from the organizational transformation in that organizational transformation ensures a drastic and abrupt change to total structures, processes, and corporate culture; whereas organizational development advocates for gradual approaches to strategic change (p. 121). Organizational development ensures the execution of planned change within an organization and usually takes place during the entire organization’s lifecycle. Organizational transformation entails the implementation of unplanned change and is executed during a crisis. During organizational development, some employees may leave the organization depending on the decision by the management; whereas, for the transformation, employees lose their jobs, especially on occasions where the entire organization undergoes restructuring.

This calls for various organizations to institute and manage change to meet the needs of customers and stakeholders. However, there exist some differences between organizational development and transformation, although both concepts deal with the aspect of change within the

organization.