Change Theory and Theory

Organizational Change Management Theory The organization this document will assess in terms of its readiness for change is Dataversity. It operates within the data management industry. Its primary operations are two-fold. It hosts a website centered upon the education of consumers and businesses for data-driven applications. Also, the company hosts myriad conferences each year. These conferences are also dedicated to data-driven applications and technologies. This organization is a small one. There are only five full-time employees. However, it strongly relies on contractors and their work.

The organization has been in existence for the past 10 years. It started off as simply hosting conferences before it branched out to publishing in the way of its internationally renowned web site. The primary human resources practice employed by Dataversity that could benefit from change is the way that it hires is contractors. Presently, there is a decided dearth of protocol and consistency in the way that contractors are hired to generate content for the organization's web site.

The lack of uniformity and even formality in this measure is underscored by the fact that the managing editor is allowed to hire and dismiss employees with impunity. There have been numerous instances in which she was remiss in selecting potential contractors. Although her practices do not directly include nepotism, she has occasionally brought on-board friends and close acquaintances. However, there is no formal way to check the credentials of these hires, which could conceivably compromise the integrity of the site.

There are a number of valid reasons for the proposed changed in hiring at this organization based on contemporary theories of change management. Still, three of them are the most cogent in this regard. The majority of these reasons pertain to Lewin's change theory. Firstly, there is unproductive behavior that Dataversity and its managing editor are exhibiting in hiring unfit employees to generate website content. Lewin's change theory states that such behavior should be unfrozen for organizations to progress beyond it (Nursing, 2011).

Another reason that Dataversity should supplant its current hiring status with another is because of the second phase in Lewin's theory. This is the movement phase in which thoughts and feelings need to change for the organization to improve (Nursing, 2011), which Dataversity needs to do. The final reason Dataversity needs a change is because it needs an established method for determining qualified applicants, which it does not have. Lewin's change theory refers to this notion "refreezing" (Nursing, 2011) its process into a time-honored one that is effective.

Although there are myriad diagnostic tools that one can utilize to determine if an organization is suitably prepared for change, two of those seem more appropriate for the organization discussed within this document than the others. The first of these is Organizational Readiness to Assess Change (ORCA) tool. This instrument is desirable for Dataversity because it accurately measures both the positive and negative reasons for change within the organization.

Both the amount of chaos that this organization incurs because of its capricious hiring measures and the amount of utility produced by entrenching them in a longstanding process are accounted for with this particular instrument (National Collaborating, 2013). Moreover, it also evaluates and defines the actual needs of employees who will be instrumental to that change, which is invaluable to the organization's managing editor. The second is the Organizational Change Readiness Assessment. This instrument is of use to smaller organizations, which includes Dataversity.

The diagnostic tool selected to assess Dataversity's readiness for change is the Organizational Readiness to Assess Change instrument. The results it provided about this organization were revealing, and indicative of the fact that it is ready to change its hiring process for web site content generation. Firstly, those results indicated that there was a significant amount of discord found in Dataversity. It strongly appears as though that discord pertained to the high rate of turnovers of content generators for the website.

The implications are that more strident measures for hiring employees would result in longer tenures on their behalf, which would minimize the negative effects of this discord. The results of the context assessment component of this instrument were equally revealing. They indicated that the staff culture and leadership behavior were not congruent with the desired goals of stability in the long-term. Such stability, of course, can ultimately become manifested by content generators who have a lasting impact on.