Organizational Change Change is a phenomenon that is part and parcel of life. In the business world, change is often challenging on multiple levels, including the interpersonal and the organizational levels. In terms of the interpersonal level, many employees or even managers may resist change because it tends to remove the comfort zone, even if only temporarily. Change may also cause fear, especially when there is a danger of job losses and the like. These personal issues can cause inter-level tension within the organization and have unforeseen and unintended negative effects on the process and its goals. For this reason, as Burke notes in the chapter on levels of organization change, it is important for managers to be aware of and actively manage the various levels of change that occur within his or her organization.

I believe that Burke (p. 99) makes an important statement in recognizing that there are differences not only in the types of changes that occur within the organization, but also among the different levels...

This is what makes change such a complicated process. The differences and change processes need to be integrated in such a way that change is optimized and serves its purpose. This can mitigate some of the potential negative effects caused by change within the organization.
In his introduction, Burke (100) recognizes that there are many intricate interactions within organizations, which might influence change. In order to arrive at a relatively broad understanding of how change occurs at various levels, however, he has identified three broad categories of change, including the individual, the group, and the total system. In this way, the author addresses all the levels at which the organization operates. The results of such an analysis can then be used as a basis for further and more detailed analysis within the interpersonal, inter-group, and inter-organization levels.

One important factor that Burke (p. 100) highlights about the individual level of change within organizations is that…