Influence of Technology on Organizational Change and Growth

Organizational Change and Growth Through Technology:

In the past few years, information technology is a concept that has attracted huge attention from various sectors in the society including the academic field and business world. This huge attention is attributed to the fact that information technology has revolutionized communication and business processes. In the business world, the concept has generated considerable interest because of its organizational impact. The impact of information technology on organizational changes and labor productivity has attracted considerable attention that has contributed to extensive research on this issue. Given the pervasiveness of information technology in the modern world, it has become a major theme that drives organizational change and growth in relation to its link to factors of production.

Changes in the Business World:

According to Bridges (2009), change is a process that is situational and takes place without people transitioning (p.3). In essence, while change is regarded as the situation itself, transition is more of a psychological process that requires individuals to bring their hearts and minds to work. Since people usually have problems with transitions rather than the change itself, transition management is an important element in promoting organizational change and growth because it is a means of handling people in a manner that makes them feel more comfortable. Transition management helps people to deal with their losses by letting go of the old as part of psychological realignments (Bridges, 2009, p.24).

Generally, the business world is increasingly transforming as mergers, layoffs, restructuring, and bankruptcy take place on a daily basis. These transformations are causing organizational changes, which people must deal with in the workplace. In this case, employees and managers should deal with the actual situational shifts and the accompanying psychological components in order to promote organizational growth. The need for dealing with these aspects is because organizational change and transitions affect people who are faced with the need to embrace a new situation and implement the corresponding change.

Technology and Organizational Change and Growth:

One of the major themes that has fueled and driven changes in the modern business world is technology whose pervasiveness in the society has been characterized with numerous changes in communication and business processes. Technology is developing rapidly and increasingly becoming the principal tool for meeting concerns of improved productivity across organizations (Gagnon & Gagnon, 2010, p.19). In light of numerous economic crises and increased competition because of globalization of markets and unprecedented rationalization of resources, organizations are increasingly investing in information technology systems. The increased investments in information systems is based on the advantages provided by technologies with regards to enhancing productivity based on the integration of technologies into an organization.

An organization's capacity and need to evolve is influenced by internal and external environmental factors. While the internal factors are basically controllable, the external factors are issues that are beyond the organization's control though they affect the organization's operations and success. The internal factors affecting a company's capacity and need to evolve are the organization's personnel, its strategy, financial capability, operational ability, marketing capability, technical capability, and functional capability. In contrast, the external factors include sociocultural, technological, economic, political, regulatory and legal, geophysical, and trade factors (Gupta, Guha & Krishnaswami, 2013, p.10).

The external factors influence a firm's capacity and need to evolve by providing opportunities or threats for an organization. An organization needs to conduct proper analysis of each of these factors in order to capitalize on the opportunities while minimizing the threats. In contrast, the internal factors work together to determine organizational capability with regards to the firm's strengths and weaknesses. Notably, the company's management needs to constantly assess the external environment since it affects its internal environment in relation to its synergy, resources, and unique competencies.

In the past three decades, these factors have changed considerably because of the influence of technology. While technology is an external factor, it has not only transformed the external environment of organizations but also changed the internal environment, especially a firm's technical capabilities. The emergence and widespread use of technology in the business world has contributed to increased focus on high-impact innovation and growth by organizations. Actually, innovation is currently considered as a major competency that determines an organization's capacity and need to evolve. In essence, an organization is currently considered to be as strong as its innovative strategies, which act as major competitive advantages.

Over the past few decades, companies have changed their approach to providing high-impact innovation and growth because of rapid technological developments (The Growth Agenda, 2012, p.5). The development of high-impact innovation to promote organizational growth is fueled by the presence of numerous IT applications that can be used in business processes. Actually, all types of organizations across the globe are exposed to relatively constant development and growth of IT applications (Robey, Anderson & Raymond, 2013, p.380).

Organizations increasingly use these applications to enhance their internal capacity and deal with issues that emerge from their external environment. External environmental changes compel organizations to adapt and initiate organizational changes that promote growth through enhancing the firm's competitive advantage. In the modern corporate world, the most common organizational changes that help in achieving this goal are incremental technology change. The incremental technology change is the constant flow of technical enhancements that are exploitative and developed on current technological trajectory. The incremental technology change acts as the basis with which organizations adapt to strong competition in the market and changes in external environment in order to enhance their productivity. Consequently, the effective use of IT applications has developed to become a major component for determining an organization's capacity and need to evolve.

Despite, technological changes been associated with numerous benefits in relation to organizational change and growth, they can act as obstacles that hinder a company's capability for growth. One of the major ways in which technological changes can become obstacles to a firm's ability to grow is when they implementation of technical tools and processes is characterized with resistance from employees. Generally, employees' attitude and resistance to change act as a major hindrance in organizational change and growth. Without technology acceptance by employees, an organization's ability to grow through the use of technological applications is hindered (Meier, Ben & Schuppan, 2013, p.316). Secondly, the implementation and use of technology can be disruptive to an organization's business process and act as an impediment to the firm's growth. Radical technological change can be hazardous to an organization, especially if it not built on the existing technological trajectory.