Theme 2: Organizational Performance
Organization Change in Human Resourse Development Exams
Course: EAC 556 - Organization Change in HRD

This narrative discusses select responses from the midterm exam and the final exam in a course on organizational change in human resource development (HRD). The course content was divided into three sections: 1) Introduction and history of organization change; 2) Shifting to a new science; and, 3) Facilitating change in a complex world. The exams provided me with opportunities to assess my comprehension of change theories, change leaders, and complexity theory. I am able to assist organizations in assessing their learning culture, guiding their behavior, and managing complexity in a living system.

The midterm exam focused on comparing mechanistic and complex systems perspectives in organizations. The mechanistic or hierarchical perspective was developed during the Industrial Era, and works well when an organization’s internal and external conditions remain stable and predictable. Although today’s organizations are faced with numerous internal and external forces of change that are unstable and unpredictable (e.g., globalization; information technology; increased diversity in the workforce; increased turnover in the workforce), most still follow a mechanistic model. It is only in the past twenty or so years that an alternative, the complex systems perspective, has emerged in some organizations. The complex systems perspective offers a holistic view, where all members of an organization are change agents who are encouraged to learn, innovate, challenge others’ views, evolve, and adapt.

The final exam focused on a single change leader and how his actions and methods were consistent with complex adaptive systems (CAS). Leaders who use a CAS lens understand that all parts of the system (e.g., employees, departments, customers, ideas, etc.) are agents and generate a system-wide pattern (e.g., teams, organizational culture, behavioral norms, simple rules, etc.), and this pattern affects the interactions among the agents. Organizations and leaders who employ a CAS lens foster decentralization, relationships, communication, collaboration, learning, experimentation, innovation, and ultimately, adaptability. This perspective is not traditional; however, it is gaining more prominence in order to be successful and competitive in the global marketplace.

Click here to view Organization Change Midterm Exam, Q1, 4-5
Click here to view Organization Change Final Exam