External Forces
Every organization exists in some context; no organization is an island in itself. Each must continually interact with other organizations and individuals- the consumers, suppliers, unions, shareholders, government and many more. Each organization has goals and responsibilities related to each other in the environment. The present day environment is dynamic and will continue to be dynamic. Changes in social, political, economic, technology, and legal environment force organizations to change themselves. Such changes may result in organizational changes like major functions production process, labour-management relations, nature of competitions, economic constraints, organizational methods etc. In order to survive in the changing environment, organization must change. How the change in various environmental, organizations, must change. How the changes in various environmental factors necessitate change in the organization may be seen in following context:-
• Technology: When there is a change in technology in the organizational environment and other organizations adopt the new technology, the organizations under focus become less cost effective and its competitive position weakens. Therefore, it has to adopt new technology, its work structure is affected and a new equilibrium has to be established.
• Marketing conditions: Since every organization exports its outputs to the environment, an organization has to face competition in the market. There may be two types of forces which may affect the competitive position of an organization –other organizations supplying the same products and, buyers who are not buying the product. Any changes in these forces may require suitable changes in the in the organization. For example, when Indian economy was liberalized, there were many foreign organizations that entered the Indian market. This forced many Indian organizations to realign themselves with the new situations. The result in that there have been many cases of divesting the business and concentrating on the core business, acquiring core business, and developing competitive competence to face competitive threats. Similarly, there may be changes in buyers in terms of their needs, liking –disliking and income disposal for a product. These changes from the organizations to bring those products which meet buyer’s requirement.
• Social changes: Social changes reflect in terms of people’s aspirations, the needs, and their ways of working. Social changes have taken place because of the several forces like level of education, urbanization, feeling of autonomy, and international impact due to new information sources. These social changes affect the behavior of people in the organization. There, it is required to make adjustment in its working so that it matches with people.
• Political and legal changes: Political and legal factors broadly define the activities which an oganisation can undertake and the methods which will be