Change Agents

Change is vital in every organization to survive and to keep up with the ever-changing technology and environment. They include globalisation, clashing cultures and diversity, changing technology, challenging economies, the need to be more efficient, innovative and responsive to customer demands, corporate social responsibilities, and aging and growing population (Thompson, 2009). In order to survive, organizations are required to constantly change so that it remains competitive with the changing environment Organization development is different from organizational change. It is primarily concerned with change that is goaled towards transferring the knowledge, skills and expertise needed to achieve goals and solve problems. The intention is to improve the organization in terms of problem solving, quality of work life, etc and moving the organization to a better direction or position in order to have better performance, lower turnover and higher job satisfaction in employees. Organizational change whereas, is more broad in perspective and can refer to any changes in the organization from change in organizational structure to technical or managerial innovations Organizational targets for planned change include changes in strategy, objectives, technology, culture, structure, processes, management etc. These change activities in the organization are managed, facilitate and implement by change agents. There will be a discussion on why organizations enlist the help of change agents and the skills and competencies that they need to possess. There are various advantages and disadvantages for an organization in using internal and external change agents in the change processes. Lastly, few recommendations are people who bring or introduce planned change. The change agent can be manager or non-manager, employees of an organization or a consultant hired from outside (Pathak, 2010).

In this paper, an analysis will be carried out on whether change leaders should be