How are organisations restructuring work in response to changing technologies and economic conditions? (Research Proposal Sample)

RESTRUCTURING OF ORGANIZATIONS IN RESPONSE TO CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS Name of Author Course Professor Institution Date Abstract This study aims at evaluating the ways in which organizations are restructuring to deal with the issues related to changing economic conditions and technological changes. The study will involve a sample of participants approximately 500 employees, through stratified random sampling technique from different organizations. The selected organizations will be those that have had an intensive restructuring process in their management and workforce. The data collected from the survey will be analyzed using both descriptive and inferential techniques. Testing of the hypothesis related to the study will be done so as to get results that will help determine the effects and how organizations are restructuring. Keywords: restructuring, workforce, organization, performance Introduction Technological change has had significant influence on the growth, productivity and improvements in the living standards and in many business organizations. Technological changes come in with other influences such as the emergence and diffusion of new ideas, products and production techniques that spread over the economy via the "creative destruction process”. However, technological changes and advancements have resulted in job destruction in some industries particularly among the low-skilled (Davenport, 2013). Moreover, technological changes have created jobs which are in different industries and that may require skills. The recent trends due to the technological changes and changing economic conditions have resulted in net job creation, forcing new industries into the system to replace the old ones while workers have to adapt their skills to match those of the expanding and changing demands. The present day rapid changing economic conditions and changing technologies couples with the extensive restructuring proceeding in economies have led to some organizations to associate technology with the unemployment and social distress problems. Dealing with the changing economic conditions and technological changes in the right way will try to solve the impact of their economy-wide employment problem. The economy-wide employment impact may be positive if and only if the mechanisms for understanding the changes in both technology and economy are translated into jobs. The translations also need not be impaired by the lack of adequate training and innovation systems and financial markets. Therefore there is the need to realize the full potential of the changing economic conditions and technological changes to improve economic-wide productivity, job creation and growth. The governments and the respective organizations need to take the necessary precautions and steps in ensuring that they make the innovations and technology agree and merge smoothly with their policies which a vital integral part if overall economic policy. Problem statement The design of organizations is very critical in evaluating both the employee and organizational performance outcome. Organization design comprises of both the organizational structure and work organization. These two basic design involve, how the work is divided into various job tasks, the correlation between the employees in job performance and how work is coordinated and controlled so as to meet the organization’s objectives. The structure of an organization takes into consideration the internal and external division of labor. Background of study Many organization have had to undergo through a series of reforms in technology diffusion policies. The approaches that most organizations implement and adapt are usually based on the basis that the problems are due to the lack of adequate knowledge based economies and the potential if technology to enhance growth and employment. In many organizations the technological policies seem to be piecemeal with insufficient considerations given to linkages within the national innovation systems and to the structural reform agenda. Organizations have however have started restructuring work so as to cope with the changing economic conditions and technological changes. Product market reforms is one of the ways that organizations adopting to enable more rapid diffusion of technology and information. Product market reforms aid in making sure that incentives for the organization are strengthened to adapt and innovate goods and services to fit in with the changing consumer needs. Changing the reforms to financial markets help the organizations facilitate the allocation of capital to new technology-based entrepreneurial initiatives. Reconstructing the labor-market reforms by combining those with measures that favor up skilling and long-term learning play a crucial role in innovation thus facilitating the use of the changing technologies. The organizations that are either internet based or environmental goods and services offering based play an important role in transforming methodological change into throughput and employment. Organization with the help of the Government have the responsibility of creating an environment that is favorable to the emergence of demand and jobs in new growth areas. All that is possible through the regulatory reform resulting in flexible technological responses and entry. Restructuring the workplace through the combination of the infrastructure liberalization, technological innovation and flexible service conditions in most of the organizations has led to the creation of better job network-based services with the organizations and the workforce. Research questions The research will use a qualitative research methodology technique to complete the study. The research questions that will guide the study are mainly focused on understanding the related issues from the changing economic conditions and from technological changes within an organization. The formulated research questions include: * How are organization changing their work structure to solve the problems of changing technologies and economic conditions? * In what ways are employees responding to the increased diverse workforce, career expectations and care responsibilities? * What are the critical changes that need to be upheld in an organization to ensure a fairness and responsibility at work? * How do mangers, unions and workers in an organization handle the issues related to fairness dignity and fairness? Literature Review This chapter represents a literature review on how organizations are restructuring their work place in response to the changing technology and changing economic conditions. Typically, the management of any organization should be very cautious with any alterations of activities of the organizations. According to (A, et al., 2007, pp. 18-23) organizational restructuring is a word that is used to explain all the activities ranging from those of employees downsizing, delayering, lay-off and mergers of organizational unit. Organizational restructuring is common method that many institutions do implement to foresee performance enhancement through the realignment of the organizational social structure and work attitudes. All the realignment ensures a proper fit in the work-situation for the employees. The basic activities that revolve around the restructuring include transforming work behaviors and attitudes, replacing or disassembling the current management structure by relevant goal oriented. In addition it involves a competitive structure that will ensure that the needs of both the organization and employees are taken into consideration in the workplace. Longe (2013), states that organizational restructuring involves addressing all the critical aspects of managerial decision to make changes on various realms of the workplace. Some of the key areas that are related to managerial decision include task-design, work process and authority relations with the aim of having a more responsive organization. Consistent hence, with the genuine improvement in enterprises and business firm’s literature has proposed the social impacts of organizational restructuring as shortened job and unsafe work course of action (Kurebwa, 2011). The socio-psychological impacts of restructuring of organizations on employees according to (Hirsch, & Sourcey, 2006), includes the antecedents of the employees related to their work environment. Trust and satisfaction are two major elements for a successful restructuring for any varying type of changes to be incorporated within any organization. According a study conducted in Australia among the middle aged employees by (Broom, et al., 2006), revealed that the combination or role-overload and job insecurity, which are upshots of organizational restructuring brought about particularly higher chances of socio-psychological attitudinal issues for the workforce. Organizational restructuring from literature evaluation and analysis can be termed as the complex activity that has very many challenges or problems to deal with in any organization. In spite of the fact that, the progressive administrative methodology does not have the very influence force, it ordinarily contains solid possibilities of ontological distain and elevated dissatisfaction for employees with distinct ramifications for work-state of mind and execution in organizations (Longe, 2013). Study Hypothesis The study aims at determining how organizations are restructuring work in response to changing technologies and economic conditions. Generally, the restructuring results in workplace attitudes that also need to be put into consideration. Based on the research questions, research objective and literature review the following two hypothesis will be formulated and will be tested during the survey. * H0, ther...