Organizational downsizing as convergence or reorientation: Implications for human resource management (original) (raw)

Organizational downsizing: From concepts to practices

Vikalpa, 2005

Downsizing is currently one of the most popular strategies being used by organizations in an effort to survive and compete in the current business scenario. Existing literature in the area has broadly focused on the following three issues: Why do organizations downsize? What are ...

Organizational Downsizing: Conceptual Review

International Journal of Management Studies, 2019

Downsizing is a deceptively complex construct that is conflated with a variety of synonymous terms, including rightsizing, resizing, restructuring, de-layering, and redundancies. Downsizing, rightsizing, restructuring the human resource or organisation are the common term used to reduce the employee size in an organisation. For this different schemes were introduced like Voluntary retirement scheme, Golden handshake, Compulsory retirement scheme, Early exit option scheme. In this paper researchers made an attempt to study the conceptual review on the organisation downsizing.

The Role of the Human Resource Department in Organizational Downsizing

Westcliff international journal of applied research, 2022

In preparation for an incoming economic recession, organizations in the United States and across the globe are now actively engaging in various downsizing tactics, such as layoffs and hiring freezes, to strategically reduce their workforce. The Human Resources department then has the important responsibility of effectively managing the impact of the downsizing process by mitigating the legal, ethical, and social risks that may arise as a result of layoffs, such as helping affected employees better manage the resulting stress, and empowering surviving employees to continue productivity. While most companies focus solely on continuing business operations after layoffs and reducing legal and publicity risks, not much is done to alleviate the stress so that the organizations' remaining employees can better cope with their new situations. This paper provides a brief overview of the concept of organizational downsizing and its effect on employees. Additionally, the paper describes the function of the HR department in the downsizing process and concludes that the HR department has a responsibility to both surviving and affected employees. This paper then examines the responsibility of the department to both parties.

Learning from the Past - Downsizing Lessons for Managers

Downsizing as a change management strategy has been adopted by companies and governmental agencies since the 1970s. While workforce reductions were utilized mainly in response to organizational and economic crises prior to the mid-1980s, downsizing developed into a proactive restructuring strategy of choice for a multitude of organizations in the mid-to late-1980s. Since then, downsizing has transformed the corporate landscape and changed the lives of hundreds of millions of individuals around the world. While downsizing has attracted a lot of attention in academic circles, the business community, and the popular media, many misconceptions and mysteries surrounding the phenomenon have remained. This research study presents an overview of the reported financial, organizational, and human consequences following the conduct of downsizing. More importantly, the paper draws out implications for practicing managers and showcases four downsizing lessons that need to be considered by executives contemplating the adoption of downsizing.

Downsizing: employee threat or opportunity?

Employee Relations, 2002

This paper reports on a study of the employment implications of different downsizing approaches using 19 case studies of Belgian organizations recently confronted with downsizing. Based on the results of this empirical study, a two-dimensional categorization model is developed. The first continuum of the model represents the timeframe (reactive to proactive) of downsizing strategies, while the second continuum represents the focus of reorientation practices towards the internal or external labour market. Based on this categorization scheme, the employment implications were explored. Further theoretical, managerial and governmental implications are also suggested.

Strategies for successful organizational downsizing

Human Resource Management, 1994

This article reports the results ofa study of 30 organizations that engaged in downsizing over a four-year period. Three questions were inwstigated: (1) What general strategies are used by organizations to downsize? (2) What are the efects of dournsizing on organizational performance? (3) What are downsizing's "best practices?" or, What are the diferences between organizations that effecti.ely doumsize and those that do not? Three main strategies for downsizing are explained, tke managerial actions to overcome the negative efects of downsizing are enumerated, and the best practices of successful dawnsizingfirms are presented. 0 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. A dramatic shift has occurred in the assumptions underlying organizational performance and effectiveness in the last decade. Ten years ago, the following four propositions were almost unassailable in the literature on management and organizations: (1) Bigger organizations are better organizations. For example, typical measures of success included more revenues this year than last, a larger workforce, more subordinates, and greater marketshare. (2) Unending growth is a natural and desirable process in organizafional development. Any pattern except growth was viewed as an aberration from the norm and a sign of weakness. If an organization or a unit didn't grow, it was viewed as stagnating and unproductive. Writers on organizational life cycles didn't even account for non-growth stages of development. (3) Organizational adaptability and flexibility are associated with slack resources, loose coupling, and redundancy. In order for organizations to remain agrle, flexible, and adaptable; uncommitted or slack resources were required. The presence of redundancies and buffers allowed organizations to respond to threats or opportunities and to hedge against unanticipated encroachments. (4) Consistency and congruence are hallmarks of effective organizations. Lining up strategy, structure, systems, styles, skills, and so on, was prescribed as the prerequisite to organizational effectiveness. Internal consistency and congruence were preached as management gospel. Currently, however, each of these assumptions has been called into question. A new competitive and political environment which organiza

Strategic downsizing: critical success factors

Management Decision, 1999

Aims to review the literature pertaining to downsizing with an emphasis on the organization level, and establish the critical success factors of downsizing, that is, guidelines to the successful implementation of downsizing activities. Addresses these objectives by examining first, how downsizing is defined in the literature reviewed, then discusses the different ways in which or measures by which organizations carry out downsizing activities and the reasons that prompt companies to downsize. Addresses the rationale utilized by firms to downsize, the expected outcomes in terms of economic and human consequences, the approaches to downsizing (reorientation and convergence) and specific strategies such as workforce reduction, work redesign and systemic strategy. Also downsizing tactics, human resources as assets vs costs, planning, participation, leadership, communications, and support to victims/survivors are examined. Both laboratory experiments and empirical research concerning sur...

Methods for the Study of Downsizing: A Review

IIMA Working Papers, 2006

There has been a world-wide increase in the incidences of downsizing practice across economies and across organizations. This has been considered as the basis for coping with increasing competition. The present paper looks into some studies on downsizing. The focus of the ...