Maintaining Organizational Effectiveness During Organizational Retrenchment

Organizational changes usually imply work force changes. The method used to make personnel changes can reduce organizational effectiveness, particularly in terms of productivity and turnover. This paper describes and assesses an action research program to alter an organization's procedures for achieving work force changes in response to a declining environmental niche. Evaluation research was conducted to assess the consequences of existing procedures, and the resulting data were reported in dollar terms to demonstrate more effectively their negative impact on the organization. A demonstration program, subsequently evaluated as successful, provided the model for change. The paper examines the difficulty of establishing the revised procedures, the unintended side effects, the generalizability of the experience, and the social values underlying the approach.