Downsizing: Causes, Effect, and Strategies, A Conceptual Approach

Abstract

Downsizing has recently become an increasingly important issue that needs to be addressed toensure fair employment practices. Companiesworldwide have used downsizing to improve organizational competitiveness, profitability, effectiveness, efficiency as well as to reduce the size of their workforce.Downsizing as a strategic managerial tool has become an increasingly common phenomenon in the business world today. Downsizing is a systematic reduction of the workforce through a set of activities by which an organization aims to improve the efficiency and performance of the organization. Human relation theory by Elton Mayo was adopted. The study is conceptual in nature which seeks to examine the factors affecting downsizing, strategies for successful downsizing, consequences of downsizing, and method of downsizing. It was recommended that organisation should ensure that they provide more information to employees regarding the implementation of downsizing in their organisation so as to provide a sense of transparency to employees