Projecting Backward and Forward on Processes of Organizational Change and Innovation

An observed and/or experienced difference over time in some organizational characteristic, activity or idea. 

• frequency
• size
• novelty
• temporal duration

• Most changes are well known, recurrent and follow routine standard operating procedures.
• Some changes are larger planned initiatives (such as organizational mergers and acquisitions, structural reorganizations and strategic reorientations).
• Finally, some changes are new, not experienced before, and require novel constructions by the people involved. They are innovations.

Commonly defined as the creation and implementation of new ideas and may pertain to:

• Technological innovation
• Process innovation
• Administrative innovation

As long as the idea is perceived as new and entails a novel change for the actors involved, it is an innovation.

Traditionally, scholars have viewed the pattern of organizational change as being planned and episodic. This traditional view emphasizes rational, strategic, top-down and consensus-directed interventions following teleological or regulatory process models.

On unplanned and continuous change (Van de Ven & Poole, 2021). This view emphasizes experiential, emergent, bottom-up, pluralistic social movements following dialectical and evolutionary models of change

Planned change is consciously conceived and implemented by knowledgeable actors.

Episodic, infrequent, discontinuous change.

Continuous, constantly ongoing, evolving change.

Planned change, driven by human choice, goal-directed typically top-down, controlled intervention.

Unplanned, purpose emerges in the process, bottom-up, adaptive, pluralistic, social movements.

Goal-directed stages and prescribed steps requiring outside intervention.

Sensemaking, improvisation & in-process learning from shared experiences in social networks.

Rational, logical analysis with valid data on objective reality and consensus support of participants.

Reality is socially constructed, negotiated, involves conflicts, contradictions, power, political processes & emotions.

Teleology, planned change Life cycle, regulated change

Evolutionary, competitive change Dialectical, conflict change

Change maker: Prime mover who creates, directs change goals, process & outcomes.

Meaning maker: Sense maker who reframes how people think of changing.

Top-down hierarchical fiat

Formal & informal contracts on decision rights & roles of stakeholders

Top-level managers often with external consultants.

Steps in these models include:

• developing a need and vision for an organizational change
• communicating and advocating it to organizational participants
• providing them training and incentives that support implementing and institutionalizing the change
• overcoming resistance

A teleological model typically applies to goal-directed efforts of developing an envisioned end state by the change planners, followed by a life cycle model of prescribed and regulated implementation by the change doers.

• Resistance to change
• Popular planned change models often rely on expert opinion as their foundation rather that scientific evidence

In part, this emerging view reflects dramatic shifts in

• new information technologies
• social media platforms
• flatter organizational hierarchies
• generational shifts to Millennials
• demands for organizations contributing to societal welfare

These shifts are leading to bottom-up, employee-emergent change initiatives that often produce pluralistic, divergent and conflicting views that are seldom planned in any unified way.

1. Get facts regarding the change (urgency has negative outcomes) 2. Assess organization’s readiness for change (go with the flow)

3. Develop clear, compelling vision for change (and downsides)

4. Communicate the vision using multiple channels

5. Encourage involvement and voice to gain commitment

6. Social networks, shared experiences matter (practice overlooks) 7. Promote experimentation, local adaptations, short-term wins

8. Monitor change process, resistance & outcomes over time

9. Institutionalize change in routines, culture & mgmt. succession 10. Competent & trusted change leadership Sporce: Stouten et al. (2018) and Burke (2021)

• Episodic change as “infrequent, discontinuous and intentional”
• Continuous change as “ongoing, evolving and cumulative”

Individuals who take control, create, and remake organizations such as Steve Jobs with Apple

Unlike the “change maker” role in the traditional view of episodic change, the change agent in this emerging view is a “meaning maker,” or a sense maker and giver who reframes how participants think of changing.

1. For one thing, external conditions limit the agent’s power and capacity to control events and manage organizational change.
2. Second, agency is more complex when multiple interacting agents are involved.

They include formal and informal working rules, norms, and shared strategies that liberate, enable and constrain the human rights of all stakeholders affected by an organizational change process.

Participation and transparency in the formulation of change initiatives can improve success prospects for change.

Better local knowledge in the formulation of change initiatives, and greater motivation through voice and self-determination.

Finally from a managerial perspective, an episodic view of change is useful for launching planned change initiatives periodically required in organizations, while continuous change is necessary for repairing and maintaining organizational stability.