The Most Important Issues on Organisational Change in Literature in the Last Three Decades

Introduction

According to Johnson et al. (2006) strategy is ‘the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment, to meet the needs of markets and fulfil stakeholders’ expectations’. With always more dynamic and complex environmental conditions, strategies are constantly changing and need to be tailored to different contexts, situations and contingencies. For this reason the effective management of changes is fundamental for the survival and success of the organisation and different approaches and means of managing change are necessary for different types of change.

This brief literature synthesis will first analyse the most important issues on organisational changes identified by the literature during the last three decades further to Armenakis (1999) and Balogun and Hope Hailey (1999). It will then present the Transitional Curve (Gingerella, 1993) as a tool that can help to better understand the process of change management. Finally, it will review how the literature considers changes either a threat or an opportunity and what is the role played by the company culture in the process.

Organisational changes

Armenakis (1999) identifies content issues as the first theme to research on matters of organisational changes. Changes can deal with transformation of the organisation through the adoption of new staff behaviours (long term changes) or with periods of transactions (short-term changes). Changes can occur in terms of their scope, when they involve simple realignment within the current organisational beliefs and assumptions (paradigm) or need transformation of the organisation; or in terms of their natur...

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...viour is the anxiety of its members towards the unknown of change processes. Pauchant describes a number of solutions to this state of mind and behaviour that includes helping executives to experience phenomenon of crises through simulations in order to move from anxiety of the unknown to the fear for something, thus allowing actions to be taken.

Conclusions

The present literature synthesis had debated the importance on how changes are perceived in the organisation and what are the tools available to better cope with them. It first analysed the available literature on how changes are identified. It then moved to the presentation of the Transitional Curve as a tool to monitor changes. Finally, it reviewed the role played by the company culture and how the literature considers changes as a threat, an opportunity or simply a common part of the life of the organisation.