Organizational Development and Change
Open Systems Theory
Also Katz and Kahn
Different Approaches to Measuring Readiness to Change
Manifest Approach Development Approach Concept Domain Approach
Teleological Theories of Change
Teleological theories of change focus on the repetitive sequence of goal formulation, implementation, evaluation and modification of goals based on what was learned or intended by the organization. This model provides a standard for judging change by comparing the current state to the end state. The theory contends that there is a recurrent and discontinuous sequence of goal setting, implementation, and adaptation to reach desired end states.
Research in the Developmental Approach to Readiness for Change
Cunningham et al. (2002) applied Prochaska's model to their longitudinal assessment of readiness for change within a large health care setting. Readiness for change was assessed in a scale designed to measure the five readiness stages. Overall, Cunningham et al. (2002) found that employees that were more ready to change (and thus further along in Prochaska's readiness stages) prior to the introduction of the change effort participated in more re-engineering activities during the year long change effort.
Turning Learning into Knowledge
Although data is crucial to becoming a learning organization, it is useless until is it turned into knowledge. In order for data to be turned into shared knowledge, organizational members need to interpret and then agree on the meaning of the data. Researchers have noted that tacit individual information or data is more likely to be transformed into shared organizational knowledge when organizational members engage in discovery processes where they, together, challenge existing assumptions, explore patterns and inconsistencies within the data, and co-generate new meaning (e.g., Argyris & Schon, 1996; Swan & Scarbrough, 2001). Some argue that the best forum for creating such discovery is through the intentional development of learning communities or communities of practice where peers, such as co-workers, spend time together examining their current realities and relevant data to improve their practice (Wenger, 1999; Wenger, McDermoot, & Snyder, 2002). Recent advances suggest that settings are more likely to acquire and assimilate information/research evidence to guide their behavior when they have developed a strong learning culture where individuals are working together across organizational boundaries to solve problems and to create innovative solutions (Senge, 2006).
Review suggesting a move away from the consultant as the center and the system as the center
Beer and Walton (1987) They also noted more emphasis on issues with system-wide implications such as the need for revitalization and turnaround as well as innovation. These needs were seen to require more systems dynamic thinking that included understanding stakeholder issues and network concepts crucial for creating and maintaining change. They also saw an increased emphasis on understanding alternative structural arrangements such as parallel and matrix organizations and the decentralization and flattening of organizational hierarchies. They also contended that OD must broaden itself to move away from programs in which the consultant develops interventions to more systematic and collaborative approaches in which mangers, staff members and consultants work together to manage change to redirect efforts and performance.
Research on Episodic and Incremental Change Theories
Amis, Slack, and Hinings (2004) presented a study that examined the pace, sequence and linearity of change. Pace focuses on the question of how fast change is to be implemented—rapidly or incrementally. The sequence of change concerns the question of which part of the organization should be changed and when, that is, is the change about the entire organization or focused on high impact parts. The linearity of change explores the question of whether change is thought of as linear or nonlinear with delays, reversals, and oscillations. With radical change, they note that there is a shift from "one archetypal configuration to another or a transition from a design that can be identified with no single archetype to one that has clear archetypal status" (p. 16). They define archetypes as a collection of values and beliefs that are made manifest through particular structural arrangements. In this large scale study of various organizations, Amis et al. (2004) found that there were no significant differences between the amount of early change that took place in those organizations that successfully completed the radical change process and those that did not. Fast pace change across an organization early in the transition process is not sufficient to bring about lasting, long term transformation. The results also indicated that radical change is more likely if early changes are made to an organization's high impact elements. In addition, radical change is likely to lead to a non linear process characterized by delays, reversals, and oscillations.
Single and Double Loop Learning
Argyris and Schon (1974) They conceptualize change as consisting of single loop and double loop learning. Single loop learning is oriented to maintaining the current state around an equilibrium point and the detection and correction of an error. Similar to the idea of a thermostat, single loop learning focuses on moving towards and maintaining the achievement of a particular goal. Double loop learning is focused on questioning assumptions and moving beyond the status quo. Agryris and Schon (1974) also highlight the practical barriers that inhibit learning. They describe a Model 1 theory in use in which the governing variables and actions strategies are focused on controlling and winning as well as the displaying of defensive routines that are designed to protect oneself or others. They argue that these actions of control and defensive routines are the typical way we go about our world leading us to single loop learning as the "theory in use." Model II theory in use in which the governing variables of action are valid information and fee and informed choice that leads to combining learning and inquiry when advocating for a position. This type of Model II theory in use can lead to double loop learning and which can lead to effective problem solving and reducing the self fulfilling, error escalating process.
What happens when people in an org have low readiness to change?
As a psychological phenomenon, readiness for change primes employees to either support or resist a change pursuit (Armenakis et al., 1993). In fact, when organizations fail to create within their employees the necessary levels of readiness for change, they are more likely to encounter significant resistance when launching a change effort and the endeavor is more likely to fail (Schein, 1987, 1999). Overall, this suggests that change agents and organizational leaders interested in pursuing change should assess current levels of readiness and pursue strategies that promote readiness for change before implementing a change effort (Holt et al., 2007).
General Summary of Empirical Deficits in Organizational Learning
As a whole, the conceptual and empirical work on organizational learning is weak when it comes to explicitly developing and testing hypotheses and in defining a testable future research agenda. There have been few studies that have directly examined the effectiveness of large scale systems change efforts to become a learning organization. There are few empirical studies that directly test propositions and hypotheses drawn from the conceptual frameworks developed for understanding organizational learning There has been limited attempt to develop a truly multilevel model (Kozlowski et al., 2010). Rather, the current work on organizational learning takes a similar perspective as Weick (1991) who concluded that individual learning and organizational learning are fundamentally different, non-interchangeable conceptualizations. Operational issues for producing reliable and valid measures such as psychological safety are avoided or the complexity underlying operational issues are minimized. A step in the right direction is a recent chapter that takes a multilevel approach to understanding organizational learning (Kozlowski et al., 2010). They build a model that explicitly identity structural and enabling processes across and within micro, meso and macro levels. They also discuss composition and compilation emergence issues relevant to organizational learning.
Absorptive Capacity Assimilation Dimension
Assimilation refers to the organization's process that allows it to analyze, process, interpret and ultimately understand the research evidence. Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer (2002) noted that this "sensemaking" when organizational settings create participatory processes where members can openly explore and assess external or internal best practice evidence, organization members are more likely to develop shared understandings about the evidence, promoting broader support for the new knowledge and implementation decisions (e.g., Hannaway, 1989). Overall, the assimilation process can require a transformation in the way the organization sees itself and its efforts, particularly when the research evidence significantly challenges existing understandings and perspectives (Zahra & George, 2002).
First Second and Third Order Change Theory
Bartunek and Moch (1987) They took a cognitive based perspective by focusing on schemata relevant to three types of change—first, second, and third order change With first order change, problems are identified and targeted for resolution. This type of incremental change does not require any change in schemata; in fact, because the changes enacted are consistent with present organizational schemata, they actually legitimize and reinforce current understandings. Second order change is transformative as there is a conscious modification of the present schemata in a particular direction—usually as a function of a change agent leading the process. With third order change, organizational members have the capacity to recognize when the current framework is not working and they choose to alter the framework (i.e., choose another schemata for interpreting events and selecting priorities).
Empirical Work on Organizational Learning
Birdi et al. (2008) examine the impact of psychologically based practices of empowerment, extensive training, and teamwork on organizational productivity. In a study of productivity of 308 companies over a 22 year period, the researchers found evidence that performance enhancements from empowerment, extensive training and teamwork were higher than for the incorporation of operational practices such as quality management and just in time systems. Arthur and Aiman-Smith (2001) analyzed employee suggestions submitted over the first four years of a gainsharing plan and found that changes in the content of the suggestions changed over time in a way consistent with organizational learning processes. In particular, they found that initial suggestions indicated "first order learning" (i.e., single loop—routine and incremental change suggestions such as work orders that maintains existing systems) while later suggestions (while lower in total volume) were more congruent with "second order learning" (i.e., double loop or exploration of alternative routines, goals, assumptions). In a follow-up study, Arthur and Huntley (2005) found that the cumulated number of implemented employee suggestions significantly contributed to lower production costs. They viewed this result as attributable to the cumulative effects of increasing knowledge at the employee level with the gainsharing program over time supporting an organizational learning perspective.
Incremental Change Model
Brown and Eisenhardt (1997) Continuous change is defined as change that is non-episodic, frequent regular, and common within an organization—in other words, the opposite of a punctuated, episodic framework of change (Weick & Quinn, 1999). This model highlights a number of key concepts of change including semi structures, links in time, sequenced steps, and probing. Semi structures highlight that organizations have some well defined features such as task responsibilities and functions that are fairly stable and have more flexible or less rigid components such as teamwork and communication patterns. Links in time are practices in which the organization attends to the needed transitions of the present and the future by also considering the past. Sequenced steps are the actions taken to affect change in the organization. Probing involves actively identifying and then preparing for environmental changes and exploring multiple options for dealing with those changes. The incremental change model emphasizes that sense making and "controlled improvisation" along with probing and links in time lead to constant changes to daily contingencies.
Capacity Building
Capacity building in community settings has typically been defined as efforts to increase resources available for problem solving and community improvement. He cites research on building capacity within organizational groups and building capacity at the community level. For example, Foster-Fishman, Cantillon, Pierce, and Van Egeren (2007) focused on building community capacity for change by focusing on the structures and processes in place to help mobilize community residents for change in their neighborhoods. They considered capacity as the knowledge, skills, relationships, leadership, and resources present to support a specific change initiative.
Contributions from the Community Literature
Conceptualization of readiness for change as a dynamic construct that should be continually assessed and promoted throughout the duration of a change endeavor Moving beyond subjective self-efficacy as the measurement of readiness for change. Community readiness researchers pay particular attention to the community's capacity to implement the targeted change, highlighting the extent to which the targeted community has the knowledge, skills sets, and relational structures needed to pursue and support the new behaviors required by the change effort.
Crossan, Lane, and White (1999) Definition and Framework for Organizational Learning
Crossan, Lane, and White (1999) defined organizational learning as the principle means of achieving the strategic renewal of an organization. They acknowledge as a foundational premise the work by March (1991) that organizational learning involves the tension between exploration or the assimilation and utilization of existing knowledge and the exploration or the creation of new knowledge to develop strategic initiatives. They acknowledge that organizational learning is a multilevel phenomenon across individual, groups and the organization. The framework also describes the underlying processes that cut across these multiple levels—intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalizing. Intuiting (recognizing) and interpreting (sensemaking) are viewed as mainly individual level phenomenon while integrating (shared knowledge) mainly occurs at the group level. Institutionalization or the process of embedding learning at the individual and group levels involves systems, structures, policies, and procedures that change as a function of this learning. Kozlowski, Chao, & Jensen (2010) has expanded our understanding of the levels issues inherent in the framework by Crossan et al. (1999). They developed an explicit multilevel framework that is described an "infrastructure" for organizational learning that integrates multiple levels, formal processes, informal processes, and outcomes. Feedback from the organizational level down to the group and then individual level to visualize how an organization exploits existing "learnings" that are embedded in systems, processes, and procedures by conveying those down levels (from institutionalizing to integrating to interpreting to intuiting) and attempting to create consensus around thinking and acting across people to exploit the organization's advantages around current knowledge. Feed forward is the process of exploration where individuals recognize new knowledge and potential innovation and these insights are then conveyed up the learning levels (from intuiting to interpreting to integrating to institutionalizing).
Research Highlighting the Manifest Approach of Readiness for Change
Eby et al. (2000) defined readiness as the extent to which individuals viewed their organization as ready to take on a large scale change effort. Some employees may perceive their organization as having a high readiness for change; others may perceive a lower level of readiness. To assess this range of readiness, Eby and her colleagues (2000) used items that measured individuals' perceptions of their colleagues' general attitudes about change (e.g., Employees here are resistant to change; Employees here act as agents of change). Jones et al. (2005) adopted a similar approach to assessing readiness to change. They defined readiness for change as the extent to which change is possible and the targeted change is viewed as desirable. Their measurement scale assessed the extent to which employees within a government agency viewed themselves as open or resistant to change and if they were positive about the specific changes. Overall, they found that levels of readiness influenced employees' perceptions of and satisfaction with the change effort and their use of the new technology.
Community Readiness for Change Framework
Edwards et al., 2000. This readiness assessment includes consideration of several dimensions found in Holt and Armenakis's frameworks including: (a) discrepancy, particularly the recognition that a problem exists; (b) efficacy to address the problem, including current capacities such as knowledge and skills, and historical approaches to and success with change; and (c) formal and informal leader support for the change. Interestingly, this framework also includes what organizational researchers refer to as "reshaping capabilities" (e.g., Turner & Crawford, 1998) or characteristics that help entities manage change effectively: (a) development capabilities—the availability of resources to support the change; and (b) engagement capabilities—the involvement of residents in decision-making. Numerous researchers across a variety of disciplines have applied the Community Readiness for Change framework to their prevention and social change work within communities, and have found that a community's level of readiness is predictive of a community's effectiveness at implementing a variety of social programs (Engstrom, Jason, Townsend, Pokorny, & Curie, 2002; Jason, Pokorny, Kunz, & Adams, 2004) and creating comprehensive community change (Foster-Fishman et al., 2006).
Multicultural Perspective on Org Development
Faucheux, Amado, and Laurent (1982) provided a multicultural perspective to the field by describing research being conducted in Europe and other parts of the world. They stressed that the field of OD must be seen as more than a management tool and become viewed as a total organizational process that meets employee and organizational needs. The major contribution of the review was on examining the many different cultural contexts in which change can take place and questioning the assumptions in OD that ideas and methods can easily be applied to organizations in different cultures. They caution that cross cultural transfer of change technology has proved to be difficult and slow. They noted how different approaches to change had emerged in the US and Europe—with Europe focusing on a more holistic approach to jobs and considering intergroup and worker participation issues and the joint influence of both technological and social requirements—a sociotechnical approach. The US was seen as focusing more on specific issues and problems within group as well as interpersonal issues relevant to change.
Organizational Learning
Focused on learning from an open systems perspective (Katz & Kahn, 1978). From this open systems perspective, learning within an organization was viewed not as a mechanism for self stabilization but as a critical mechanism for questioning, reorienting, and changing an organization to met changing realities (Hedberg, 1981; March, 1991). Organizational learning was seen as not simply the sum of individual level learning (Hedberg, 1981). Rather, organizations were seen as having customs, worldviews, and cognitive systems as well as norms and value that impact learning processes within an organization and the transmission of these systems to newcomers. Learning was also seen as part of ongoing organizational system of norms, strategies, and assumptions that govern activities and that impact the sensing and transmitting of information (Argyris & Schon, 1978). Thus, existing systems within organizations can lead to where the "whole" (in terms of learning) is less than the sum of its parts (March & Olsen, 1975).
What exactly is Organizational Development?
Friedlander and Brown (1974) provided one of the first systematic reviews of what they call the emerging interdisciplinary field of Organizational Development. They defined OD as a method for facilitating change and development in people (styles, values, and skills), in technology (greater simplicity or complexity), and within organizational processes and structures (relationships and roles) with the goal of human fulfillment and optimizing task accomplishment Alderfer (1977) noted that OD seeks to understand planned change processes, to assess the effects of efforts to promote social change and to evolve better theories of change processes. In contrast to Friedlander and Brown (1974), he highlighted the variety of value conflicts characteristic of the field including the historically strong force in the field to "humanize" organizations to be more responsive to human concerns rather than just developing technologies to improve organizational effectiveness. The review highlighted two major trends in the field (a) expansion of the kinds of organizational settings in which traditional OD techniques were being used (e.g., multinational companies, public sector entities such as policing, and nonprofits such as community mental health) and (b) elaboration of the kinds of techniques that are being developed by practitioners that are a result of the challenges faced when attempting to solve enduring organizational problems.
Future Research Suggestions for Readiness for change
Future research needs to examine the utility of these measures in other organizational contexts and to more fully link readiness to a range of change outcomes. In addition, more research is needed around the antecedents of readiness for change, linking the more complex definitions with the findings that individual, job, social, and organizational conditions influence readiness for change. To date, the readiness for change construct has limited its conceptualization and measurement to the individual level of analysis. Future researchers could develop conceptual and measurement models that consider readiness for change as a multi-leveled construct. With more precise measurement instruments now available, researchers and practitioners may be better positioned to identify the specific components of readiness that need to be fostered and assess their development over time. Longitudinal research is also needed to test the effectiveness of readiness interventions on the different readiness components of discrepancy, efficacy, appropriateness, valence, and support.
Punctuated Equilibrium Model
Gersick (1991) She argues that organizations seek some equilibrium point where the basic patterns within the organization stays the same. These basic patterns affect what is given attention and what choices are made. The need for equilibrium leads over time to inertia where organizational forces resist changes to the underlying deep structure—the network of fundamental, interdependent choices about how units will be organized and what activity patterns are need to maintain its survival. At some point, this equilibrium is not adaptable to changing realities thus requiring a revolution where the old deep structure is challenged and comes apart until the natural process of equilibrium forms around a new deep structure. During the revolutionary phase, there comes recognition that maintaining the status quo is not possible (a point of clarity called symmetry breaking). This episodic model of change is consistent with the frameworks developed by Bartunek and Moch (1987) and by Lewin (1947). Also consistent with Bartunek and Moch (1987), transformative change leads to cognitive restructuring and new standards of judgment and decision making within the organization.
Fifth Discipline by Senge (1990)
His work focused on the factors that can lead to the building of a learning organization where "people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together (p. 3). Senge (1990) presented the five disciplines of a learning organization of systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models (implicit assumptions and worldviews), building a shared vision, and team learning. He saw systems thinking as the key discipline that fused the other disciplines into a coherent body of theory and practice. While not focused on measurement as much as the mindshift needed in organizations,
Content Domain Approach to Readiness for Change
Holt and colleagues (2007), based upon their extensive review of the literature, developed a conceptual framework and corresponding measurement instrument that defined readiness as a "comprehensive attitude that is influenced simultaneously by the content (i.e., what is being changed), the process (i.e., how the change is being implemented), the context (i.e., circumstances under which the change is occurring), and the individuals (i.e., characteristics of those being asked to change) involved. Furthermore, readiness collectively reflects the extent to which an individual or individuals are cognitively and emotionally inclined to accept, embrace, and adopt a particular plan to purposefully alter the status quo" (p. 235). What is important to note about this framework is its recognition that readiness for change is both content and context specific; in other words, an organizational setting may be ready for one change effort and yet highly resistant to another. This approach can be contrasted with that adopted by some of the process researchers, who viewed readiness as more of a general attitude about change, than as a specific belief related to a particular change effort.
Holt et al. (2002) Content-Domain Framework of Organizational Readiness to Change
Holt et al. (2002) developed an integrated conceptual framework and corresponding measurement instrument for readiness that included five factors: Organizational valence - change would benefit the organization Personal valence - change would be personally beneficial Management support - organizational leaders are committed to the change Discrepancy - change is necessary Self efficacy - change is feasible and employees can implement the new behaviors required by the change effort Armenakis and his colleagues (1999) also developed a framework and corresponding measurement instrument that was similarly multidimensional. Both Holt's and Armenakis's measurement instruments demonstrated strong psychometric properties and produced support for their proposed multidimensional view of readiness.
Innovation Characteristics Moderate Absorptive Capacity
How individuals perceive a new innovation has been found to be significantly related to adoption and implementation rates across a wide variety of innovations and technologies including public health campaigns (Goldman, 1994), information systems (Agarwal & Prasad, 1997; Moore & Benbasat, 1991), e-learning systems (Liao, Lu, & Yi, 2007), software applications (Van Slyke, Lou, & Day, 2002) and use of the world-wide web (Agarwal & Prasad, 1997). Three characteristics of importance: First, the compatibility of the innovation with the existing knowledge and practices within an organization—the degree of fit can significantly impact adoption and use (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998). A logical conclusion from this conceptual framework is that resistance to a new idea might be stronger in the face of a need for transformative change. Research, though, is needed to explore this process where adoption is not so straightforward. Second, the ease of use of the new knowledge/best practice (e.g., the number of interdependent technologies, routines, and resources linked to the new knowledge/best practice) can also be an important moderating factor. As knowledge becomes more complex, organizations need to absorb more areas of knowledge content as well as understand the linkages between different content areas (Garud & Nayyar, 1994). This complexity may tax the system beyond its comfort zone and thus lead to nonadoption (Rogers, 2003). Third, the relative advantage of the new knowledge/best practice must also be considered. Systems are more likely to decide to use a new idea when it appears to be better than existing practices and programs (Moore & Benbasat, 1991; Rogers, 2003). In fact, innovation researchers have found relative advantage to be one of the best predictors of the rate of adoption within a targeted system (Rogers, 2003). This construct fit wells within the context of settings where resources are often tight and funders expect outcomes; thus any new idea or program needs to have the promise for improving organizational conditions
Different Types of Learning that Can Occur in Organizations
Huber (1991) talked about subprocesses of congenital learning (impact of founders on subsequent learning processes), experiential learning, vicarious learning, and grafting (acquiring new members with different knowledge bases than those currently in the organization). Hedberg (1981) noted three modes—adjustment learning, turnover learning, and turnaround learning. Adjustment learning—similar to Argyris's (1985) single loop learning as well as Bartunek and Moch's (1987) first order change—is where there are adjustments of rules or procedures that do not require major changes in the organization. These changes are relatively easy and often routinized over time by organizations. Turnaround learning—similar to Argyris's (1985) double loop learning and Bartunek and Moch's (1987) second order change—is where substantial changes are made by changing the current "theory of action" in the organization. This calls for more transformative changes in underlying values and assumptions. The third mode of turnover learning is where significant changes that are needed that requires the unlearning or discarding of obsolete or misleading knowledge so that new opportunities can be taken advantage of and lead to replacement of behaviors of the past with new behavior patterns that deal more effectively with the performance needs of the organization given changing realities. Finally, March (1991) noted that organizational learning processes can be focused on exploration (searching for opportunities, taking risks, discovering) and exploitation (refining what is already being done well, making choices from current practices, becoming more efficient). March (1991) viewed that a key to adaptability is the ability of an organization to balance these two processes so that short term gains are not made to the detriment of long term survival and growth
Huy Theory of Change with Time Components
Huy (2001) provides a theory of change that directly incorporates time and temporal capability into an understanding of planned change. He notes four types of change interventions—commanding, engineering, teaching, and socializing and connects these interventions to quantitative time—time as a scarce commodity—and inner or qualitative time where time is experienced at the individual level of consciousness. Each type of intervention is characterized by different processes and time considerations with different implications for the role of change agents. With the commanding intervention, the focus is on quantitative time and strict compliance to the change agent in order to make change happen quickly. The engineering intervention also involves quantitative time and the analysis of work processes and reengineering. The change agent acts in this case as an analyst of the needed change. The teaching intervention focuses on inner or qualitative time as leaders act as teachers of vision and facilitate the change process. The socializing intervention involves qualitative time with a democratic community of semi-autonomous work groups where the change agent acts as a role model.
Conceptual Advances in Organizational Learning
One conceptual advance focuses on the process of organizational learning and understanding how learning crosses organizational levels. A second conceptual advance focuses on the facets of organizational learning in order to develop an integrative framework of factors needed to facilitate learning. There have also been attempts to better understand types of learning (vicarious learning and grafting), barriers to learning, and organizational unlearning processes.
Pros and Cons of the Incremental Change Theory
One strength of this theory is that change is thought of as evolving and cumulative as work processes and interaction patterns are modified through emergent and self organizing processes. Thus, continuous change is more than simply a reactive change in response to events as implied by episodic change frameworks. A limitation of the theory is that there is little attempt to understand how to facilitate this process and no compelling reconciliation with the episodic change theory
Manifest Approach of Readiness for Change
Organizational researchers who ascribe to the manifest approach to readiness frame this construct as a general belief in the possibility of and intention to change. The aim in this approach is to directly measure the extent of this belief within an employee or organizational system.
General Issues with the Previous Conceptualizations and Theories of Change
Perhaps what is most challenging for change researchers and practitioners is that while effective organizational change requires simultaneous attention to context, process, content, and the temporal nature of change (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron (2001), no theories to date have successfully integrated these four dimensions. In addition, while most of the above theories provide useful heuristic value, in that they promote insights into understanding the change process, few offer explanatory value.
Popper and Lipshitz (1998) Proposition of Organizational Learning
Popper and Lipshitz (1998) proposed that the there are two forms of organizational learning—learning in organizations and learning by organizations Learning in organizations is learning by individuals within the organizational context. Learning by organizations involves learning processes outside the individual in which organizations codify behaviors and values and then transmit these preferred behaviors and values through policies, procedures, routines, and strategies. They develop the concept of organizational learning mechanisms as a way of delineating the institutionalized arrangements that "allow organizations to systematically collect, analyze, store, disseminate, and use information relevant to the performance of the organization" (p. 170). The two facets discussed are the structural facet and the cultural facet. The structural facet includes the roles, functions and procedures that allow members to collect, analyze, store, disseminate and use information relevant to performance and innovation. The cultural facet involves the norms and shared values that can lead to productive (or unproductive) learning such as transparency, integrity, inquiry and accountability system within an organization. Lipshitz, Popper, and Friedman (2002) expanded this notion of facets and added the psychological facet of learning (psychological safety and organizational commitment), the policy facet (commitment to learning, tolerance for error) and the contextual facet of learning (environmental uncertainty, error criticality). They note that each facet contributes towards increasing (or decreasing) the likelihood of organizational learning. Thus, the model provides practitioners with some ideas as to where the focus energies to build a learning organization.
Review focusing on the differences between traditional OD and transformative OD
Porras and Silvers (1991) distinguished between traditional organizational development activities that focused on improving organizations and organizational transformation efforts that emphasized creating a new vision for an organization and new work setting arrangements so as to help the organization better fit with the changing realities of the organization's environment. This required an examination of deeper level issues of organizational beliefs, purpose, mission and vision rather than the typical OD emphasis on changing work settings or dealing with group problems They saw organizational transformation research as at the cutting edge of planning change calling for the development of the capacity for continuous self diagnosis and change—explicitly linking the emerging organizational learning perspective to the field of organizational development (Cyert & March, 1963; Fiol & Lyles, 1985; March & Simon, 1958). They also highlighted the development of new methods such as appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987) and stream analysis (Porras, 1987) where problems are mapped onto a change model. They also described advances in the evaluation of apha, beta, and gamma change.
Pros of Punctuated Equilibrium Theory
Pro: The theory also acknowledges both internal as well as external forces for change as well as adding a time component to change Cons: A limitation of this theory is that it is more of a descriptive model of change rather than a model that generates predictions of when change might occur and what factors might impact the success of the change process. Measurement of such concepts of deep structure and equilibrium is challenging.
Developmental Approach to Readiness for Change
Prochaska's model proposes five readiness stages: precontemplative (the need for change is not acknowledged); contemplative (individuals consider but do not initiate change); preparatory (individuals are planning to change); action (behavioral change is happening); and maintenance (individuals are trying to sustain change). By assessing an individual's stage of readiness before and throughout a change effort, practitioners are better positioned to tailor intervention efforts and promote an individual's progression through the readiness phases.
Pros and Cons of First Second and Third Order Change Theory
Pros: The theory acknowledges the complexity of change, the potential shifting of schematas and the important role of sensemaking by individuals in organizations. It provides a focus on how an organization can adapt to changing realities as well as things to look for with change by paying attention to linguistic symbols such as stories, myths, rites, and language as windows into individual and organizational schemata. Cons: Some limitations of this framework are that there is not a full discussion of how to identify and measure schemata within an organization, how a change agent can enact second order change, or how third order change can occur when there are different or competing interests across organizational levels and/or functions.
Readiness for Change
Readiness for change is recognized as one of the most important factors influencing employees' support for a change endeavor (Armenakis, Harris, & Feild, 1999; Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993). Readiness for change refers to the "cognitive precursors to the behaviors of either resistance to, or support for, a change effort" (Armenakis et al., 1993, pp. 681-682). In general, it refers to the extent to which employees believe that change is necessary, feasible, and desirable, in that the change is needed to improve current conditions, is possible to happen within the current context, and is likely to lead to positive outcomes for themselves and the larger organization (Armenakis et al., 1993; Eby, Adams, Russell, & Gaby, 2000; Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris, 2007; Miller, Johnson, & Grau, 1994). Aligns with the Unfreeze from Lewin
Antecedents of Absorptive Capacity
Research revealed that when knowledge flows across network members, individuals and organizations are more likely to decide to adopt the new idea (Frank, Krause, & Penuel, 2009; Frank, Zhao, & Borman, 2004; Penuel, Riel, Krause, & Frank, 2009). Of particular importance is the extent to which the social network within an organization fosters the development of shared meaning and understanding. Such knowledge integration helps organizations adopt external information more successfully (Henderson, 1994). In addition, such knowledge integration is particularly critical where stakeholders often have access to unique sets of information given their specific role or position within the organization or community. When individual knowledge sets are relatively unshared across setting members, decision-making effectiveness is greatly affected by the ability of the setting to foster knowledge sharing and integration (e.g., Feighery & Rogers, 1990; Wischnowski & McCollum, 1995; Wittenbaum & Bowman, 2005). Deeper, trusting social ties can also promote or hinder the adoption and use of new ideas and practices through their normative social influence (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Frank et al., 2004); when individuals trust each other they are more inclined to support a viewpoint held by their peers (Rogers, 2003) Strong, Davenport and Prusak (2008), many organizations make substantial investments in knowledge and learning functions only to not realize an optimal level of return due to poor governance structures around learning and knowledge creation and dissemination. Along a similar line, several studies have found that one of the most reported barriers to implementing research evidence within the field is the lack of sufficient time to think and talk about the idea (e.g., Humphris, Littlejohns, Victor, O'Halloran, & Peacock, 2000; Retsas, 2000). Davenport, Eccles, and Prusak (1992) found that learning benefits are more likely to accrue when there are clear boundaries for how decisions are made and how to utilize resources to take advantage of new knowledge. Strong et al. (2008) highlight the need to specify decision points around identifying the desired outcomes and budgeting for the new approach. In addition, reporting guidelines must be established as well as determining the standards for determining the value of the new approach and the processes for getting to the desired outcomes and evaluating success
General Findings related to readiness for change
Researchers have demonstrated that higher levels of readiness for change are predictive of engagement in redesign efforts (Cunningham et al., 2002), use of new technologies (Jones, Jimmieson, & Griffiths, 2005), and satisfaction with change initiatives (Jones et al., 2005).
Comparison on the three approaches to readniness for change
Researchers who use a content-domain approach to readiness tend to adopt a more comprehensive approach and include within the readiness construct elements that process/developmental researchers are more apt to define as antecedents to readiness to change. For example, several process researchers have defined leadership support for change and self-efficacy to implement change as important antecedents to readiness for change (e.g., Eby et al., 2000; Jones et al., 2005) and have demonstrated that these factors are related to employees' beliefs about their organization's ability to implement change. Meanwhile, content-domain researchers have incorporated these elements within their definitions and measurements of readiness for change (Holt et al., 2002; Armenakis et al., 1999).
Barriers to Organizational Learning: Institutionalization
Schilling and Kluge (2009)
Barriers to Organizational Learning: Integrating
Schilling and Kluge (2009)
Barriers to Organizational Learning: Interpretation
Schilling and Kluge (2009)
Barriers to Organizational Learning: Intuiting
Schilling and Kluge (2009)
Barriers to Organizational Learning as Described in the Crossan et al., 1999 model
Schilling and Kluge (2009) used the framework of Crossan et al. (1999) and reviewed the literature on organizational learning in order to create a list of barriers that either prevent learning or impede its practicality in organizations at the intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalizing processes. They categorized barriers for each process across what they call actional-personal, structural-organizational and societal-environmental which are similar to the three levels presented by Crossan et al. (1999). Based on the categorization of barriers across processes, they developed fifteen research propositions. The contribution of the paper is it explicitly shows how barriers are interlinked and interrelated within and across the four learning processes as well as providing at least a beginning framework for generating specific and concrete hypotheses.
Soft Systems Methodology (SSM)
Soft Systems Model: 1. The problem situation is stated, but perhaps in an unstructured way. 2. Root definitions are collected and explored, to find out what people believe about the system. 3. Based on the root definitions, a series of conceptual models are built that show what a human activity system would look like if built from each model. 4. The various conceptual models are compared and discussed and agreement is sought on the best model. 5. Real-world constraints are considered. 6. Actions are generated to implement the change. SSM challenges the notion that organizational and other human activity systems operate and thus should be assessed from the same functional objectivity approach used in understanding systems in the natural/physical world. Instead, Checkland and Scholes (1990) argued that human activity systems and their functions (e.g., purpose, problem definitions, system boundaries) are actually subjective phenomenon and subject to the eye of the beholder. Thus, according to soft systems methodologists, the system and its functions may be experienced and understood differently by different stakeholders (Flaspohler et al., 2003) Overall, SSM puts emphasis on the subjective nature of systems analysis and requires change agents and scholars to gain insight into the different stakeholder interpretations of the problem situation. Thus, it highlights that problem understanding and problem resolution are dependent upon the diversity of perspectives selected (Checkland & Scholes 1990). In addition, SSM recognizes that the process of changing an organization is iterative, with the process as important as reaching the end state (e.g., Midgley, 2000)
Systems Theory
Systems theory involves consideration of the interdependency, interconnectedness, and interrelatedness of the parts within the organization that constitutes the whole. An organizational system can be characterized by a continuous cycle of input, transformation, output, and feedback whereby one element of experience influences the next (Katz & Kahn, 1978). Systems thinking is the process of seeing the whole, including the underlying structures in complex situations (Senge, 1990).
What is Absorptive Capacity Predictive Of?
Szulanski (1996) examined absorptive capacity as a predictor of effective transfer of best practices within an organization. The results across multiple organizations showed that low levels of absorptive capacity in some parts or across most of the organization led to difficulties in imitating best practices throughout the organization
Dialectic Theory
The dialectic theory views change as occurring when opposing values, forces, or events (antithesis) gain sufficient power to confront and engage the status quo (thesis) which can set the stage for producing a synthesis. The synthesis in time becomes the next thesis. The dialectical approach also acknowledges that there may be sufficient power to suppress any opposing entity and thus maintain the status quo. This theory of change, then, emphasizes the discontinuous sequence of confrontation, conflict, and synthesis of contradictory values and ideas.
The Evolutionary Theory
The evolutionary theory views the environment as the main engine for change through the repetitive sequence of variation, selection, and retention among entities in a designated population (e.g., department, organization). Variation occurs through random chance, selection occurs through the competition for scarce resources and the environment selects the best fit entities. Retention processes maintains the entities and counteracts variation and selection. If the organization meets the requirements of the environment it will survive.
Tensions in the field of OD
The first issue is the interplay of science/research and practice in OD. Beer and Walton (1987) to note that theory building in OD has always been weak. They noted the need for contingency perspectives to change as well as incorporating time more explicitly into planned change models. They concluded that research and theory have historically fallen behind the leads coming from practice. A second tension is how to accumulate knowledge about change processes and outcomes. Beer and Walton (1987) stressed that rather than attempt to find the perfect quantitative methodology to prove its worth; OD must build a different model for the accumulation of knowledge than the dominant positivist paradigm. Instead they argued that there was a need for a return to action research traditions with full participation of the client in the research but with much longer time frame and inclusion of rich descriptions of content and system dynamics. A third tension is the focus or goal of organizational change initiatives. The goal of change interventions has become more focused on organizational member achievement aligned towards the new strategic focus rather than on the 50s and 60s focus on human expression and fulfillment. Burnes (2009) contends that the current focus on profit maximization and self interest must return to the Lewinian values of ethical and participatory change and socially responsible behavior.
Life Cycle Theory
The life cycle theory views change as organic growth that occurs in a prescribed sequence of stages whereby each stage must occur prior to the next stage. The characteristics acquired in the earlier stages are retained in the later stages and each stage is derived from a common underlying logic or process. The cyclical patterns of start up, growth, harvest, terminate, and repeat is linear and irreversible.
Sustainability
The typical model of change consists of stages such as exploration of change strategies, commitment to a vision for change, planning to meet the vision, implementation of the plan to achieve the change and monitoring/revising change goals in order to adapt to the change effort (Ford, 2007). The ultimate criterion of success of the change effort has typically been defined as sustainability. Sustainability is focused on meeting the goals of a change effort through adaptation and continuous change. Sustainability focuses on change as more of a continual process than having a specific endpoint. From this perspective, organizations are in a state of constant flux and never reach a state of equilibrium. Change is viewed not as a single event but inherent in the process of sensemaking and organizing (Clegg, Kornberger, & Rhodes, 2005; Sackmann, Eggenhofer-Rehart, & Friesl, 2009). Thus, continual change models such as Brown and Eisenhardt (1997) are more consistent with this criterion. The focus on sustainability is also consistent with Bartunek and Moch's (1987) models of second and third order change—where schemata are changed to meet ongoing realities. Thus, sustainability can be thought of as an outcome of a change effort or as a process that leads to the institutionalization of new practices, patterns, and beliefs.
Absorptive Capacity Value Dimension
The value dimension focuses on the capacity (skills and motivation) to identify and acquire externally generated knowledge that may be critical to an organization's effectiveness. Includes factors such as resources (time, dedicated personnel), information availability (access to journals, professional associations, and perceived importance of external information) influencing the likelihood of a search.
Consequences of Systems Thinking
There are four key consequences of viewing organizations form a systems perspective. First, issues, events, forces and incidents are not viewed as isolated phenomena but are seen in relation to other issues, events, and forces. Second, there is an analysis of events in terms of multiple causation rather than a single cause. Third, one cannot change one part of a system without influencing other parts in some ways. Fourth, if one wants to change a system one changes the system not just its component parts. Kozlowski and Klein (2000) that the influence of systems thinking in the organizational sciences—and in our case in this review of OD—has been primarily at the metaphorical level.
Antecedents of Readiness to Change
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that employees are more open and ready for change when they have the capacities to support a change endeavor, including a problem-solving orientation (Cunningham et al., 2002), job knowledge and skills, effective job performance, (Hanpachern, Morgan, & Griego, 1998) and higher levels of organizational commitment (Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005). High job satisfaction has also been linked to readiness for change (McNabb & Sepic, 1995). More mixed results have emerged around the linkage of demographic variables and readiness for change. Some researchers have found that job position and length of employment are related to readiness levels (e.g., Hanpachern, 1997) while age, gender and marital status have been unassociated with this construct (Cunningham et al., 2002; Hanpachern, 1997; Weber & Weber, 2001). Cunningham et al. (2002) found that active jobs (with more decision making latitude and control over complex tasks) were one of the strongest predictors of readiness for organizational change within a sample of health care employees. Employees that have stronger and more positive interpersonal relationships with their co-workers (Hanpachern, 1997; Madsen, et al., 2005; McNabb & Sepic, 1995) or trust their peers (Eby et al., 2000) have higher levels of readiness for change. Jones et al. (2005) found higher levels of readiness within employees who described their units as having strong human relations values; readiness levels, in turn were related to the use of the new technology at Time 2. Similarly, employees have reported lower levels of resistance to change when their organization has a supportive and participative culture (Burnes & James, 1995). Miller et al. (1994) and colleagues found employees within a national insurance company were more ready for change when they had received high levels of information about the impending change. Jones and his colleagues (2005) found that employees who rated their government agency unit as high in reshaping capabilities were also more likely to report more readiness for change.
Chaos Theories in Organizations
Thietart and Forgues (1995) From this perspective, organizations are seen a nonlinear dynamic systems subject to forces of stability (planning, structuring) and instability (innovation, experimentation) that push them towards chaos. They contend that the path from organizational stability to chaos follows a discrete process of change. With the move to the level of chaotic domain, small changes can have big consequences that cannot be predicted in the long term. From this chaos, new stabilities emerge from attractor patterns (organizations attracted to an identifiable configuration) and assimilated into this new organizational reality. A model of change from this perspective includes a process of stability, environmental disturbance, amplification, instability, reconfiguration, order and stability (Wheatley, 1992). An important implication of this theoretical perspective is that organizational crises may be more a function of the complex, tightly coupled relationships among elements in an organization in a continual process of convergence and divergence than due to inadequate actions on the part of organizational members. In addition, it is unlikely that a chaotic system ever finds itself twice in the same situation—this implies that the similar actions an organization takes in one situation and point in time may lead to failure at a different point in time.
Absorptive Capacity
This capability to value, assimilate, and use new knowledge has been called the absorptive capacity of an organization or organizational subunit. Lane, Koka, and Pathak (2006) note that absorptive capacity has become one of the most popular constructs within the field of organizational sciences including strategic management, organizational economics, and technology management Absorptive capacity emerges in settings that include the operational, relational and learning systems to promote the exploration and application of new knowledge (Koza & Lewin, 1998; Lane et al., 2006). Research within the organizational sciences provides evidence that the strength of absorptive capacity affects an organization's ability to adopt and implement new ideas and practices (Szulanski, 1996; Zahra & George, 2002). Absorptive capacity is recognized as a dynamic capability that can be affected by a number of factors that promote the building up of capabilities (Lane et al., 2006; Zahra & George, 2002).
Absorptive Capacity New Knowledge Dimension
Use or exploitation emphasizes the capacity to apply new knowledge or research evidence within the organization setting. In this way, the organization leverages existing competencies or creates new ones to transform new knowledge into day to day operations. Researchers have found that organizations are more likely to adopt and implement new knowledge when it only requires the use of existing capacities or it represents something that setting members believe they could implement well (e.g., Hannaway, 1989; Honig, 2003; Spillane, 2000).
Integrative Approach to Change
Van de Ven and Poole (1995) stress that an integrative perspective is possible if the different change theories are viewed as providing "alternative pictures of the same organizational processes without nullifying each other" (p. 511). Based on their analysis of change approaches, they describe four basic types of change process theories to example how and why change unfolds: Life Cycle Theory Teleological Theory Dialectic Theory Evolutionary Theory They note that there is a single entity promoting change with life cycle and teleology approaches—the changes comes from within and environmental influences are seen as secondary influences. The evolution and dialectic change processes are seen as having multiple entities as the push for change comes from competition and conflict between two or more entities. The mode of change can be prescribed through prespecified direction (life cycle and evolution) or constructive—often discontinuous and unpredictable (teleological and dialectic). Thus, the prescribed mode focuses on the incremental and continuous change processes while the constructive model focuses on radical and episodic change. They then go on to describe "hybrid" change theories that are various combinations of these four ideal types of change.
Planned change is usually needed because its hard to create continuously adaptive organizations.
Weick and Quinn (1999) They noted that research had begun to rely more on systems theory and learning about the environment. Practice was seen as more participant centered rather than researcher centered. They cautioned that change is more often spiral or open ended rather than linear and that the chains of causality are much longer and less determinate than is often anticipated by researchers and practitioners. They highlighted the importance of sensemaking during change efforts. Weick and Quinn (1999) saw more practice efforts of whole scale change in which large numbers of employees and key stakeholders would help plan for change within a concentrated period of time. These methods include interventions such as real time strategic change (Jacobs, 1994), whole scale systems change (Bunker & Alban, 1997) and fast cycle full participation organization design (Manning & Binzagr, 1996).
Downside of the Manifest Approach of Readiness for Change
While the manifest approach provides a direct and relatively simple approach to measuring the belief in the possibility of change, there is some concern that this approach minimizes the conceptual complexity present with the readiness construct (Holt et al., 2007; Jones et al., 2005).
Creating a Learning Culture
With learning cultures, teamwork, collaboration, creativity, and knowledge processes have a collective meaning and value (Confessore & Kops, 1998). Underlying these ideas is the fundamental notion that a learning culture strives to continuously change the organization's capacity for doing something new (Goldstein & Ford, 2002; Tannenbaum, 1997) Zollo and Winter (2002) described the modification of existing routines as an organization's dynamic capability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal competencies and operations to address changing environments (Zollo & Winter, 2002). They provided a cyclical evolutionary view of organizational knowledge which includes scanning for new information, evaluating the legitimacy of the information, sharing the information across the organization and enacting and routinizing a new set of policies, procedures, and actions Overall, a learning culture supports the gathering of data, the sharing of knowledge and the taking of collective action to improve system functioning (Cuther-Gershenfeld & Ford, 2005).
