Change agents and internal communications in organizational networks

Abstract

The adoption of change in organizational networks is conditioned by the engagement of the so-called “change agents” initiating “cascades of change”, as well as by the internal communication among the members of the network. We investigate how the dynamics of the adoption of change is influenced by the engagement policy of the change agents and by the internal communication. In this perspective, we compare central engagements (high degree, high closeness, high betweenness, high eigen-centrality) with random engagement. We also compare three selection rules for communication, namely: selection by randomness, selection by high link weight, and selection by high link weight and degree centrality. The dynamics of change adoption is modeled by generalizing the discrete diffusion equation in order to incorporate both the engagement policies of the change agents and the internal communication rules. Results are obtained by simulating the solutions (change management scenaria) on 4 real organizational networks. Agents with high degree (hubs) are found to be most suitable to act as change agents. The most suitable change agents however, are not always the senior employees. The adoption of change is much faster, if agents communicate with “local hubs”, avoiding random contacts. Change agents feed the members of the network with “thin slices” of influence, in order to avoid crossing the “confidence bound”. Small increase of the size of “slices”, results in significant acceleration of the adoption of change. We also estimate the value of “planning” versus “no planning”, in the context of Change Management.