Modes and Mechanisms of Organizational Change

Abstract

Extant research investigates how organizations react to a changing environment, characterized by technological discontinuities or demand transformations. Existing theoretical approaches and empirical studies usually focus on one mode of response such as either radical or incremental change or stasis and some of them take into account the driving mechanism of the mode of change they address. As these focused approaches miss a continuous explanation for multiple modes of change, our analysis simultaneously addresses the range of organizational behavior modes driven by the interaction of their underlying mechanisms. In particular, this analysis ac-counts for interactive and nonlinear effects. We present a continuous theory of organizational change and stasis that explains how organizations react to a changing environment. It is a theory of the interaction of reinforcing mechanisms—often considered to create path dependent behav-ior—with goal seeking mechanisms—causing adaptive behavior. This work informs how elements of theory, most often disconnected in other work, can be integrated. It informs about this integration’s nonlinear consequences, suggesting why theories of adaptation as well as of path dependence benefit from each other for focusing on constraints and for managing different organizational behavior patterns.