POSTCOMMUNIST REFORMS FROM THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The analysis presented is an attempt to explain the changes laking place in post-communist Eastern Europe using the concept of organizational change. Organizational change is understood as an attempt to ensure a strategic match between the environment and organizational structure and processes. Four types of change are identified and analyzed: innovative, adaptive, regressive, and systemic. Up to 1990, cycles of changes could be observed in the communist systems. Innovative changes have been followed by stagnation punctured with adaptation followed by regression. In 1989–1990 in Hungary and Poland the cycle has been altered: adaptive change brought a short period of innovation, which slipped out of control of the communists and spontaneously transformed itself into systemic change leading to a new identity for the system. In this way the transition toward democracy and a market economy began. Within this frame of reference the Polish and Hungarian reforms are explained. The mechanism of change is analyzed...