Abstract
One factor which is deemed as critical to successfully navigating organizational change is the human side – or how recipients experience and respond to change initiatives. Scholars from several management disciplines have studied the human side of change, with minimal integration taking place across disciplines. The resulting fragmented state of the literature is among the greatest challenges for researchers, making it difficult to advance knowledge cumulatively. We review 265 empirical articles published from 1998 to 2018 and use a co-citation analysis to visually interpret the knowledge base of the field. This analysis reveals that research has mainly evolved within three disciplines: information systems, organizational behavior, and strategy. Based on this insight, we integrate articles across the disciplines by developing eight thematic perspectives that emphasize different mechanisms to explain responses to change; the eight themes are sensemaking and discursive, judgment- and belief-focused, emotional, relational, work structure and design, learning-focused, person-centric, and ethical. We then develop research pathways which encourage researchers to (1) further develop work within perspectives, (2) combine multiple perspectives, or (3) bridge disciplines within perspectives in order to advance important but underdeveloped issues. Our integrative review enriches the development of future research and facilitates cross-disciplinary knowledge creation on the human side of organizational change.
Published Version
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