Strategic Change Process Research Articles

Wise Agents & Organisational Moral Learning

The processes of strategic change, undertaken from time to time by organisations so as to maintain its functional relevance and effectiveness, are often conflict-ridden. This is in large part due to the nature of the human agency. Humans bring not only rationality into the decision-making processes, but also their inherent dispositions: intuitions, biases, emotions, and so on. In order to understand the factors that cause conflict in the processes of strategic change, this paper employs al-Ghazali’s concept of the ‘purification of the heart’, and ‘organisational moral learning’. An analytical framework is constructed using these two concepts to illustrate the interplay between contextual organisational configurations, the wider socio-environmental forces, and the human agents’ potentials and powers. This paper proposes some strategies that may help to drive ‘organisational moral learning’ forward, and conversely, hinder ‘organisational immoral learning’ from taking root. Ultimately, it is human agents –­ or rather, wise human agents – who are the critical factors for maintaining and/or transforming themselves and their surroundings.

Communication and attention dynamics: An attention‐based view of strategic change

Research Summary: The attention‐based view (ABV) has highlighted the role of organizational attention in strategic decision making and adaptation. The tendency to view communication channels as “pipes and prisms” for information processing has, however, limited its ability to address strategic change. We propose a broader role for communication as a process by which actors can attend to and engage with organizational and environmental issues and initiatives and argue that such a view can significantly advance understanding of strategic change. On this basis, we offer suggestions for future research on communication practices, vocabularies, rhetorical tactics, and talk and text in shaping organizational attention in strategic change. We also maintain that this enhanced view of the ABV can help advance research on dynamic capabilities, strategy processes, strategy‐as‐practice, and behavioral strategy.Managerial Summary: To further enhance our capabilities to manage strategic change and renewal processes in organizations, we need a better understanding of how to manage organizational attention. In this article, we highlight the importance of understanding the role of communication and discuss the use of different communication practices, vocabularies, rhetorical tactics, and talk and text as possible levers that can be used to dynamically shape organizational attention. We call for further research to advance the understanding of how these levers can be used to influence the ways in which different sets of strategic issues, initiatives, and action alternatives are handled. We believe that such an enhanced view of organizational attention can enable the development of new, improved strategy practices to manage strategic change and renewal processes.

Untangling Mechanisms of Dynamic Capabilities: An Integrative Perspective on Heuristics and Routines

Over the last decade, dynamic capabilities (DCs) research has become a dominant topic and one of the most active research streams in management research (Helfat et al., 2007) – yet the understandings of the concept still diverges significantly (Di Stefano, Peteraf, & Verona, 2010, 2014). While one strand of research has demonstrated that DCs take the form of simple rules (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000), another conceptualized DCs as involving complex routines (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997). Consequently, Di Stefano et al. (2014), call for the “bridging of diverging conversations&x201D; in order to move the field forward. They propose an illustrative metaphor, the so called “organizational drivetrain&x201D; to link simple rules with complex routines. To better understand these diverging perspectives, this symposiums aims to “bridge the diverging conversations&x201D; by exploring and drawing on different perspective to provide a more holistic picture on this essential divide. The symposium will include presentations on (1) how simple rules work in the strategy process and their interdependence to complexity and scope of actions (Madeleine Rauch, Matthias Wenzel & Jochen Koch), (2) how design, role and interplay of heuristics is managed during a strategic change process (Henning Duesterhoff & Guenter Mueller- Stewens) and (3) how problem-solving drivers interact with each other to ensure competitive advantage (Emre Karali, Henk Volberda & Jatinder Sidhu). Christopher Bingham and Oliver Schilke, two acknowledged scholars in the field of strategic management and experts in the area of DCs, will provide a reaction to the presentations, open up the floor and facilitate and discuss the patterns emerging from the set of papers and engage the audience and presenters in a dialogue about the ideas and findings presented.

Managerial change and strategic change: The temporal sequence

AbstractThe relationship between managerial change and strategic change is a complex issue that challenges our understanding of how firms react to their business environment. In this study, we analyse the influence of the management team and more specifically their knowledge and capabilities in the process of strategic change. To do so, we delve deeper into the relationship between managerial change and strategic change by identifying the sequence of these changes. Using qualitative methodology, we analyse 10 companies listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange over an extensive period to formulate our propositions. Our analysis shows that managerial change precedes strategic change. Top management team reorganization, even without Chief Executive Officer succession, was a sufficient condition for strategic change to take place. Moreover, we identified key modifications that took place whenever strategic change occurred. Our results provide meaningful insights into the processes of strategic change within firms that broaden our theoretical knowledge in this area.

Fostering community engagement

This case study explores a dynamic process of strategic change involving the New York City Police Department Community Precinct Councils, the advisory structures designed to facilitate engagement between communities and police precincts in neighbourhoods across New York City. The initiative included an active process of agency and precinct council involvement in leadership and police staff dialogues and feedback surveys to explore management and operational issues, new needs and suggestions to increase the vitality and functioning of these important civic bodies. Challenges of engaging in the change process are assessed, with communication and partnerships emerging as central themes.

Service transition: A viable option for manufacturing companies with deteriorating financial performance?

When manufacturing firms venture into services, they often do so either in reaction to deteriorating performance or to further enhance their financial position. While extant literature argues that firms are most likely to succeed with strategic change processes out of a healthy position, the majority of manufacturers have started their service maneuver in reaction to deteriorating performance. To date, no empirical studies examine whether a healthy financial situation is a necessary requirement for successful service transition. Drawing on configuration theory and employing qualitative comparative analysis, the present study demonstrates that an increasing focus on services can lead to success for both types of firms. However, depending on their financial situation, firms should tap different resource and knowledge sources to implement the service transition: Whereas healthy companies should focus on customers as a knowledge source, companies in an inferior financial situation need strong links with suppliers to turn their services transition into financial success.

Patterns of strategic change

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to know how strategic change processes unfold over time and their potential consequences for firms. The study has two main objectives: to identify the actors involved; and to analyze the sequences of changes when a firm experiences strategic change.Design/methodology/approach– To know the temporal sequence of strategic change isper seone of the most important questions of research in management. This is because it allows for a better understanding of how and why organizations change. The qualitative analysis – based on the existing literature on the change processes – aims to capture reality in flight and study long-term processes.Findings– The study identifies strategic change’s essential patterns. It determines when it is appropriate to use these sequences to improve firm performance and it explains that reorganization of the senior management can produce strategic change. The results provide a greater understanding of the strategic change processes carried out by firms which will broaden the theory relating to this subject.Practical implications– To know the strategic change circumstances and, over all, the sequence of the change process, could accelerate its implementation in a time when the speed is essential for the company competitiveness.Originality/value– The paper studies strategic change like a process. The results provide a greater understanding of the strategic change processes carried out by firms which will broaden the theory relating to this subject. The study identifies strategic change’s essential patterns both incremental as radical. By identifying these sequences, it can define the what, how and why of change, and who is involved.

Dynamic Capabilities and the Speed of Strategic Change: Evidence From China

Despite the general agreement of the importance of resources and capabilities to strategic change, the broader question of how resources and capabilities affect strategic change itself remains unresolved. This research focuses on one characteristic of the process of strategic change, i.e., its speed. This study investigates the relationship between dynamic capabilities, the speed of strategic change, and performance. We propose that technological capabilities, marketing capabilities, and market-linking capabilities, due to their absorptive capacity and boundary spanning attributes, will facilitate the speed of strategic change. Furthermore, the risk orientation of managers will moderate this effect such that it would be strengthened for relatively risk-taking managers. Finally, we argue that the speed of strategic change will have an inverted-U relationship with organizational performance. We test these hypotheses on a sample of 213 Chinese firms and find that while dynamic capabilities facilitate rapid strategic change, the risk orientation of decision makers moderates this relationship, but not all as hypothesized. While faster implementation of strategic change has a positive effect on performance, strategic change carried out too quickly has negative performance repercussions. Our findings suggest that firms not only need to adjust strategies to complement the changing environment, but also have corresponding capabilities to enable rapid strategic change.

Case study of a school wellbeing initiative: Using appreciative inquiry to support positive change

Drawing from the fields of positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship and educational administration, this case study reports on the process used in a large K-12 school to implement the strategic goal of fostering student wellbeing. This case study outlines the three strategic phases used to build wellbeing over a two-and-a-half-year time period: 1) development; 2) implementation; and 3) monitoring. The school aligned its change process to the goal of achieving wellbeing by adopting appreciative inquiry as the overarching change approach. Appreciative inquiry is a systematic, holistic, and collaborative methodology that follows a strengths-based model of change. Through the use of appreciative inquiry, 15 bottom-up (instigated by students and staff) and top-down (instigated by leadership) initiatives were generated over a two-and-a-half-year period. This paper provides an applied example of how AI can be woven into a strategic change process to support the wellbeing of students. The paper aims to contribute to the rapidly developing field of positive education.

A Model of Knowledge Acquisition for Developed Economies SMEs First Entering a Developing Economy

Abstract Background As economic growth in developed economies has almost peaked, developing economies are becoming to be the source of firm's future growth. Additionally, as SMEs are relevant economic actors in the majority of developed economies where they provide growth and wealth, and also play a relevant role in developing economies where they contribute to alleviate poverty, their international expansion to developing economies deserves research attention. However, extant literature in international business has little addressed SMEs’internationalization; particularly as such firms expand into developing economies.Purpose of Study. To provide a first cohesive model to recommend a process of SME's knowledge acquisition to successfully enter into its first developing economy. Sources of Evidence. We review and integrate the literature on developing economies, international business, and organizational knowledge. Main Argument. Developing economies have weak institutional environments with high levels of business uncertainty, institutional voids, political instability, weak legal systems, and exchanges based on social networks, among other adverse locational factors. These institutional conditions are highly distant from those of SMEs from developed economies; thus, these firms entering into developing economies must develop new strategies in order to succeed in their international expansion processes –e.g., designing operations by creating intermediaries or bypassing inefficient markets, extending the framework for quality to other dimensions such as availability or timeliness. In order to implement these new strategies, SMEs must develop new ownership advantages –e.g., political capabilities, abilities to operate in informal markets, high flexibility–. Within this process of strategic change, SMEs would have to acquire those knowledge resources needed for a successful implementation of the new competitive strategies in developing economies. To the best of our knowledge, no article has been published that attempt to systematically assess type of knowledge required for internationalization to the first developing economy, the challenges its acquisition represents, and the sources for acquiring that knowledge.Conclusions. Four different types of internationalization knowledge and seven different sources of them must be considered by SMEs when internationalizing to their first developing economy. As developing economies as highly distant from developed ones, additional challenges add to those commonly associated with the acquisition of each type of knowledge. This work takes them into account and offers a normative model of SMEs’ knowledge acquisition to successfully enter into their first developing economy. This model suggests the suitable sources for each type of knowledge along time.

The Effect of Board Characteristics on a Firm’s Strategic Change

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between the characteristics of the board of directors and strategic change of a firm in the Chinese context. In this study, strategic change is defined as strategic deviation relative to industry norms and strategic variation relative to historical experiences. The size, independence and leadership structure of the board of directors are defined as the board characteristics. We then propose hypotheses on the effects of board characteristics on a firm’s strategic change. This study takes strategic resource allocation profile as measure to calculate strategic deviation and strategic variation, and then empirically tests and verifies the hypotheses using data from Chinese publicly listed companies in the information technology industry from the year 2006 to 2010. We find that the size, independence and leadership structure of the board of directors significantly affect both strategic deviation and strategic variation. Therefore, we conclude that board characteristic affects a firm’s strategic change. The conclusion of the study indicates that moderate reductions in the size of the board, increasing the proportion of independent directors and separating the roles of chairman and chief executive officer can facilitate promoting the process of strategic change for a firm in a dynamic environment. Through this study we re-examine the role and significance of the board of directors in strategic decision-making for a firm, and provide useful suggestions on how to form a board that can meet the needs for strategic change for a firm in a dynamic business environment.

Category predication work, discursive leadership and strategic sensemaking

Categorization is known to play an important role in organizations because categories ‘frame’ situations in particular ways, informing managerial sensemaking and enabling managerial intervention. In this article, we advance existing work by examining the role of categorization practices in discursive leadership during periods of strategic change. Drawing on data from an ethnographic action research study of a strategic change initiative in a multi-national corporation, we use membership categorization analysis to develop a framework for studying ‘category predicates’ − defined as the stock of organizational knowledge and associated reasoning procedures concerning the kinds of activities, attributes, rights, responsibilities, expectations, and so on, that are ‘tied’ or ‘bound’ to organizational categories. Our analysis shows that discursive leadership enabled a radical shift in sensemaking about organizational structure categories through a process of ‘frame-breaking’ and ‘re-framing’. In so doing, the leader co-constructed a ‘definition of the situation’ that built a compelling vision and concrete plan for strategic change. We go on to trace the organizational consequences and material outcomes of this shift in sensemaking for the company in question. We conclude by arguing that ‘category predication work’ comprises a key leadership competence and plays an important role in organizational and strategic change processes.

Organizing mindfully for relevant process research on strategic change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is organizing mindfully for relevant process research on strategic change. This essay arises from an increasing concern that our understanding of strategic change is not delivering meaningful, relevant and true process wisdom that allows researchers to enrich their academic discourse and practitioners to effectively realize strategic change imposed by hostile business markets. Our goal is to challenge fundamental assumptions of our field’s dominant discourse in performing research and generating theories for strategic change under real contexts, and redirect attention to a mindful organizing perspective to understand process elements of strategic change that really matter. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is an essay based on theoretical reasoning. We address the relevance gap in the strategic business marketing field by focusing on one specific gap: the study and understanding of strategic change. To illustrate the relevance of a mindful organizing perspective for closing this relevance gap, we focus on the processes of mindful organizing identified by Weick and Sutcliffe (2007) and argue how these organizational processes contribute to a better understanding of strategic change while implicitly assuming a complexity-based perspective on organizing. These five processes, moreover, address the identified limitations of present approaches, i.e. formative causality, pre-interpretation and independent linearity. Findings – We suggest a “provocative change research avenue” elaborating on the role of mindful organizing to bridge the relevance gap in this area. This advances a richer and more relevant framing to elevate theorizing in the area of strategic marketing and management beyond existing avenues, which not necessarily reflects organizational life’s equivocality, interdependencies and intricacies. We, thus, call for the field of strategic marketing and management to adopt a discourse grounded in complexity-based assumptions. Research limitations/implications – Overall, this essay highlights that closing relevance gaps in our field cannot be done with quick fix recipes. The endeavor implies a fundamental re-framing of the way we look at firms and managers. It also implies different theoretical underpinnings and more interpretive research approaches to tap the richness in real-life business settings. By focusing on one area, we have shown how such an effort might proceed. Practical implications – Although the paper is mainly written for researchers of change processes and innovation in industrial companies, practitioners will get inspiration as several viewpoints for mindful organizing will help them in building a more realistic and viable change approach. Originality/value – Our intended contribution is to advocate a deeper and richer process understanding of strategic change by advancing mindful organizing as an epistemological and praxeological perspective on strategic change, thereby bridging the relevance gap (Hodgkinson and Rousseau, 2009; Weick, 2001) and enriching our field’s strategic change theories. Epistemologically, mindful organizing offers a useful perspective by stressing the change process’ complexity, interdependence and emergence. Praxeologically, mindful organizing represents an adaptive organizational capability that allows organizations to develop higher awareness of their strategic change processes.

Strategic change: A dynamic perspective on the framing strategic initiatives

This paper elaborates the role of managerial framing activity during processes of strategic change in order to build the critical level of support across coalitions of competing interests to mobilize collective action towards change. Through a longitudinal 21-year qualitative study we examine the creation of a new business school through five strategic initiatives. Drawing on a Social Movement Organization perspective we analyze how frames are used by protagonists and antagonists to influence the development of the change initiatives over time. We develop a model that exposes the dynamics of diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framing in collective action frame development within specific strategic change initiatives, but also how the frames of new change initiatives are linked with and develop from previous framings.

The Practices and Processes of New CEOs Managing the Post-succession Period

Taking charge is a major challenge that newly appointed chief executive officers (CEOs) has to face. In this paper, we focus on how new CEOs manage this challenge and establish influence in their organizations. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study of eight new CEOs, we identify important processes and practices of managing the post-succession period. Our findings show that in order to navigate through the dynamic post-succession period, CEOs use various practices in gaining initial acceptance, establishing an inner circle, managing board-relation, adjusting top management team and initiating strategic changes. We also found that the CEO’s low accountability for performance and the high expectation of strategic change in the first year create a space for new CEOs’ agency. Our findings suggest that the post- succession period can be better understood as two processes of leader integration and strategic change, which interact and co- evolve over time. Theoretical and practical implications of our find...

Applying Different Processes for Evidence-Based Design

There continues to be confusion in the healthcare design industry about the differences between the processes of research, evidence-based design, and process improvement. While there is significant overlap between these three processes, there are distinctive differences as well. This issue of HERD features articles on the process improvement and quality improvement processes referred to as Lean Six Sigma. While these two processes are often used together, they are two separate processes used to improve projects, performance, through- put, and outcomes. Lean Six Sigma is not only a philosophical and belief system, but it is also widely recognized as a strategic change process with a suite of tools that can be used to make improvements to the physical work environment or work processes (Graban, 2012). Lean Six Sigma is all about change and to ensure that you change, or fix, the right problem as opposed to applying pre- cious resources to solve the wrong problem. Lean Six Sigma is not about quick fixes, although some of these can be recognized and adopted early in the pro- cess as rapid cycle changes. Lean Six Sigma is about identifying the root cause of problems and the other interrelated variables that influence the problem.How does Lean Six Sigma relate to architectural and design research or the use of an evidence-based design (EBD) approach in the planning and design of health- care facilities? The Lean Six Sigma process should be used prior to commencing the planning and design process to prevent designing process and/or operational failures in a new or renovated building. All too often, designers are influenced by healthcare professionals who approach design with the is we do it here mentality. What's curious about this approach is that they are often unhappy with how they do it here and have even developed numerous workarounds to make the existing facility work for them.Recently I was invited to meet with some physicians and nurse leaders from a large healthcare organization who had recently completed a new building addi- tion that included a large new emergency department (ED). Nurses and physicians had been involved in the design and they had used the is we do it here approach. Now they were finding that their new facility simply was not work- ing for them, and patients were waiting in the large wait- ing area for up to an average of 8 hours before being moved through the ED care process. The patients were often quickly assessed in a triage area and sent back out to the waiting room to stay until they were called. The new ED had been designed much larger than the previous one to solve the problem of long wait times for patients, but the wait times were longer than ever. Patient satisfaction in the new ED was surprisingly low and patient comments validated their discontent with being moved back and forth between the waiting room, triage, diagnostic and treatment areas, and the laboratory before they were ever seen by a physician.The hospital leadership employed consultants to assist them with a Lean Six Sigma process to improve patient flow and to reduce long waiting periods for patients in their new ED. The Lean Six Sigma process, using multiple tools and approaches, broke the problem down to determine root causes using Fishbone diagrams, process flow charts, the 5S process, and other methods to improve patient flow and minimize the wait time to be seen by a physician and ultimate- ly discharged home or admitted to an inpatient bed in the hospital. This exam- ple is the reality of a number of different departments throughout hospitals all across the U.S. If Lean Six Sigma processes had been used prior to planning and design, the is we do it here approach that is memorialized in concrete and steel could be eliminated.The Lean Six Sigma process should be recognized as the new first phase of the planning and design process for healthcare design. Lean Six Sigma should be employed after the visioning for the new facility and before space program- ming occurs. …

Understanding the Role of Computer-Supported Argumentation in the Strategic Change Process

In this paper the authors develop a conceptual framework for appreciating the use of computer-supported argumentation systems in organisational settings undergoing strategic change. More specifically, the authors concentrate on the role of computer-supported argumentation as catalyst for compensating distortions in the outcome of change, originating from the organisation’s power regime. The framework developed is based on a view of strategic change as actor-network (re)formation. Argumentation is in the core of this process which is greatly influenced by the power distribution among the participants of the change effort. A dynamic simulation model is used to instantiate the conceptual framework and to capture the dynamics of change. Simulation experiments are conducted to investigate the effects of employing argumentation technologies with specific characteristics related to the representation of power and accessibility in the argumentation discourse on the outcome of change.

Exploring team mental model dynamics during strategic change implementation in professional service organizations. A sensemaking perspective

The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper process understanding of team mental model dynamics in a context of strategic change implementation. To do so, we adopt a change recipient sensemaking perspective with the objective to identify salient determinants of team mental model dynamics. We aim to contribute to the managerial and organizational cognition literature by identifying critical micro-foundations that shape team cognition and interpretation processes during strategic change implementation. This adds to the field’s understanding of the under-researched collective dimension of strategic processes in general and strategic change implementation more specifically. Through an explorative case study conducted at a professional service organization, we identified five determinants of team mental model dynamics: coherence between ostensive and performative aspects of organizational routines, equivocality of expectations, dominance of organizational discourse, shifts in organizational identification and cross-understanding between departmental thought worlds. Case findings reveal that implementation processes of strategic change become intricate and difficult if change recipient sensemaking is not effectively acted upon. The five determinants identified require adequate managerial attention in order to avoid slipping into organizational inertia. As a consequence, professional workers are unable to ‘drop their tools’ and fail to integrate the strategic change effort in updated team mental models.

The value of communicative skills for developing an energy strategy

A case study is presented of how a public-sector client organization engaged with a political directive on energy efficiency in buildings. The value of communication skills of built environment professionals is explored during a strategic change process. An interpretative approach is used to study the organizational discussions and interactions between mainly a senior engineer (an energy expert), the management team and officials. It demonstrates how the political directive led to an initially ambiguous energy target, but was successfully framed, contextualized and anchored within the organization. This change process was shaped by key actors’ ability to influence others. Use of discursive competence is important for explaining what stakeholders may gain from the changes needed to meet the energy target. The focus on the role of a senior engineer (middle management rather than top management) provides a novel perspective on how strategies develop and are adopted in organizations.

The Servitization of Manufacturing: An Empirical Case Study of IBM Corporation

A conceptual model of firm process transition from manufacturing to servitization is proposed based on empirical case study. It denotes that the firm process in traditional manufacturing is run by resource and technology, and the primary objective of the company is making a good quality product, which has been observed a significant difference in servitized manufacturing firms that are conducted through skills and knowledge, and the firms main focus on developing value added services and more solutions oriented to customers. This research explains how a traditional hardware manufacturer, namely ‘IBM Corporation’ revolutions in the computer industry through non-hardware (Service-ware) depend services activities; consulting, financing, training, and so on and has fundamentally shifted their business from not only producing goods to offering a bundle of goods and services (Servitization). It also discusses the pertinent aspects of the firm’s cultural adaptation and strategic change process towards servitization of manufacturing based on our observations and interview results of IBM professionals.