Modeling Internal Organizational Change
Journal article by William P. Barnett, Glenn R. Carroll; Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 21, 1995
Journal Article Excerpt
Modeling internal organizational change. by William P. Barnett , Glenn R. Carroll ADAPTATION, SELECTION, AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE For the last 20 years or so, theory and research on organizations have been routinely separated into two major theoretical camps, depending on how malleable or flexible formal organizations are considered to be. The first camp consists of those whose efforts use an adaptational mechanism of organizational change. This mechanism assumes that change in the world of organizations occurs mainly through the adaptive responses of existing individual organizations to prior changes in technology, environment, or whatever. Theories typically placed in the adaptational camp include contingency theory (Woodward 1965, Lawrence & Lorsch 1967), resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik 1978, Burt 1983, 1992), institutional theory (Meyer & Rowan 1977, DiMaggio & Powell 1983), and transaction cost economics (Williamson 1975, 1985). The second camp coheres around a selectional mechanism of organizational change. It assumes that individual organizations cannot change easily and quickly; it also assumes that when they do change, great risks are entailed. By this view, when technologies and environments change, some existing organizations fail. Some different new ones also appear. The selective replacement of the old forms of organization by the new forms constitutes the main way this mechanism accounts for change in the world of organizations. Theories residing in this camp include organizational ecology (Hannan & Freeman 1977, 1989) and, on occasion, evolutionary economics (Nelson & Winter 1982). Within each of these camps, we believe that most researchers hold a general sense of progress about the last two decades. Certainly, one can point to a number of theories of organization that have been developed extensively within this period and to a considerable amount of cross-fertilization. Yet, oddly enough, basic questions about the major sources and outcomes of change within individual organizations - the primary theoretical difference between the two camps - remain unanswered. While this neglect may have been useful for researchers single-mindedly attempting to develop a particular theory, it can scarcely be defended on general grounds. Selection theorists admit that individual organizations do sometimes successfully change, and adaptation theorists recognize that some organizations fail because they do not change when and how they should. In other words, the major difference between the two camps is a thoroughly researchable topic pertaining to the rates and conditions of change in individual organizations and the outcomes change generates. Driven partly by this observation, a new and rapidly surging stream of research on organizational change and its outcomes has appeared. Led by T Amburgey (Kelly & Amburgey 1991, Amburgey et al 1993) and H Haveman (1992, 1993a), this research has moved quickly past primary distinctions such as adaptation and selection. Examining directly the phenomenon of organizational change (or its logical converse, inertia) and evaluating its consequences have led researchers to introduce and use a variety of conceptual ideas and modeling proposals. Most of these arise from knowledge and analysis of the particular industrial or institutional context under study. Insightful as these approaches may be within their contexts, it is important for the development of general theory on organizations that they be interpreted and evaluated at a more abstract level as well. Accordingly, our main purpose here is to review and comment on the recent spate of research on organizational change and its outcomes. We focus mainly on those studies that adopt the organization as the unit of analysis and that either conceptualize change (or its obverse, inertia) as a dependent variable or explore the consequences of change on organizational outcomes. We do not deal at length with the many theories and studies that deal with change implicitly or as a secondary concern. DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Organizational change involves, by definition, a transformation of an organization between two points in time. For most analysts, the key aspect of change comes from comparing the organization before and after the transformation. Making such a comparison constitutes an analysis of the content of organizational change. It assesses what actually differs in the organization at the second point in time. On the basis of content, major changes consist of transformations that involve many elements of structure or those that entail radical shifts in a single element of structure.A second dimension of organizational change concerns the way the transformation occurs - the speed, the sequence of activities, the decision-making and communication system, the resistance encountered, etc. Examining these factors involves a focus on the process of change per se. Process considerations may be independent of content, or they may ... |
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