ORGANIZATION CHANGE

Prof: Paulo R. Motta

Student: Luciano Riquet
Subject: Innovation and Management Knowledge

The article reviews past reviews related on organization change research and
theory. At the beginning there were no significant research (quantitatively
speaking) and even those few studies presented were not carried out in
accordance an appropriate research.
Later on there were complaints arguing that organization change research
was based in a wrong model. That is the debate between normal science and
action science – measuring organizations is not that simple.
There it comes the work of Porras arguing that it was necessary to develop a
specific theory to show how organization change actually works and establish a
framework. This framework is based in changing processes and Porras declares
that organizational changes will only occur if employees change their behavior at
work appropriately. Porras and Silvers believed that planned changes, designed to
help organizations to face environmental shifts, should be based on a set of
organizations theories. Then they developed a new model of planned change.
Porras’ theory is in accordance with the four elements of a “completed” theory
proposed by Whetten in 1989. One can find the constructs – what element – and
the how and why elements. The fourth element is a combination of who, where and
when. In order to change an organization must develop a vision of the future but
instead concentrating on it we should concentrate on the behavior needed to start
changing. This approach is pretty much in accordance with Willian James studies
in which he stated “that emotional behavior precedes emotional experience”.
Porras’ theoretical framework is quite easy to understand due to the logical flow
that comes from it.

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 The article ends with a discussion about two primary categories of
organization change: episodic and continuous. The first is related to organizational
changes that tend to be infrequent, discontinuous and intentional and occur during
periods of divergence. The latter is, according to Weick and Quinn (1999),
“ongoing, evolving and cumulative”. Basically, episodic change results from an
organization’s inability to appropriately respond to external environmental changes.
Continuous change arises from the idea that an organization is always making
incremental adjustments that will allow to create major changes. It means that the
organization is never stable.