New Perspectives on Organizational Change: The Reality of Organizational Learning

Dear Colleagues,

Organizational learning and change are among the most important topics in management research. In an ever-changing environment, organizations are requested to change as well. Even though inertia can help organizations to build up reliability and accountability (Hannan and Freeman 1984), a company that never adapts to significant technological developments, changing preferences of customers or altering expectations from stakeholders is highly unlikely to survive. However, change can be risky and might not bring about the hoped-for consequences. Therefore, organizations will usually conduct change when they either do not meet their performance targets or have enough resources to experiment (Cyert and March 1963), or when they need to fulfill external expectations in order to remain considered rational and legitimate (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Research on organizational change has brought about important and highly valuable results, however oftentimes using somewhat abstract (empirical) constructs. We therefore welcome original research that extends previous approaches by shedding more light on the reality of organizational learning and change within organizations. We also welcome research that extends previous conceptualizations of learning and change in organizations. Here are some examples of possible research questions that fit into the targeted area of research.

• How are performance targets or aspiration levels (e.g. Greve 2003) that trigger organizational learning and change constructed? Are there specific influence factors that need to be taken into account? How do managers react when the organization/department/team for which they are responsible do not meet the actual aspirations? What happens if they exceed them?
• Organizations learn by integrating experiences, i.e. new knowledge, into rules and routines (March, Schulz, and Zhou 2000). Which processes do organizations use in order to make this knowledge available for organizational members? How much do managers agree with these processes? How do organizations adapt and improve meta-routines that determine change processes? How sophisticated are these meta-routines in different types of organizations?
• Experiences and knowledge are not only stored in the rule system of an organization, but also in the stories and narratives conveyed to organizational members (Foster, Coraiola, Suddaby, Kroezen, & Chandler 2016). How can stories and narratives be used to initiate change in the organization rather than to preserve the status quo? What are the differences in knowledge that are captured through stories and knowledge that are integrated in the rule system?
• How do organizations adapt their identity to the expectations of external stakeholders? Do managers fear the loss of legitimacy more than the blurring of the organization’s long-term image? Which kind of procedures do organizations use to determine what stakeholders expect from them? How well can these procedures deal with differences and contradictions in these expectations?

We appreciate quantitative and qualitative research on these and similar topics that help to understand how organizations and their members actually deal with processes of learning and change.

References

Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2, 169-187.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American sociological review, 147-160.

Foster, W. M., Coraiola, D. M., Suddaby, R., Kroezen, J., & Chandler, D. (2017). The strategic use of historical narratives: a theoretical framework. Business History, 59(8), 1176-1200.

Greve, H. R. (2003). Organizational learning from performance feedback: A behavioral perspective on innovation and change. Cambridge University Press.

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American sociological review, 149-164.March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization science, 2(1), 71-87.

March, J. G., Schulz, M., & Zhou, X. (2000). The dynamics of rules: Change in written organizational codes. Stanford University Press.

Guest Editor

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• Organizational Change
• Organizational Learning
• Knowledge Transfer
• Rules
• Routines
• Internal Procedures