“Where is the Progress in Organizational Change?”

This is the title of a thought-provoking paper I read recently authored by Elizabeth Goodfellow and Jason Mazanov (2017). It begs an important question: Has our craft evolved to meet the challenges of the modern world, or are we still relying on old models and frameworks that were developed when those challenges were very different?

In this paper, Goodfellow and Mazanov originally sought to answer the question, “what major developments in understanding organizational change are evident in the academic literature?” As the study progressed, the research question evolved and became, “to what extent do mainstream change and management literature reviews suggest change approaches have progressed since 2005?”. Obviously, a more interesting question.

In their research, they didn’t judge commercial frameworks like LaMarsh, Prosci, and Kotter but, instead, they were determined to focus only on approaches based on actual verifiable research. Since 2005, organizational change approaches have evolved through an increase in their number and depth. This progress is defined by the expansion of existing approaches, the introduction of new ones, and the conceptualization of these approaches within a three-dimensional spectrum and two distinct management paradigms.

The field has expanded from the three approaches identified by Burnes (2005) to a consolidated set of five change approaches: planned, emergent, complexity, contingency, and critical. The “critical” approach was added, and “contingency/choice” was formally recognized as an approach.

Each new change approach introduced novel variables or refined existing ones and aimed to address earlier problems encountered by previous approaches. This development often followed a pattern where problems in an existing approach triggered explorations that eventually coalesced into a recognizable alternative approach. Many components of earlier approaches implicitly transition into newer ones in this step-wise fashion.

However, this progress has been incremental rather than a “fundamental re-evaluation” of organizational change from first principles or entirely new contexts, which Burnes (2005) had aspired to. This incremental development suggests shared assumptions that have generated an implicit boundary for research and knowledge.

Three-Dimensional Spectrum of Change Approaches

Comparison of change approaches revealed variations along three key criteria or dimensions, extending By’s (2005) observation of a spectrum. This spectrum provides a conceptual basis for integrating new and existing approaches.

Dimension	Description
Prevalence of Change	This dimension describes how organizational change is conceptualized. It ranges from change being fundamentally different from the norm to change being a normal organizational or social system behavior, to change being indistinguishable from the norm.
Degree of Stability and Control	Newer approaches reflect increasing degrees of instability in the external environment, and varying degrees of control that management and other actors have over both internal and external environments.
Degree of Interrelationship	This refers to the importance, direction, and degree of interrelationship between key aspects of a situation (such as environmental conditions and change processes) or units of analysis (organization, group, or individual).

Emergence of Two Management Paradigms

Similarities between change approaches also revealed two distinct groupings, each with common assumptions and research questions. These are called the ‘interventionist’ and ‘naturalist’ management paradigms.

Interventionist Paradigm

The interventionist paradigm incorporates the planned and contingency change approaches. It assumes similarity of external environments between organizations and identifiable continuity of the organization despite change.

Changes under this paradigm are largely seen as rational, planned, or structured problem-solving or “gap-filling” activities undertaken by rational managers acting as representatives of hierarchical groups. It is viewed as a set of universal, incremental, linear, and predictable steps or events that are discrete, self-contained, bounded in time, and distinct from the normal state of affairs.

Organizations, management, and change are considered reasonably predictable at the macro (organizational) level. Problems often emerge from outside the organization or from other levels of analysis (environment, groups, individuals).

The core research question: “how can we (management) change our organization?”

Naturalist Paradigm

The naturalist paradigm encompasses the emergent, complexity, and critical approaches. In this paradigm, organizations are interpreted as social systems or networks of relationships primarily based on shared meaning, discourse, or dialectics. These relationships are complex, ambiguous, inherently unpredictable, and often uncontrollable.

“Management” of change is viewed as an attempt by powerful individuals to influence others to adjust patterns of organizational behavior or institutional practices. Change occurs when patterns of behavior shift as a result of these interactions, often triggered by agents responding to their specific context and seeking a new equilibrium.

Due to the indeterminacy and interdependence of relationships, change processes experience unpredictability, occur through influence rather than control, and may not necessarily result in “success” or the organization continuing as a recognizably similar entity. Macro-level patterns emerge from micro-interactions.

The core research question is: “how does organizational change happen?”.

While the field of organizational change has expanded, it has not undergone a fundamental rethinking. The introduction of new approaches and paradigms reflects meaningful progress, but much of it remains incremental and bound by shared assumptions. A more nuanced understanding of change that draws from both interventionist and naturalist perspectives is essential. Leaders and practitioners should resist defaulting to legacy frameworks and instead consider the contextual fit of different approaches. There is no universal playbook, and progress lies in developing the judgment to choose or blend the right tools for the situation at hand. The future of change work depends not just on new models, but on our willingness to challenge the limitations of the old.

From a practical perspective, while the current understanding of change approaches as a spectrum is informative, existing approaches still have many limitations, particularly in complex, unstable, unpredictable, and fast-moving situations. Change leaders should recognize that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is always untenable given that multiple changes with different drivers may occur simultaneously within an organization.

Sources:

Burnes, B. (2005). Complexity Theories and Organizational Change. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(2), 73-90.

By, R. (2005). Organizational Change Management: A Critical Review. Journal of Change Management, 5(4), 369-380.

Goodfellow, E. & Mazanov, J. (2017), “Where is the Progress in Organizational Change? A Review of Developments in Change Approaches Since 2005 and Future Potential”, Human Resource Management Refereed Interactive Session, 31st Annual Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management, ANZAM 2017.