Introduction
Organizational change is the
transitioning of an organization from its current state
towards a desired future state (Palmer,
Dunfin & Akin, 2006). Weick & quinn (1999) in their article
titled “ Organizational Change and Development“ discuss
organizational change as either episodic or continuous. This
distinction between episodic organizational change and continuous
organizational change provides different ways to understand change
and present different implications for implementing organizational
change. Episodic organizational change is systems based macro
perspective of organizational change where change is considered rare
and radical whereas continuous organizational change is a process
based micro perspective where change is considered ongoing or
constant.
Weick & Quinn (1999) argue that
the same configuration of organizational design and capabilities is
best for managing both episodic and continuous forms of change. The
purpose of this essay is to examine if this statement can be
supported or not. In order to do this this essay will analyze and
understand the processes of episodic and continuous change from two
perspectives;
- Organization Readiness to Change: Is a self-organizing and continuously adaptable organization ready for any kind of change?
- Link between episodic and continuous change: Are episodic and continuous change mutually exclusive, or is there a link between these two phenomenon?
This essay will argue that the
organization which is continuously changing is a “change ready”
organization and therefore ready for episodic change as well, not
exclusively continuous change. This essay will try to show that
there is a strong link between episodic organizational change and
continuous organizational change. And this is one of the reasons why
the same approach works for managing both continuous and episodic
changes.
Background
Episodic Organizational Change
Episodic organizational change is a
systems-based approach to change. Organizations are viewed as stable
and inertial and change is something that is rare. When change
generally occurs in such organization, it is a planned and deliberate
approach. The underlying assumption in an episodic organizational
change perspective is that the organization is in a state of
equilibrium, therefore must be acted upon to be changed, and then
must be returned to a new state of equilibrium. Changes that are
episodic are consistent with organizations that go through a planned,
discontinuous and infrequent organizational change (Weick &
Quinn, 1999).
Episodic change is a macro-level view
of an the organization undergoing a change in its entirety . When
viewed at a macro-level, change is seen as an occasional
interruption and disturbance in a stable environment.with key
concepts being “inertia, deep structure of interrelated parts,
replacement and substitution, discontinuity, revolution” (Weick &
Quinn, 1999, p. 366).
Organizational Inertia or stability or
equilibrium are often created due to past organizational success and
conservative organizational culture. Thus a change that is often
triggered by an external event after a period of stability tends to
be to be dramatic. In an episodic organizational change, the focus
is on upper management or skip-level management to direct
organizations with a clear vision, mission and goals to create
episodic change. The role of a leader is central to a planned
episodic change to develop and communicate a vision, fixed objectives
and embed new approaches in the organizational culture (Kotter,
1996).
Continuous
Organizational Change
Continuous organizational
change is a process-based approach to change and considered as
“ongoing, evolving and cumulative” (Weick & Quinn, 1999, p.
375). The underlying assumption is that
change happens all the time with small
continuous adjustments and culminate to create substantial change”
(Weick & Quinn, 1999, p. 375). Such
organizations are viewed as self-organizing with
continuous change as normal with no return to equilibrium or state
of stability.
Continuous change is driven by
alertness and the inability of organizations to remain stable ( Weick
& Quinn, 1999, p.379). Continuous organizational change views
change at a micro-level. Constant changes to organizational
processes and practice are considered part of the organizational
culture. When viewed from the process-related perspective, changing
patterns in micro-level processes, act and amplify to reveal
emerging change patterns. Key concepts are “recurrent interactions,
shifting task authority, response repertoires, emergent patterns,
improvisation, translation, and learning” (Weick & Quinn, 1999,
p. 366).
The role of
the management in continuous organizational change is very different
from an episodic change perspective in that it is viewed from a
micro-level, with the leadership role as a participative process with
continually changing, and co-constructed organizational goals that
result in emerging patterns of change.
Organizational Readiness to
change
Organizations will face changes due to
various forces surrounding their environment. These forces can be
both internal or external to the organization. To successfully lead
any kind of change, whether in a micro-level or macro-level, it is
critical that the organization must be ready to change. Change
readiness is one of the major components for successfully leading
change (Palmer, Dunfin & Akin, 2006.p128).
According to
Weick and Quinn (1999), an episodic change followed Lewin’s
three-stage change model. According to Lewin's three-stage change
model, a change process will follow stages of
“Unfreezing” ,
“Change” and “Refreezing” (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2006).
The unfreezing stage involves moving an organization from its current
state of inertia to a state where it is ready for change. This need
to unfreeze is identified in Lewin's change model because human
behavior is based on a stable situation with forces restraining
change. During the unfreezing stage, a state of “change readiness”
is created by unlearning old behaviors and focusing on the
creating a motivation to change . This idea of unfreezing an
organization is also behind the first six steps in Kotter’s 8-step
change strategy. In Kotter's eight steps for organizational change,
the management need to create an organization comprising of a group
of individuals who can work together to enact change, with conscious
vision that will guide the change effort. Once this is created, the
organization will be ready for change. According to
Isabella's (1990) process model of how change affects individuals
during the implementation of organizational change, the four stages
of “anticipation”,”confirmation”, “culmination” and
“aftermath” describes the individual’s experiences with change.
The first two stages of “anticipation”, in which individuals
interpret and absorb information about the change into a perceived
reality and “confirmation” stage, where perceptions and
assumptions are confirmed and ingrained, are the clearest aspect to
Lewin's “unfreezing” stage.
These traditional change models of
Lewin, Kotter and Isabella uses a process framework for
understanding the
progression of an organizational change. Each of the models presented
above suggest that individuals in an organization are barriers
to change because their work behaviors are fixed, requiring change
models to initiate with an 'unfreeze' of the status quo before any
kind of change can proceed.
Organizational readiness for change is
influenced by ; (a) capacity and self-efficacy of employees to
change, (b) organization appropriateness for managing change (c)
management support for change . Therefore preparing or readying an
Organization for change can be viewed from the perspective of an
employee's commitment to change and organizational culture to
support it.
- Employee commitment to Change;
Any type of
organizational change involves changes to an individual's roles and
responsibilities and it is natural that individuals will have
reaction to these changes. Employee resistance to change and
perceptions of the change process are important drivers of change
success (Palmer, Dunfin & Akin, 2006. p146). Hence an
examination of the human side of change is needed for the success of
change initiatives. To create change, change initiative must appeal
to employees cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally. For the
change to take place employees must be prepared to change, therefore
employee commitment to change is important for a successful change
implementation.
Employees
usually resist change for a multitude of reasons as an individual's
predisposition toward change is personal. Negative reactions to
change relate to aspects of loss like loss of job or control, fear
of unknown, combined with a climate of mistrust and disruption.
This is typical in a static organization where stability is the norm.
When an organization is static and process driven, then any
deviation from the status quo cause these negative reactions. To
overcome these negative reactions, management have to support
employees going through major transitions in the workplace by
considering the psychological and behavioral roots of employee.
According to Scott and Jaffe's model of resistance cycle
people go through four phases of response to change, i.e., denial,
resistance, exploration, and commitment (Palmer, Dunford & Akin,
2006). Management must communicate the objective and rationale
behind the change initiative and make the individuals understand
consequences to the organization if the change is not achieved. As
individuals evaluate and respond to change initiatives, then change
implementation can gain momentum (Isabella 1990). By making employees
view the change initiatives from a perspective of an organizational
strategy, will change the terms of employees' role and
responsibilities towards the organization and management can secure
commitments based on these revised objectives that aligns with
organizational change initiatives.
Now, a flexible self-organizing and
adaptable organization which considerers change as part of the
routine is already at a stage where the employees understand that
change really is the only constant and are thus always prepared and
committed for a new change as soon as any single change is completed.
Employees in a continuously changing environment would have developed
change-related self-efficacy, and when large episodic changes happen
they are mentally prepared and less frightened.
- Organizational Culture of Change;
Even-though
employee's reaction to change is individual and personal, they are
affected by the organizational climate they are constrained within.
Most change models will stumble when they face organizational designs
and management practices that are inherently anti-change (Worley &
Lawler III, 2006). Factors significantly related to readiness for
organizational change are management support, flexible policies,
structures and behaviors. However, all these are directly linked to
the concept of the culture of an organization and any changes which
are sought will have to be effected within the constraints of the
existing culture (Worley & Lawler III, 2006). Therefore
effectiveness of change efforts is largely determined by the
organizational culture.
The most effective
way to change individual behavior, is to put individuals in an
organizational culture which imposes new roles and responsibilities
on them that encourages and supports change Organizational culture
is more complex and hard to change as the culture is based on its
members shared values and norms built up over the life of the
organization. Until new behaviors and beliefs are rooted into the
norms and shared values of the organization , they are subject to
degradation as soon as the pressure for change is removed (Kotter,
1995). Thus the role of culture is significant in influencing
organizational change . The critical task for management here is to
produce and maintain an organizational culture that is able to secure
the basis for the next subsequent periods of change.
In a traditional
static organization, institutionalizing a new organization culture
will take a long time as employees need time to adapt or cope with
the change. The episodic change approach in a traditional
organization setting assumes that all individuals involved in a
change initiatives are willing and interested in implementing it.
This assumption clearly ignores organizational politics and conflict
or assumes that these can be easily identified and resolved. On the
other hand in a continuously changing organization, continuous
change can happen only if it is ingrained in the firm's culture, this
may be a result of a deep rooted culture at all levels of the
organization to continuously change. This kind of continuous change
becomes the part of every-day life in the organization and manifests
typically as as a change ready organizational culture. As the
organization faces new realities in a changing environment, they will
be able to adjust and develop an adaptive capacity into the
organizational culture. This culture to adapt to continuous change is
equally supportive when the organization is faced with an episodic
change.Therefore, the culture of change acceptance and adaptability
is an important driving force for not only continuous changes but
also for episodic change as well.
Many of the principles of continuous
change, i.e, embedding the flexibility to accommodate everyday
contingencies, opportunities and consequences that punctuate
organizational equilibrium are also needed when faced with an
one-off episodic change. Brown and Eisenhardt (1997), in their
study of the computer industry found that the continuous change
organization had organizational structures that was flexible enough
to allow various scale of change to occur and be successful, whereas
organization with rigid or semi-rigid structures prevented or
inhibited change. This is not limited to computer industry where
innovation is vital. Tucker, A. L. and Edmondson, A. C. (2003), in
their study of the hospitals showed that improvements never took
place due to rigid management polices and organizational structures
that prevented nurses to inform or escalate the process failures they
encounter to the management, thus preventing changes from taking
place . When an organization is rigid the process of change becomes
too dependent on senior management or skip-level managers, who in
might not have a full understanding of the timing and consequences of
their decisions at the micro-level. Whereas by developing
sensitivity to the change processes continuously at work within the
organization, management evaluate and influence change and develop
organizations that can readily adapt in a radical change.
Episodic change is driven by inertia
and the inability of organizations to keep up, while continuous
change is driven by alertness and the inability of organizations to
remain stable (Weick & Quinn, 1999, p.379). Rather than pushing
for change, organizations that build adaptive capacity has the
ability to pull for change by making change, the norm within their
organizations. Such organizations are truly change ready due to the
organizational culture and employee commitment .
Linking Episodic change to
Continuous Change
Continuous change and episodic change
are not necessarily mutually exclusive, rather they both provide
different views of the same phenomenon. Tsoukas and Chia (2002)
suggest that the continuous change gives a more comprehensive
understanding of how change is actually
“accomplished on the ground.”
Episodic change provides a macro level perspective of
organizational change whereas continuous change provides a
micro-level perspective. The macro-level view provides measurable
milestones, while the micro-level views these changes as they happen
(Tsoukas & Chia, 2002).This distinction between the micro and
macro levels highlights one of the limitations in perceiving
episodic and continuous change as mutually exclusive. From the macro
perspective, an observer might see transformational changes in
strategy or operations. Whereas, when observing the same
transformations from the micro level might show how dynamically
interacting individuals influence these changes in strategy and
operations as a series of evolutionary stages.
Organizational change is present both
at an operational and strategic level.
- Operational-level Change
For macro-level
operational episodic change, a CEO might alter the organizational
chart, redefine operational processes to guide organizational
behavior. However, to achieve this macro-level change the CEO will
have to dig into the micro-level, so that he can identify and
understand the deeply held values, and assumptions that may be held
by the lower-level organization and its employees. This shows that
organizational change is not just about changing macro-level
artifacts, like charts and processes; but that it also involves
digging into the micro-level phenomena that influence macro-level
operational changes. For example, study by Feldman (2000) and cited
by Tsoukas & Chia (2002) shows the pattern of the US university
move-in routine which transformed from being a stable task of getting
the students to simply move-in into their halls of residence to
become a more complex coordination task involving the athletic
department on football schedules, local city officials to manage
traffic jams and accommodating the vendors into the move-in process .
- Strategic-level Change:
One can view the
same from a strategic change perspective also. Strategy is not always
formulated by top management as strategies can emerge from anywhere
inside an organization. Emergent strategies which emerges from the
micro-level interaction of individual throughout the organization .
These strategies become organizational when the patterns developed
through emergent processes are adopted by the organization as a whole
. Leaders and managers at the micro-level who understand the external
environment and the internal capabilities of the organization often
see important trends that call for organization change before senior
management does. These strategic changes that arise at the
micro-level gets shared, filters upwards and over time can create
organization transforming changes. For Example, Brown and Eisenhardt
(1997), in their study of the computer industry found the companies
like cruising, midas and titan which were were successful due to
development of product portfolios by anticipating and react to the
future. This study showed a link between successful product
development portfolios and set of organizational structures and
processes that were related to continuous change .
Another limitation of looking change
as a purely episodic process is that the “freezing” stage of
Lewin's model represents a new equilibrium . This new organizational
equilibrium must be altered again whenever the organization faces new
threats and opportunities. Throughout history, organizations have
viewed change through the lens of a stable business environment—an
environment in which routine and order were dominant constructs that
framed business reality. Operating in an environment thought to be
reliable, leaders and organizational members acted with a sense of
security and certainty (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). However today’s
competitive environment is hardly static. Many of organizational
paradigms and strategic thinking which assumes organization to be
static were developed in the 1970swhen speed and flexibility were
less relevant to organizational success than they are for
con-temporary firms ( Brown and Eisenhardt 1997). In a world that is
constantly changing, an organization's design must support the idea
that the implementation and re-implementation of a strategy is a
continuous process (Worley & Lawler III ,2006). One of the many
reasons for change is that the organization needs to be in line with
the changing environment in which it operates.
As we know the
environment changes continuously. If the organization does not adapt
itself to the continuously changing environment there will develop a
gap between the organization and its environment. If an organization
tries to keep up with changing environment assuming change as an
episodic process , then the high frequency of periodic episodic
changes would simply not be sustainable. So adapting to continuous
change is the only way to survive . Change has become a normal
condition of organizational life (Tsoukas and Chia .2002 p.567) .
Further, if change is considered as
being constant, then it invalidates the assumption that a change can
be episodic as episodic change creates a new status quo. From the
micro-level perspective this new status quo is an illusion because
change is constant. When we view macro-level change as leading to
stability, we are merely ignoring the subtle but continuous
micro-level changes (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002) Acccording to Beer
and Nohria (2000) cited by Tsoukas and Chia (2002), approach that
gives priority to stability and treats change as merely a secondary
part is being pragmatic. Change programs that are informed by that
view often do not produce change. From the study of the computer
industry conducted by Brown and Eisenhardt (1997), we can see that
that the companies had developed ability to sustain continuous
change by an effective combination of flexibility and preparation for
multiple change scenarios. This organizational model of
self-organization enable firms to prosper not only in continuous
small changes but also in an era of rapid transformational change.
From this perspective, episodic change
is a culmination of many continuous changes as an organization is
constantly changing and multiply toward a pattern of adaption and
evolution.
Discussion and Conclusion
Weick & Quinn (1999) statement
that “the same configuration of organizational design and
capabilities is best for managing both episodic and continuous forms
of change” is certainly well supported.
It is widely believed that for the
completion of any organizational change, the change readiness is
fundamental to its success. The pre-requisite for any
organizational change initiative is the need to advance organizations
to the point of the change readiness. Managing organizational change
readiness not only requires restructuring of organizational systems
and processes but also It requires managing the employee reactions
that accompany any organizational change. For the smooth
implementation of change, the management should ready the
organization to change by creating a culture of change
acceptance.However, a number of traditional organizational design
tend to discourage and not encourage change. Therefore, when such
organization are encountered with a need of a episodic change, as the
first step, they are compelled to transform themselves into
organizations that are "ready to change". In relation to
continuously changing organization, one thing that we cannot ignore
is its agility and capacity to embrace change. A continuously
changing organization may seem to be a perfect candidate for an
unplanned change . Hence a flexible, self-organizing and adaptable
organization who consider change as constant will do well during
continuous change as well as episodic changes due to their change
readiness.
Also, episodic change and continuous
changes cannot be considered as mutually exclusive. Although only
transformational changes characterized by episodic change is able to
push organizations into the next growth stage, evolutionary change
characterized by small continuous changes is vital for providing the
base for any kind of transformational change. It is therefore
doubtful that without appropriate evolutionary changes there is a
base for the support and facilitation for the culminating
transformational change . As a result, one can see that large
organizational transformations are accomplished via continuous change
.
To survive in today's rapidly
changing environment, organizations have to develop an ability to
continuously change. Thus the long-term corporate strategy to keep
up with the fast-moving pace of change relies on flexible
organizational structures, culture and employee commitment to
continuously adapt to these small evolutionary changes, probing for
opportunities which can lead to a transformational change. Both
small and large organizational changes are becoming the norm within
organizations. In other words, successful strategy is about managing
continuous change.This does not mean the end of the occasional
episodic transformations compelled purely by external forces like
political crisis or an acquisition for example. However, one cannot
view these two changes in isolation. Episodic change theory provides
a definable and measurable processes for driving change at the macro
level of the organization, whereas continuous change theory provides
an understanding of the inherent dynamic processes that effect change
at the macro level. Linking both perspectives provides the
organization with a more complete picture of the same phenomena, not
as mutually exclusive.
References
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