Abstract
Organizational change is a core concept in strategic management, because it is widely recognized that organizations must change to survive in a world characterized by technological and scientific progress, rapid communication and intense competition. Strategy pertains to how an organization plans to gain or maintain a position of advantage over competitors, and organizations often need to change to support the execution of strategic plans. Research on organizational change examines two basic phenomena: (1) how organizations adapt or fail to adapt naturally as the world around them changes, and (2) how leaders of organizations attempt to produce change believed to be needed for successful execution of the organization’s strategy. This essay briefly summarizes work on the first phenomenon and emphasizes the second as a more central concern for strategic management. I thus summarize core ideas from research on deliberate change, and end with a description of an organizational learning perspective as a paradigm with growing relevance for research and practice in leading planned change in an uncertain environment.
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Edmondson, A.C. (2016). Organizational Change. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_767-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_767-1
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