The Dynamics of Organizational Development and Change: How the Past Shapes the Present and Constrains the Future

Abstract

Organization theory is, as the title of this special issue suggests, at a crossroads. At a time when the world of and around organizations is changing very fast, and when the need to invent new approaches to organizations and their management is apparent, organization theory is challenged either to encompass these changes and contribute to their elucidation or be viewed as a quaint, but largely irrelevant, enterprise. This paper is one response to the challenge defined above. In it, we seek to analyze how and why one particular organization, characterized by a highly unorthodox management approach and strong performance, developed as it did. The innovative approach to management coupled with high performance is central to the question of relevance.

Collective Memory Meets Organizational Identity: Remembering to Forget in a Firm's Rhetorical History

“…As illustrations, past scholarship has emphasized the importance of considering organizational "biographies" (Kimberly, 1987) or "nostalgia" (Brown & Humphreys, 2002) when analyzing organizations. Yet these and other studies typically rely primarily on a set of individual interviews conducted over a short period of time to study history (for other examples see Biggart (1977), de Holan andPhillips (2004) and Kimberly and Bouchikhi (1995)). In that respect, the observation that "collective memory lacks solid empirical footings" (Glynn, 1997: 147) in organization studies still holds true today.…”

“…Identity endurance might operate by discouraging some ways of experiencing the past while simultaneously encouraging alternate ways of experiencing the same past. The limited organizational identity literature on memory tends to focus on what is remembered, not on what is never acknowledged (Brown & Humphreys, 2002;Chreim, 2005: 587;Kimberly & Bouchikhi, 1995). Forgotten identities are generally considered merely because they were once remembered (Biggart, 1977;Corley & Gioia, 2004;Fiol, 2002;Glynn & Marquis, 2007;Zilber, 2002).…”

A developmental perspective on business model innovation: exploring sequences of change in high-performing IT firms

“…Despite the complexity of the task, researchers have not had the need to examine events occurring after (or before) the transition to the novel model. As the main focus of analysis is on the transition, there has not been an apparent need to assess whether a firm becomes more efficient in changing their models over time through continuous learning (Pettigrew, 1990), or how each instance of business model change incrementally shapes the structure of the firm (Kieser, 1994), or how the occurrence of particular events throughout the life of the firm affects their capacity to implement future business model innovations (Kimberly & Bouchikhi, 1995).…”

“…Similarly, the interplay between internal and population-level factors is also a key driver of business model change in established firms (Kimberly & Bouchikhi, 1995;Tushman & Romanelli, 1985).…”

“…Similarly, Kimberly and Bouchikhi (1995) argued that the trajectories of organisational development are equally shaped by both external and internal forces and Siggelkow (2002) indicated that, while pursuing organisational configurations offering an optimal fit among the internal components is associated with superior performance, ensuring effective transition from one optimal configuration to the next one to achieve external fit is equally crucial for firm performance.…”