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Summary Weick and Quinn 1999: Organizational Change and Development
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Weick and QuinnIntroduction
Episodic is discontinuous, and intermittent, the macro level, episodes of revolutionary change.
Continuous is evolving, and incremental, micro level, ongoing adaptation and adjustment.
Change is a set of behavioural science-based theories, values, strategies, and techniques aimed at the planned
change of the organizational work setting for the purpose of enhancing individual development and improving
organizational performance, through the alteration of organizational
members. on-the-job behaviours.
Four basic process theories of change:
1. Life cycle theories have an event sequence of start-up, grow, harvest, terminate, and start-up. They have a
generative mechanism of an imminent program or regulation.
2. Teleological theories have an event sequence of envision/set goals, implement goals, dissatisfaction,
search/interact, and envision/set goals. They have a generative mechanism of purposeful enactment and social
construction.
3. Dialectical theory has an event sequence of thesis/antithesis, conflict, synthesis, and thesis/antithesis. It has a
generative mechanism of pluralism, confrontation, and conflict.
4. Evolutionary theory has an event sequence of variation, selection, retention, and variation. It has a generative
mechanism of competitive selection and resource scarcity.
Episodic change
- infrequent, discontinuous, and intentional.
- during periods of divergence when organizations are moving away from their equilibrium conditions.
- misalignment between an inertial deep structure and perceived environmental demands.
Basic metaphors
Characteristics of organizations which do episodic change:
- interdependencies among subunits;
- efficiency as a core value;
- a preoccupation with short-run adaptation rather than long-run adaptability;
- constraints on action in the form of the invisible hand of institutionalization;
- powerful norms embedded in strong subcultures;
- and imitation as a major motivation for change.
Images of organizations which do episodic change: those build around
- the ideas of punctuated equilibria: organizations as sets of interdependencies that converge and tighten
during a period of relative equilibrium, often at the expense of continued adaptation to environmental
changes. Leads to a new equilibrium period.
- the edge of chaos: organization as a set of simple elements tied together by complex relationships
involving nonlinear feedback. Behavior at the edge of chaos is paradoxical because the system moves
autonomously back and forth between stability and instability.
- second-order change: organization as a site where shared beliefs operate in the service of coordinated
action. Second-order change is episodic change and refers to changes in cognitive frameworks
underlying the organizations activities, changes in the deep structure or shared schemata that generate
and give meaning to these activities
In each of these three images, organizational action builds toward an episode of change when pre-existing
interdependencies, patterns of feedback, or mindsets produce inertia.
Analytic framework
stages of organizational change are labeled development, stability, adaptation, struggle, and revolution
Three important processes in this depiction of episodes are inertia, the triggering of change, and replacement.
Inertia, defined as an .inability for organizations to change as rapidly as the environment.
, The actual triggers of change come from at least five sources: the environment, performance, characteristics of
top managers, structure, and strategy
change occurs through replacement : one entity sequentially takes the place of or substitutes for a second. The
first identity does not become the second but is substituted for it.
Intervention theory
Because episodic change requires both equilibrium breaking and transitioning to a newly created equilibrium, it
is most closely associated with planned, intentional change.
a change agent deliberately and consciously sets out to establish conditions and circumstances that are different
from what they are now and then accomplishes that through some set or series of actions and interventions either
singularly or in collaboration with other people.
Lewin:
1. unfreeze : three processes:
a. disconfirmation of expectations,
b. induction of learning anxiety if the disconfirming data are accepted as valid and relevant
c. provision of psychological safety that converts anxiety into motivation to change.
2. Change: occurs through cognitive restructuring in which words are redefined to mean something other
than had been assumed, concepts are interpreted more broadly, or new standards of judgment and
evaluation are learned.
3. Refreeze: embeds the new behavior and forestalls relapse
Episodic change contains 5 assumptions:
(a) linear assumption (movement is from one state to another in a forward direction through time)
(b) progressive assumption (movement is from a lesser state to a better state);
(c) goal assumption (movement is toward a specific end state);
(d) disequilibrium assumption (movement requires disequilibrium);
(e) separateness assumption (movement is planned and managed by people apart from the system).
when people are exposed to change interventions, they are at one of four stages:
1. Precontemplation: Precontemplators are unaware of any need to change,
2. Contemplation: contemplators are aware that there is a problem and they are thinking about change but
have not yet made a commitment. People can remain in the contemplation stage for long periods, up to
two years in the case of smokers
3. Action: the stage most change agents equate with change, is the stage in which people actually alter
their behaviors. In any change intervention, few people are in the action stage.
4. maintenance.
Change is not a linear movement through the four stages but a spiral pattern of contemplation, action, and
relapse and then successive returns to contemplation, action, and relapse before entering the maintenance and
then termination stages.
change agent
The role of the change agent in episodic change is that of prime mover who creates change.
Continuous change
- changes that tend to be ongoing, evolving, and cumulative.
- situated and grounded in continuing updates of work processes and social practices
- small continuous adjustments, created simultaneously across units, can cumulate and create
substantial change
basic metaphors
images of organizations using continuous change:
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