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Keywords Organizational change, Process planning, Change management, Emergent strategy
Abstract In a fast-moving and unpredictable world, there can be little doubt that organizational change is one of the most important issues facing organizations. This is especially so, when it is claimed that over 60 per cent of all change projects are considered to fail. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is also much debate about which approach to change is the best. Over the past 20 years, the emergent approach appears to have superseded the planned approach as the most appropriate. However, as this paper will argue, the idea that planned and emergent changes are competing approaches, rather than complementary, is contestable. This paper looks at the case of XYZ construction which, between 1996 and 2000, used both emergent and planned approaches to transform itself. The paper concludes that organizations need to avoid seeking an "one best way" approach to change and instead seek to identify the approach which is best suited to both type of changes they wish to undertake, according to the organization's context.
Introduction
If there is one thing that organization theorists and practitioners agree upon, it is that change which is more frequent, of a greater magnitude and much less predictable than ever before (Carnall, 2003; Cummings and Worley, 2001; Kanter, 1997; Kotter, 1996; Peters, 1997). Most commentators appear to share Hammer and Champy's (1993, p. 23) view that "...change has become both pervasive and persistent. It 'is' normality." However, as Stace and Dunphy (2001) show, change comes in many shapes and sizes; sometimes change is incremental and hardly noticed, whilst at other times change is large and dramatic. It is therefore, important not to see change as some amorphous mass but to understand the range and variety of change situations. It is also important to recognise that successful change is difficult to accomplish. For example, Beer and Nohria (2000) estimate that about two-thirds of change projects fail, whilst a review of the literature by Burnes (2004-b) suggests that for some types of change, the figure may be even higher. Therefore, the importance of organizational change appears to be matched by the difficulty in successfully accomplishing it.
This, of course, directs attention to how these change efforts are managed. In a recent...