MORSe (Management and Organization Research Seminars): "Reorganizational Proliferation: How Organizational Change and Inertia Work Together"
Istituto di management e organizzazione
Data d'inizio: 27.10.2011
Data di fine: 28.10.2011
Thursday, 27th of October, 12:30
Room A23
MORSE seminar given by Arjen van Witteloostuijn (University of Antwerp).
Abstract
This paper integrates insights from both sides of the organizational Change-inertia debate in a single theoretical model, using math and simulation. In this way, we seek to offer a tool to explore the interaction between the forces to change and those to stay put, as well as to investigate the performance implications of different change-inertia mixtures. In our approach, we integrate different theories as special cases nested in an overarching theoretical model. The model thereby identi.es the scope conditions of different theories, focusing on two critical parameters: active managerial reorganization and passive organizational inertia. We show that depending upon the magnitude of this pair of forces different outcomes emerge, ranging from complete stasis to chaotic flexibility. So, our key argument is that forces pro change and pro inertia tend to operate simultaneously as two independent organizational features, rather than as an “average” force located somewhere on a single continuum. As we will demonstrate, this has wide-ranging consequences for organizational outcomes.
