Two of the competencies you must develop in order to become an independent scholar include writing in a scholarly voice and tone and following an appropriate academic style. In your quest to become a scholarly writer, you must follow the rules meticulousl

20180705221642page_68 20180705221646page_69 20180705221700change_agent 20180705221654apa_course_paper_template__6th_ed__1_ 20180705221608managing_organizational_change 20180705221608designing_for_change 20180705221632michaelwritingstyleprosepaper 20180705221609michaelwritingstyleprosepaper 20180705221603apa_course_paper_template__6th_ed__1_ 20180705221603change_agent
 

Two of the competencies you must develop in order to become an independent scholar include writing in a scholarly voice and tone and following an appropriate academic style. In your quest to become a scholarly writer, you must follow the rules meticulously detailed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA). Initially, recalling each rule will be difficult, but over time it will become second nature. Knowing where to look to determine if the manuscript you are reading or writing is in accordance with APA standards is critically important. Following a standard writing format increases the probability of others being able to easily comprehend your manuscript.

As you develop your scholarly writing prose in this program and beyond, there are two things to keep in mind: Adhering to APA writing format is required for your Discussions and Assignments, and others will read your manuscripts for comprehension. Occasionally, new writers forget they have a scholarly audience who will read their papers. It is important that the writer understand the significance of placing him or herself in the position of the reader. To that end, you will assume the role of an Instructor and will review an anonymous college paper to provide APA feedback to a student writer. During this exercise, you will practice recognizing APA errors and locating within the APA textbook the appropriate APA rules and formatting solutions.

To prepare for this Discussion, do the following:

• Read and view the materials in your Learning Resources, including the Walden University academic guide pages on common reference list examples and using the Microsoft Word track changes feature. Review your APA manual for use in your assessment of the sample paper. Note: To assist you in your assessment, you may use any supplemental scholarly APA resources of your choosing.
• Assess Michael’s Writing Style Prose Paper to identify any APA writing errors, and use the track changes comment feature to propose corrections. As you make suggestions or corrections, be sure to include the source name and page number(s) so the author can locate the correction rule. For example, if you find text that reads, “This study will provide…” your comment may contain the following comment: “This is anthropomorphism. To correct it, please refer to the APA manual, 6th edition, pp. 68–69 for details.” Do this throughout the entire sample college paper

CHANGE AGENTS, NETWORKS, AND INSTITUTIONS:
A CONTINGENCY THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

JULIE BATTILANA
Harvard University

TIZIANA CASCIARO
University of Toronto

We develop a contingency theory for how structural closure in a network, defined as
terms of the extent to which an actor’s network contacts are connected to one another,
affects the initiation and adoption of change in organizations. Using longitudinal
survey data supplemented with eight in-depth case studies, we analyze 68 organiza-
tional change initiatives undertaken in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.
We show that low levels of structural closure (i.e., “structural holes”) in a change
agent’s network aid the initiation and adoption of changes that diverge from the
institutional status quo but hinder the adoption of less divergent changes.

Scholars have long recognized the political na-
ture of change in organizations (Frost & Egri, 1991;
Pettigrew, 1973; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). To
implement planned organizational changes—that
is, premeditated interventions intended to modify
the functioning of an organization (Lippitt, 1958)—
change agents may need to overcome resistance
from other members of their organization and en-
courage them to adopt new practices (Kanter, 1983;
Van de Ven, 1986). Change implementation within
an organization can thus be conceptualized as an
exercise in social influence, defined as the alteration
of an attitude or behavior by one actor in response to
another actor’s actions (Marsden & Friedkin, 1993).

Research on organizational change has improved
understanding of the challenges inherent in change
implementation, but it has not accounted system-
atically for how characteristics of a change initia-
tive affect its adoption in organizations. Not all

organizational changes are equivalent, however.
One important dimension along which they vary is
the extent to which they break with existing insti-
tutions in a field of activity (Battilana, 2006; Green-
wood & Hinings, 2006). Existing institutions are
defined as patterns that are so taken-for-granted
that actors perceive them as the only possible ways
of acting and organizing (Douglas, 1986). Consider
the example of medical professionalism, the insti-
tutionalized template for organizing in the United
Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) in the
early 2000s. According to this template, physicians
are the key decision makers in both the administra-
tive and clinical domains. In this context, central-
izing information to enable physicians to better
control patient discharge decisions would be
aligned with the institutionalized template. By con-
trast, implementing nurse-led discharge or pread-
mission clinics would diverge from the institu-
tional status quo by transferring clinical tasks and
decision-making authority from physicians to
nurses. Organizational changes may thus converge
with or diverge from an institutional status quo
(Amis, Slack, & Hinings, 2004; D’Aunno, Succi, &
Alexander, 2000; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996).
Changes that diverge from the status quo, hereafter
referred to as divergent organizational changes, are
particularly challenging to implement. They re-
quire change agents to distance themselves from
their existing institutions and persuade other or-
ganization members to adopt practices that not
only are new, but also break with the norms of their
institutional environment (Battilana, Leca, & Box-
enbaum, 2009; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Kel-
logg, 2011).

We would like to thank Wenpin Tsai and three anon-
ymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier
versions of this article. We also wish to acknowledge the
helpful comments we received from Jeffrey Alexander,
Michel Anteby, Joel Baum, Peter Bracken, Thomas
d’Aunno, Stefan Dimitriadis, Martin Gargiulo, Mattia
Gilmartin, Ranjay Gulati, Morten Hansen, Herminia
Ibarra, Sarah Kaplan, Otto Koppius, Tal Levy, Christo-
pher Marquis, Bill McEvily, Jacob Model, Lakshmi Ra-
marajan, Metin Sengul, Bill Simpson, Michael Tushman,
and seminar participants at INSEAD, McGill, Harvard,
Bocconi, and HEC Paris.

Both authors contributed equally to this article.
Editor’s note: The manuscript for this article was ac-

cepted for publication during the term of AMJ’s previous
editor-in-chief, R. Duane Ireland.

� Academy of Management Journal
2012, Vol. 55, No. 2, 381–398.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0891

381

Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express
written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

In this article, we examine the conditions under
which change agents are able to influence other
organization members to adopt changes with differ-
ent degrees of divergence from the institutional
status quo. Because informal networks have been
identified as key sources of influence in organiza-
tions (Brass, 1984; Brass & Burkhardt, 1993; Gar-
giulo, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt,
1990) and policy systems (Laumann, Knoke, & Kim,
1985; Padgett & Ansell, 1993; Stevenson & Green-
berg, 2000), we focus on how change agents’ posi-
tions in such networks affect their success in initi-
ating and implementing organizational change.

Network research has shown that the degree of
structural closure in a network, defined as the ex-
tent to which an actor’s network contacts are con-
nected to one another, has important implications
for generating novel ideas and exercising social
influence. A high degree of structural closure cre-
ates a cohesive network of tightly linked social
actors, and a low degree of structural closure cre-
ates a network with “structural holes” and broker-
age potential (Burt, 2005; Coleman, 1988). The ex-
isting evidence suggests that actors with networks
rich in structural holes are more likely to generate
novel ideas (e.g., Burt, 2004; Fleming, Mingo, &
Chen, 2007; Rodan & Galunic, 2004). Studies that
have examined the effect of network closure on
actors’ ability to implement innovative ideas, how-
ever, have yielded contradictory findings, some
showing that high levels of network closure facili-
tate change adoption (Fleming et al., 2007; Obst-
feld, 2005), others showing that low levels of net-
work closure do so (Burt, 2005).

In this study, we aim to reconcile these findings
by developing a contingency theory of the role of
network closure in the initiation and adoption of
organizational change. We posit that the informa-
tion and control benefits of structural holes (Burt,
1992) take different forms in change initiation than
in change adoption, and these benefits are strictly
contingent on the degree to which a change di-
verges from the institutional status quo in the or-
ganization’s field of activity. Accordingly, struc-
tural holes in a change agent’s network aid the
initiation and adoption of changes that diverge
from the institutional status quo but hinder the
adoption of less divergent changes.

In developing a contingency theory of the hith-
erto underspecified relationship between network
closure and organizational change, we draw a the-
oretical link between individual-level analyses of
network bases for social influence in organizations
and field-level analyses of institutional pressures
on organizational action. We thus aim to demon-
strate the explanatory power that derives from rec-

ognizing the complementary roles of institutional
and social network theory in a model of organiza-
tional change. To test our theory, we collected data
on 68 organizational changes initiated by clinical
managers in the United Kingdom’s National Health
Service (NHS) from 2004 to 2005 through longitu-
dinal surveys and eight in-depth case studies.

NETWORK CLOSURE AND DIVERGENT
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

In order to survive, organizations must convince
the public of their legitimacy (Meyer & Rowan,
1977) by conforming, at least in appearance, to the
prevailing institutions that define how things are
done in their environment. This emphasis on legit-
imacy constrains change by exerting pressure to
adopt particular managerial practices and organiza-
tional forms (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983); therefore,
organizations embedded in the same environment,
and thus subject to the same institutional pres-
sures, tend to adopt similar practices.

Organization members are thus motivated to ini-
tiate and implement changes that do not affect their
organizations’ alignment with existing institutions
(for a review, see Heugens and Lander [2009]). Nev-
ertheless, not all organizational changes will be
convergent with the institutional status quo. In-
deed, within the NHS, although many of the
changes enacted have been convergent with the
institutionalized template of medical professional-
ism, a few have diverged from it. The variability in
the degree of divergence of organizational changes
poses two questions: (1) what accounts for the like-
lihood that an organization member will initiate a
change that diverges from the institutional status
quo and (2) what explains the ability of a change
agent to persuade other organization members to
adopt such a change.

Research into the enabling role of actors’ social
positions in implementing divergent change
(Greenwood & Hinings, 2006; Leblebici, Salancik,
Copay, & King, 1991; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence,
2004; Sherer & Lee, 2002) has tended to focus on
the position of the organization within its field of
activity, eschewing the intraorganizational level of
analysis. The few studies that have accounted for
intraorganizational factors have focused on the in-
fluence of change agents’ formal position on the
initiation of divergent change and largely over-
looked the influence of their informal position in
organizational networks (Battilana, 2011). This is
surprising in light of well-established theory and ev-
idence concerning informal networks as sources of
influence in organizations (Brass, 1984; Brass &
Burkhardt, 1993; Gargiulo, 1993; Ibarra & Andrews,

382 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt, 1990). To the extent
that the ability to implement change hinges on
social influence, network position should signifi-
cantly affect actors’ ability to initiate divergent
changes and persuade other organization members
to adopt them.

A network-level structural feature with theoreti-
cal relevance to generating new ideas and social
influence is the degree of network closure. A con-
tinuum of configurations exists: cohesive networks
of dense, tightly knit relationships among actors’
contacts are at one end, and networks of contacts
separated by structural holes that provide actors
with brokerage opportunities are at the other. A
number of studies have documented the negative
relationship between network closure and the gen-
eration of new ideas (Ahuja, 2000; Burt, 2004;
Fleming et al., 2007; Lingo & O’Mahony, 2010; Mc-
Fadyen, Semadeni, & Cannella, 2009). Two mech-
anisms account for this negative association: re-
dundancy of information and normative pressures
(Ruef, 2002). With regard to the former, occupying
a network position rich in structural holes exposes
an actor to nonredundant information (Burt, 1992).
To the extent that it reflects originality and new-
ness, creativity is more likely to be engendered by
exposure to nonredundant than to repetitious in-
formation. As for normative pressure, network co-
hesion not only limits the amount of novel infor-
mation that reaches actors, but also pressures them
to conform to the modus operandi and norms of the
social groups in which they are embedded (Cole-
man, 1990; Krackhardt, 1999; Simmel, 1950),
which reduces the extent to which available infor-
mation can be deployed.

Thus far, no study has directly investigated the
relationship between network closure and the char-
acteristics of change initiatives in organizations.
We propose that the informational and normative
mechanisms that underlie the negative association
between network cohesion and the generation of
new ideas imply that organizational actors embed-
ded in networks rich in structural holes are more
likely to initiate changes that diverge from the in-
stitutional status quo. Bridging structural holes ex-
poses change agents to novel information that
might suggest opportunities for change not evident
to others, and it reduces normative constraints on
how agents can use information to initiate changes
that do not conform to prevailing institutional
pressures.

Hypothesis 1. The richer in structural holes a
change agent’s network, the more likely the
agent is to initiate a change that diverges from
the institutional status quo.

With respect to the probability that a change
initiative will actually modify organizational func-
tioning, few studies have explored how the degree
of closure in change agents’ networks affects the
adoption of organizational changes. This dearth of
empirical evidence notwithstanding, Burt (2005:
86 – 87) suggested several ways in which brokerage
opportunities provided by structural holes in an
actor’s network may aid adaptive implementation,
which he defined as the ability to carry out projects
that take advantage of opportunities—as distinct
from the ability to detect opportunities. Structural
holes may equip a potential broker with a broad
base of referrals and knowledge of how to pitch a
project so as to appeal to different constituencies,
as well as the ability to anticipate problems and
adapt the project to changing circumstances
(Burt, 1992).

These potential advantages suggest that struc-
tural holes may aid change initiation differently
from how they aid change adoption. In change ini-
tiation, the information and control benefits of
structural holes give a change agent greater expo-
sure to opportunities for change, and creative free-
dom from taken-for-granted institutional norms.
These are, therefore, mainly incoming benefits that
flow in the direction of the change agent. By con-
trast, in change adoption, the information and con-
trol benefits of structural holes are primarily out-
going, in that they are directed to the organizational
constituencies the change agent is aiming to per-
suade. These benefits can be characterized as struc-
tural reach and tailoring. Reach concerns a change
agent’s social contact with the constituencies that a
change project would affect, information about the
needs and wants of these constituencies, and infor-
mation about how best to communicate how the
project will benefit them. Tailoring refers to a
change agent’s control over when and how to use
available information to persuade diverse audi-
ences to mobilize their resources in support of a
change project. Being the only connection among
otherwise disconnected others, brokers can tailor
their use of information and their image in accor-
dance with each network contact’s preferences and
requirements. Brokers can do this with minimal
risk that potential inconsistencies in the presenta-
tion of the change will become apparent (Padgett &
Ansell, 1993) and possibly delegitimize them.

The argument that structural holes may facilitate
change adoption stands in contrast to the argument
that network cohesion enhances the adoption of
innovation (Fleming et al., 2007; Obstfeld, 2005).
Proponents of network cohesion maintain that peo-
ple and resources are more readily mobilized in a
cohesive network because multiple connections

2012 383Battilana and Casciaro

among members facilitate the sharing of knowledge
and meanings and generate normative pressures for
collaboration (Coleman, 1988; Gargiulo, Ertug, &
Galunic, 2009; Granovetter, 1985; Tortoriello &
Krackhardt, 2010). Supporting evidence is pro-
vided by Obstfeld (2005), who found cohesive net-
work positions to be positively correlated with in-
volvement in successful product development, and
by Fleming and colleagues (2007), who found col-
laborative brokerage to aid in the generation of
innovative ideas but maintained that it is network
cohesion that facilitates the ideas’ diffusion and
use by others.

These seemingly discrepant results are resolved
when organizational change is recognized to be a
political process that unfolds over time and takes
on various forms. The form taken by a change ini-
tiative is contingent on the extent to which it di-
verges from the institutional status quo. Obstfeld
described innovation as

an active political process at the microsocial
level. . . . To be successful, the tertius needs to iden-
tify the parties to be joined and establish a basis on
which each alter would participate in the joining
effort. The logic for joining might be presented to
both parties simultaneously or might involve ap-
peals tailored to each alter before the introduction or
on an ongoing basis as the project unfolds. (2005: 188)

Change implementation, according to this ac-
count, involves decisions concerning not only
which network contacts should be involved, but
also the timing and sequencing of appeals directed
to different constituencies. A network rich in struc-
tural holes affords change agents more freedom in
deciding when and how to approach these constit-
uencies and facilitate connections among them.

Building on this argument, we predict that in the
domain of organizational change the respective ad-
vantages of cohesion and structural holes are
strictly contingent on whether a change diverges
from the institutional status quo, thereby disrupt-
ing extant organizational equilibria and creating
the potential for significant opposition. Such diver-
gent changes are likely to engender greater resis-
tance from organization members, who are in turn
likely to attempt building coalitions with organiza-
tional constituencies to mobilize them against the
change initiative. In this case, a high level of net-
work cohesion among a change agent’s contacts
makes it easy for them to mobilize and form a
coalition against the change. By contrast, a network
rich in structural holes affords change agents flex-
ibility in tailoring arguments to different constitu-
encies and deciding when to connect to them,
whether separately or jointly, simultaneously or

over time. Less divergent change, because it is less
likely to elicit resistance and related attempts at
coalition building, renders the tactical flexibility
afforded by structural holes unnecessary. Under
these circumstances, the advantages of the cooper-
ative norms fostered in a cohesive network are
more desirable for the change agent. Consequently,
we do not posit a main effect for network closure on
change implementation, but only predict an inter-
action effect, the direction of which depends on a
change’s degree of divergence. Figure 1 graphically
summarizes the predicted moderation pattern.

Hypothesis 2. The more a change diverges from
the institutional status quo, the more closure in
a change agent’s network of contacts dimin-
ishes the likelihood of change adoption.

METHODS

Site

We tested our model using quantitative and qual-
itative data on 68 change initiatives undertaken in
the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, a
government-funded health care system consisting
of more than 600 organizations that fall into three
broad categories: administrative units, primary care
service providers, and secondary care service pro-
viders. In 2004, when the present study was con-
ducted, the NHS had a budget of more than £60 bil-
lion and employed more than one million people,
including health care professionals and managers
specializing in the delivery of guaranteed universal
health care free at the point of service.

FIGURE 1
Predicted Interactive Effects of Network Closure
and Divergence from Institutional Status Quo on

Change Adoption

+

+

–

–

High

High

Low

Low

Network
Closure

Change Divergence

384 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

The NHS, being highly institutionalized, was a
particularly appropriate context in which to test
our hypotheses. Like other health care systems
throughout the Western world (e.g., Kitchener,
2002; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000), the
NHS is organized according to the model of medi-
cal professionalism (Giaimo, 2002), which pre-
scribes specific role divisions among professionals
and organizations.1 The model of professional
groups’ role division is predicated on physicians’
dominance over all other categories of health care
professionals. Physicians are the key decision mak-
ers, controlling not only the delivery of services,
but also, in collaboration with successive govern-
ments, the organization of the NHS (for a review,
see Harrison, Hunter, Marnoch, and Pollitt [1992]).
The model of role division among organizations
places hospitals at the heart of the health care sys-
tem (Peckham, 2003). Often enjoying a monopoly
position as providers of secondary care services in
their health communities (Le Grand, 1999), hospi-
tals ultimately receive the most resources. The em-
phasis on treating acute episodes of disease in a
hospital over providing follow-up and preventive
care in home or community settings under the re-
sponsibility of primary care organizations is char-
acteristic of an acute episodic health system.

In 1997, under the leadership of the Labour Gov-
ernment, the NHS embarked on a ten-year modern-
ization effort aimed at improving the quality, reli-
ability, effectiveness, and value of its health care
services (Department of Health, 1999). The initia-
tive was intended to imbue the NHS with a new
model for organizing that challenged the institu-
tionalized model of medical professionalism. De-
spite the attempt to shift from an acute episodic
health care system to one focused on providing con-
tinuing care by integrating services and increasing
cooperation among professional groups, at the time of
the study, a distinct dominance order persisted across
NHS organizations, with physicians (Ferlie, Fitzger-
ald, Wood, & Hawkins, 2005; Harrison et al., 1992;
Richter, West, Van Dick, & Dawson, 2006) and hos-
pitals (Peckham, 2003) at the apex. This context—
wherein the extant model of medical professionalism
continued to define the institutional status quo in
these organizations—afforded a unique opportunity
to study organizational change in an entrenched

system in which enhancing the capacity for inno-
vation and adaptation had potentially vast societal
implications.

Sample

The focus of the study being on variability in
divergence and adoption of organizational change
initiatives, the population germane to our model
was that of self-appointed change agents, actors
who voluntarily initiate planned organizational
changes. Our sample is comprised of 68 clinical
managers (i.e., actors with both clinical and mana-
gerial responsibilities) responsible for initiating
and attempting to implement change initiatives.
All had worked in different organizations in the
NHS and participated in the Clinical Strategists
Programme, a two-week residential learning expe-
rience conducted by a European business school.
The first week focused on cultivating skills and
awareness to improve participants’ effectiveness in
their immediate spheres of influence and leader-
ship ability within the clinical bureaucracies, the
second week on developing participants’ strategic
change capabilities at the levels of the organization
and the community health system. Applicants were
asked to provide a description of a change project
they would begin to implement within their organ-
ization upon completing the program. Project im-
plementation was a required part of the program,
which was open to all clinical managers in the NHS
and advertised both online and in NHS brochures.
There was no mention of divergent organizational
change in either the title of the executive program
or its presentation. Participation was voluntary. All
95 applicants were selected and chose to attend
and complete the program.

The final sample of 68 observations, which cor-
responds to 68 change projects, reflects the omis-
sion of 27 program participants who did not re-
spond to a social network survey administered in
the first week of the program. Participants ranged
in age from 35 to 56 years (average age, 44). All had
clinical backgrounds as well as managerial respon-
sibilities. Levels of responsibility varied from mid-
to top-level management. The participants also rep-
resented a variety of NHS organizations (54 percent
primary care organizations, 26 percent hospitals or
other secondary care organizations, and 19 percent
administrative units) and professions (25 percent
physicians and 75 percent nurses and allied health
professionals). To control for potential nonre-
sponse bias, we compared the full sample for
which descriptive data were available with the fi-
nal sample. Unpaired t-tests showed no statistically

1 This characterization of the NHS’s dominant tem-
plate for organizing is based on a comprehensive review
of NHS archival data and the literature on the NHS, as
well as on 46 semistructured interviews with NHS pro-
fessionals and 3 interviews with academic experts on the
NHS analyzed with the methodology developed by Scott
and colleagues (2000).

2012 385Battilana and Casciaro

significant differences for individual characteris-
tics recorded in both samples.

Procedures and Data

Data on the demographic characteristics, formal
positions, professional trajectories, and social net-
works of the change agents, together with detailed
information on the proposed changes, were col-
lected over a period of 12 months. The demo-
graphic and professional trajectories data were ob-
tained from participants’ curricula vitae, and data
on their formal positions were gathered from the
NHS’s human resource records. Data on social net-
works were collected during the first week of the
executive program, during which participants com-
pleted an extensive survey detailing their social
network ties both in their organizations and in the
NHS more broadly.

Participants were assured that data on the con-
tent of the change projects, collected at different
points during their design and implementation,
would remain confidential. They submitted de-
scriptions of their intended change projects upon
applying to the program and were asked to write a
refined project description three months after im-
plementation. The two descriptions were very sim-
ilar; the latter were generally an expansion of the
former. One-on-one (10 –15 minute) telephone in-
terviews conducted with the participants and
members of their organizations four months after
implementation of the change projects enabled us
to ascertain whether they had been implemented—
all had been—and whether the changes being im-
plemented corresponded to those described in the
project descriptions, which all did.

During two additional (20 – 40 minute) telephone
interviews conducted six and nine months after
project implementation, participants were asked to
(1) describe the main actions taken in relation to
implementing their changes, (2) identify the main
obstacles (if any) to implementation, (3) assess their
progress, and (4) describe their next steps in imple-
menting the changes. We took extensive notes dur-
ing the interviews, which were not recorded for
reasons of confidentiality. The change agents also
gave us access to all organizational documents and
NHS official records related to the change initia-
tives generated during the first year of implemen-
tation. We created longitudinal case studies of each
of the 68 change initiatives by aggregating the data
collected throughout the year from change agents
and other organization members and relevant or-
ganizational and NHS documents.

After 12 months of implementation, we con-
ducted another telephone survey to collect infor-

mation about the outcomes of the change projects
with an emphasis on the degree to which the
changes had been adopted. We corroborated the
information provided by each change agent by con-
ducting telephone interviews with two informants
who worked in the same organization. In most
cases, one informant was directly involved in the
change effort, and the other was either a peer or
superior of the agent who knew about, but was not
directly involved in, the change effort. These infor-
mants’ assessments of the adoption of the change
projects were, again for reasons of confidentiality,
not recorded; as during the six- and nine-month
interviews, we took extensive notes.

At the beginning of the study, we randomly se-
lected eight change projects to be the subjects of
in-depth case studies. Data on these projects were
collected over a year via both telephone and in-
person interviews. One year after implementation,
at each of the eight organizations, we conducted
between 12 and 20 interviews of 45 minutes to two
hours in duration. On the basis of these interviews,
all of which were transcribed, we wrote eight in-
depth case studies about the selected change initia-
tives. The qualitative data used to verify the con-
sistency of change agents’ reports with the reports
made by other organization members provided
broad validation for the survey data.

Dependent and Independent Variables

Divergence from the institutional status quo.
The institutional status quo for organizing within
the NHS is defined by the model of medical pro-
fessionalism that prescribes specific role divisions
among professionals and organizations (Peckham,
2003). To measure each change project’s degree of
divergence from the institutionalized model of pro-
fessionals’ and organizations’ role division, we
used two scales developed by Battilana (2011). The
first scale measures the degree to which change
projects diverged from the institutionalized model
of role division among professionals using four
items aimed at capturing the extent to which the
change challenged the dominance of doctors over
other health care professionals in both the clinical
and administrative domains. The second scale
measures the degree to which change projects di-
verged from the institutionalized model of role di-
vision among organizations using six items aimed
at capturing the extent to which the change chal-
lenged the dominance of hospitals over other types
of organizations in both the clinical and adminis-
trative domains. Each of the ten items in the ques-

386 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

tionnaire was assessed using a three-point rank-
ordered scale.2

Two independent raters blind to the study’s hy-
potheses used the two scales to code the change
project descriptions written by the participants af-
ter three months’ of implementation. The descrip-
tions averaged three pages and followed the same
template: presentation of project goals, resources
required to implement the project, people in-
volved, key success factors, and measurement of
outcomes. Interrater reliability, as assessed by the
kappa correlation coefficient, was .90. The raters
resolved coding discrepancies identifying and dis-
cussing passages in the change project descriptions
deemed relevant to the codes until they reached
consensus. Scores for the change projects on each
of the two scales corresponded to the average of the
items included in each scale. To account for change
projects that diverged from the institutionalized
models of both professionals’ and organizations’
role division, and thereby assess each project’s
overall degree of divergence, we measured change
divergence as the unweighted average of the scores
received on both scales. Table 1 provides examples
of change initiatives characterized by varying de-
grees of divergence from the institutionalized mod-
els of role division among organizations or profes-
sionals or both.

Change adoption. We measured level of adop-
tion using the following three-item scale from the
telephone survey administered one year after im-
plementation: (1) “On a scale of 1–5, how far did
you progress toward completing the change project,
where 1 is defining the project for the clinical strat-
egists program and 5 is institutionalizing the im-
plemented change as part of standard practice in
your organization.” (2) “In my view, the change is
now part of the standard operating practice of the
organization.” (3) “In my view, the change was not
adopted in the organization.” The third item was
reverse-coded. The last two items were assessed
using a five-point scale that ranged from 1
(“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Cron-
bach’s alpha for the scale was .60, which is the
acceptable threshold value for exploratory studies
such as ours (Nunnally, 1978). Before gathering the
change agents’ responses, the research team that
had followed the evolution of the change projects
and collected all survey and interview data

throughout the year produced a joint assessment of
the projects’ level of adoption using the same three-
item scale later presented to the change agents. The
correlation between the responses produced by the
research team and those generated by the telephone
survey administered to the change agents was .98.

To further validate the measure of change adop-
tion, two additional raters independently coded the
notes taken during the interviews using the same
three-item scale as was used in the telephone sur-
vey. They based their coding on the entire set of
qualitative data collected from organizational infor-
mants on each change project’s level of adoption.
Interrater reliability, as assessed by the kappa cor-
relation coefficient, was .88, suggesting a high level
of agreement among the raters (Fleiss, 1981; Landis
& Koch, 1977). We then asked the two raters to
reconcile the differences in their respective assess-
ments and produce a consensual evaluation
(Larsson, 1993). The resulting measures were vir-
tually identical to the self-reported measures col-
lected from the change agents.

We also leveraged the case studies developed for
each change initiative from the participant inter-
views and relevant sets of organizational docu-
ments and NHS official records collected through-
out the year. Eight of these were in-depth case
studies for which extensive qualitative data were
collected. Two additional independent raters, for
whom a high level of interrater reliability was ob-
tained (� � .90), coded all case studies to assess the
level of adoption of the changes, and reconciled the
differences in their assessments to produce a con-
sensual evaluation. The final results of this coding
were nearly indistinguishable from the self-re-
ported measures of level of change adoption, fur-
ther alleviating concerns about potential self-report
biases.

Network closure. We measured network closure
using ego network data collected via a name gener-
ator survey approach commonly used in studies of
organizational networks (e.g., Ahuja, 2000; Burt,
1992; Podolny & Baron, 1997; Reagans & McEvily,
2003; Xiao & Tsui, 2007). In name generator sur-
veys, respondents are asked to list contacts (i.e.,
alters) with whom they have one or more criterion
relationships and specify the nature of the relation-
ships that link contacts to one another. As detailed
below, we corroborated our ego network data with
qualitative evidence from the eight in-depth case
studies.

To measure the degree of closure in a change
agent’s network, we followed the seminal approach
developed by Burt (1992), who measured the con-
tinuum of configurations between structural holes

2 Research on radical organizational change typically
measures the extent to which organizational transforma-
tions diverge from previous organizational arrangements
(Romanelli & Tushman, 1994). By contrast, we measured
the extent to which the changes in our sample diverged
from the institutional status quo in the field of the NHS.

2012 387Battilana and Casciaro

and cohesion in terms of the absence or presence of
constraint, defined as:

ci � �
j�i

�pij � �
k�i,k�j

pikpkj�2,
where pij is the proportion of time and effort in-
vested by i in contact j. Contact j constrains i to the

extent that i has focused a large proportion of time
and effort to reach j and j is surrounded by few
structural holes that i can leverage to influence j.
Unlike other measures of structural holes and
cohesion, such as effective size or density, con-
straint captures not only redundancy in a net-
work, but also an actor’s dependence on network

TABLE 1
Examples of Change Initiatives with High, Medium, and Low Divergence from the Institutional Status Quoa

High Divergence Medium Divergence Low Divergence

Example 1. Initiative to transfer stroke
rehabilitation services, such as
language retraining, from a hospital-
based unit to a PCT (i.e., from the
secondary to the primary care sector).
Prior to the change, stroke patients
were stabilized and rehabilitated in
the acute ward of the hospital. This
resulted in long hospital stays and
occupied resources that were more
appropriate for the acute treatment
than for the rehabilitation phase. As a
result, there was often not enough
room to admit all stroke patients to
the acute ward, as many beds were
used for patients undergoing
rehabilitation. With the transfer of
service, postacute patients, once they
were medically stable and ready for
rehabilitation, were relocated to a
unit operated by the PCT, ensuring
that the acute unit would be dealing
only with patients who were truly in
need of acute care. This transfer of
the delivery of rehabilitation services
from the secondary to the primary
care sector greatly diverged from the
institutionalized model of role
division among organizations.

Example 2. Initiative to develop nurse-
led discharge that would transfer
clinical tasks and decision-making
authority from physicians to nurses.
Traditionally, discharge decisions
were under the exclusive control of
physicians. With the new nurse-led
initiatives, nurses would take over
responsibility from specialist
physicians and make the final
decision to discharge patients, thus
assuming more responsibility as well
as accountability and risk for clinical
decisions. Physicians ceded control
over some aspects of decision-
making, freeing them to focus on
more complex patients and tasks.

Example 3. Initiative involving primary
and secondary care service providers
aimed at developing a day hospital
for elderly patients. The day hospital
was to facilitate continued care,
reduce hospital stays, and decrease
hospital readmission for frail elderly
patients too ill to be cared for at
home but not sufficiently ill to justify
full admission to the hospital.
Patients would check into the
hospital-operated day unit for a few
hours and receive services from both
primary and secondary care
professionals. Because the primary
care service providers were engaged
in the provision of services formerly
provided only by secondary care
service providers, there was
increased collaboration between the
primary and secondary care service
providers involved in this project.
Even so, the project diverged from
the institutionalized model of role
division among organizations only to
some extent because the new service
was still operated by the hospital.

Example 4. Initiative to have
ultrasound examinations performed
by nurses rather than by physicians.
Although this project enabled nurses
to perform medical examinations
they usually did not perform, the
nurses gained no decision-making
power in either the clinical or
administrative domain. Consequently,
this project diverged from the
institutionalized model of role
division among professionals only to
some extent.

Example 5. Initiative to transfer a ward
specializing in the treatment of
elderly patients from a PCT to a
hospital. Prior to the change, both the
PCT and hospitals provided services
for the elderly, who make up the
bulk of patients receiving care in the
hospital setting. Rather than
diverging from the institutionalized
model of role division among organi-
zations, the transfer of responsibility
for all elderly care services to the
hospital reinforced the centralization
of health care services around the
hospital, strengthening the dominant
role of the hospital over the PCT in
the institutionalized delivery model.

Example 6. Initiative of a general
practice to hire an administrative
assistant to implement and manage a
computerized appointment booking
system. The addition of this assistant
to the workforce changed neither the
division of labor nor the balance of
power between health care
professionals within the general
practice.

a A PCT is a primary care trust. At the time this study was conducted, all NHS professionals who provided primary care services
(services provided to patients when they first report health problems) were managed by primary care trusts (PCTs) serving populations of
250,000 or more. General practices were required to join PCTs when they were created in 1988. PCTs were thus local health organizations
responsible for managing health services in a given area. They provided primary care services and commissioned secondary care services
from hospitals.

388 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

contacts. This is a more pertinent measure of the
potential for tailoring because it assesses not only
whether two contacts are simply linked, but also
the extent to which social activity in the network
revolves around a given contact, making a link to
that actor more difficult to circumvent in present-
ing tailored arguments for change to different
contacts.

We measured alter-to-alter connections in a re-
spondent’s ego network using a survey item that
asked respondents to indicate, on a three-point
scale (1, “not at all”; 2, “somewhat”; and 3, “very
well”), how well two contacts knew each other. We
included relevant network contacts in the calcula-
tion of constraint based on two survey items that
measured the frequency and closeness of contact
between an actor and each network contact. The
first item (“How frequently have you interacted
with this person over the last year?”) used an eight-
point scale with point anchors ranging from “not at
all” to “twice a week or more.” The second item
(“How close would you say you are with this per-
son?”) used a seven-point scale that ranged from
“especially close” to “very distant,” with 4, “nei-
ther close nor distant,” as the neutral point and was
accompanied by the following explanation: “(Note
that ‘Especially close’ refers to one of your closest
personal contacts and that ‘Very distant’ refers to
the contacts with whom you do not enjoy spending
time, that is, the contacts with whom you spend
time only when it is absolutely necessary).” From
these survey items, we constructed four measures
of constraint to test the sensitivity of our prediction
to more or less inclusive specifications of agents’
networks. The first measure included alters with
whom ego was at least somewhat close. The second
measure, based on frequency of interaction, in-
cluded only alters with whom ego interacted at
least twice a month. The third measure combined
the first two by calculating constraint on the basis
of alters with whom ego either interacted at least
twice monthly or to whom ego was at least some-
what close. The fourth measure included every ac-
tor nominated by ego in the network survey.

We used the eight in-depth case studies to assess
convergence between the change agents’ and inter-
viewees’ perceptions of the relationships among
the people in the change agents’ networks. Two
external coders identified all the information in
the interviews that pertained to the extent to
which the people in change agents’ networks
knew each other and coded this information us-
ing the same scale used in the social network
survey. The interviews provided data on the re-
lationships among more than 75 percent of the
change agents’ contacts. For all these relation-

ships, the coders’ assessments of alter-to-alter
ties based on the interview data were consistent
with each other and with the measures reported
by change agents, thereby increasing our confi-
dence in the validity of the survey reports.

Control variables. We used five characteristics
of the change agents (hierarchical level, tenure in
current position, tenure in management role, pro-
fessional status, and prominence in the task-advice
network), two characteristics of the change agents’
organizations (size and status), and one character-
istic of the change (creation of new service) as con-
trols. We measured actors’ hierarchical position
with a rank-ordered categorical variable based on
formal job titles;3 tenure in current position was the
number of years change agents had spent in their
current formal roles, and tenure in management
position was the number of years they had spent in
a management role. As for the status of the profes-
sional group to which actors belonged, in the NHS,
as in most health care systems, physicians’ status is
superior to that of other health care professionals
(Harrison et al., 1992). Accordingly, we measured
professional status with a dummy variable coded 0
for low-status professionals (i.e., nurses and allied
health professionals) and 1 for high-status profes-
sionals (i.e., physicians). To account for change
agents’ informal status in their organizations, we
constructed a measure of the structural prominence
that accrues to asymmetrical advice-giving ties
(Jones, 1964; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). To that end,
we used two network survey items: (1) “During the
past year, are there any individuals in your Primary
Care Trust/Hospital Trust/Organization (delete as
appropriate) from whom you regularly sought in-
formation and advice to accomplish your work?
(Name up to 5 individuals),” and (2) “During the
past year, are there any individuals in your Primary
Care Trust/Hospital Trust/Organization (delete as
appropriate) who regularly came to you for infor-
mation and advice to accomplish their work?
(Name up to 5 individuals. Some of these may be
the same as those named before).” We measured
actors’ prominence in the task-advice network as
the difference between the number of “received”
advice ties and number of “sent” advice ties.

We also controlled for organization-level factors
including organizational size, which we measured
in units of total full-time equivalents, and organi-

3 The NHS, being a government-run set of organiza-
tions, has standardized definitions and pay scales for all
positions that assure uniformity of roles, responsibilities,
and hierarchical positions across organizational sites, ac-
cording to the Department of Health (2006).

2012 389Battilana and Casciaro

zational status. Of the three types of organizations
that compose the NHS, primary care organizations
were considered to be of lower status than hospitals
and administrative units (Peckham, 2003), but
there was no clear status hierarchy between the
latter (Peckham, 2003). Accordingly, we measured
organizational status with a dummy variable coded
1 for low-status organizations (i.e., primary care
trusts) and 0 for high-status organizations (i.e., hos-
pitals and administrative organizations). Finally,
although we theorize that a change’s degree of di-
vergence from the institutional status quo operates
as the key contingency in our model, other change
characteristics may affect adoption. In particular,
whether a change involves the redesign of an exist-
ing service or creation of a new one may play an
important role (Van de Ven, Angle, & Poole, 1989).
Our models therefore included a dummy variable
for creation of a new service.

RESULTS

Table 2 includes the descriptive statistics and
correlation matrix for all variables. Correlation co-
efficients greater than .30 are statistically signifi-
cant (p � .01). Most of the correlation coefficients
are modest in size and not statistically significant.

Table 3 presents the results of ordinary least
squares (OLS) regressions that predict change ini-
tiatives’ degree of divergence from the institutional
status quo. Model 1 includes control variables
likely to influence change initiatives’ degree of di-
vergence. The positive and significant effects of
tenure in a management role and of organizational
status and size are consistent with existing research
(Battilana, 2011). Model 2 introduces ego network
constraint, which measures the degree of structural
closure in a network. As predicted by Hypothesis 1,
the effect is negative and statistically significant

and increases model fit significantly (�1 � 3.85,
p � .05), which implies a positive association be-
tween structural holes in a change agent’s network
and the agent’s change initiative’s degree of diver-
gence.

4

Our qualitative data provided several illustra-
tions of this effect. A case in point is a change
initiative aimed at replacing the head of the reha-
bilitation unit for stroke patients— historically a

4 Supplemental regression models incorporated a host
of additional control variables including gender, age, ed-
ucational background, and organizational budget.
Whether added separately or in clusters, none of these
variables had statistically significant effects in any
model, nor did they affect the sign or significance of any
variables of interest. Consequently, we have excluded
them from the final set of regression models reported
here, mindful that our sample size constrains the model’s
degrees of freedom.

TABLE 2
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlationsa

Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Change adoption 3.91 0.82
2. Change divergence 1.14 0.38 .09
3. Senior management 10.37 5.94 �.05 .18
4. Seniority in role 2.32 2.05 �.03 .05 .11
5. Hierarchical level 3.85 0.95 �.07 �.11 �.02 �.0

3

6. Professional status (doctor) 0.25 0.43 .03 �.09 �.41 .02 .33
7. Organizational status (PCT) 0.52 0.50 .09 .35 �.12 �.06 .10 .06
8. Organizational size 22.70 21.20 �.13 �.04 .04 .06 �.20 �.20 –.59
9. Prominence in task advice
network

0.03 1.09 .25 .08 .22 �.02 .18 �.10 –.11 .08

10. Ego network constraint 0.34 0.12 .14 �.23 �.05 �.01 .03 .13 –.07 –.05 .09
11. Constraint � divergence �0.01 0.04 �.27 �.38 .01 .00 .01 �.14 –.19 .09 .12 –.11

a Correlation coefficients greater than .30 are statistically significant at p � .01.

TABLE 3
Results of OLS Regression Analyses Predicting Degree

of Change Divergencea

Variable Model 1 Model 2

Tenure in management role 0.02* (0.01) 0.02* (0.01)
Tenure in current role 0.01 (0.02) 0.01 (0.02)
Hierarchical level �0.07 (0.05) �0.08 (0.05)
Professional status (doctor) 0.08 (0.09) 0.11 (0.09)
Organizational status (PCT) 0.42*** (0.09) 0.40*** (0.09)
Organizational size 0.04* (0.02) 0.04 (0.02)
Prominence in task advice

network
0.03 (0.04) 0.04 (0.05)

Ego network constraint �0.68* (0.34)
R2 0.24 0.28

a Standard errors are in parentheses; n � 68.
* p � .0

5

*** p � .001
Two-tailed tests.

390 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

medical consultant—with a physiotherapist. This
change initiative diverged from the institutional
status quo in transferring decision-making power
from a doctor to a nondoctor. The change agent
responsible for the initiative described her motiva-
tion as follows:

In my role as head of physiotherapy for this health
community, I have had the opportunity to work
with doctors, nurses, allied health professionals,
managers and representatives of social services. . . .
Although I was aware of the challenges of coordi-
nating all the different players involved in stroke
care, I was also aware that it was key if we wanted to
improve our services. . . . I recommended the ap-
pointment of a non-medical consultant to lead the
rehabilitation unit because, based on my experience
working with the different players involved in
stroke services, I thought that it would be the best
way to insure effective coordination.

Table 4 presents the results of OLS regressions
that predict the likelihood of change adoption.
Model 3 includes the control variables, none of
which was significant except prominence in the
task advice network. This result suggests that
change agents’ informal status in their organiza-
tions is a critical source of social influence.5

Model 4 introduces the measure of constraint in
change agents’ networks. The coefficient is not sta-
tistically significant, providing no evidence of a
main effect of structural holes on change imple-
mentation. The coefficient for the multiplicative
term for ego network constraint and change diver-
gence (model 5) is negative and significant, sup-
porting Hypothesis 2. A postestimation test of joint
significance of the main effect and interaction term
for constraint was statistically significant (F[2,
52] � 4.87, p � .05), offering further evidence of the
robustness of this moderation effect. The multipli-
cative term for constraint and divergence from the
institutional status quo increased model fit signifi-
cantly (�1 � 6.40, p � .05). These findings, being
robust to all four specifications of the measure of
constraint, indicate a strong boundary condition on
the effect of network closure on change adoption,
with the degree of divergence from the institutional

status quo intrinsic to a change initiative operating
as a strict contingency.6, 7

Our qualitative data offered numerous illustra-
tions of this finding. For example, a change agent
with a network rich in structural holes who was
attempting to transfer a medical unit from the hos-
pital to the primary care trust (PCT; see Table 1) in
his health community (a change that diverged from
the institutionalized model of role division be-
tween organizations) explained the following:

Because of my role, I worked both in the hospital
and in the PCT. I also was part of the steering group
that looked at how the new national guidelines
would be implemented across our health commu-
nity. . . . Having the responsibility to work in more
than one organization gives you many advan-
tages. . . . I knew all the stakeholders and what to
expect from them. . . . It helped me figure out what I
should tell to each of these different stakeholders to
convince them that the project was worth their time
and energy.

The people we interviewed in both the hospital
and the PCT confirmed that they knew the change
agent well. Stated a hospital employee:

He is one of us, but he also knows the PCT environ-
ment well. His experience has helped him identify
opportunities for us to cooperate with the PCT. If it
was not for him, I do not think that we would have
launched this project. . . . He was able to bring us on
board as well as the PCT staff.

Similarly, a nurse trying to implement nurse-led
discharge in her hospital explained how her con-
nections to managers, nurses, and doctors helped
her to tailor and time her appeals to each constitu-
ency relevant to her endeavor:

I first met with the management of the hospital to
secure their support. . . . I insisted that nurse-led
discharge would help us reduce waiting times for
patients, which was one of the key targets that the
government had set. . . . I then focused on nurses. I
wanted them to understand how important it was to
increase the nursing voice in the hospital and to
demonstrate how nursing could contribute to the
organizational agenda. . . . Once I had the full sup-
port of nurses, I turned to doctors. . . . I expected
that they would stamp their feet and dig their heels

5 We also ran supplemental analyses that including
the control variables listed in footnote 4 as well as a
squared term for hierarchical level to account for the
possibility that middle managers may be particularly
well positioned in their organizations to implement
change. As with Hypothesis 1, none of the variables had
statistically significant effects in any model, nor did they
affect the sign or significance of any variables of interest.

6 Testing Hypothesis 2 using effective size and density
as alternative measures of closure yields findings consis-
tent with, albeit less robust than, those obtained using
constraint, as we expected, given the conceptual differ-
ences between these measures.

7 We tested the effects of several additional interaction
terms including one for divergence and prominence in
the task advice network. None of these moderations were
significant.

2012 391Battilana and Casciaro

in and say “no we’re not doing this.” . . . To over-
come their resistance, I insisted that the new dis-
charge process would reduce their workload,
thereby enabling them to focus on complex cases
and ensure quicker patient turnover, which, for spe-
cialists with long waiting lists of patients, had an
obvious benefit.

These quotes illustrate the positive association
between structural holes and the adoption of diver-
gent change. Our qualitative evidence also offers
examples of the flip side of this association, the
negative relationship between network cohesion
and the adoption of changes that diverge from the
institutional status quo. For instance, a nurse who
tried to establish nurse-led discharge in her hospi-
tal, a change that would have diverged from the
institutionalized model of role division between
professionals, explained how lack of connection to
some key stakeholders in the organization (in par-
ticular, doctors) handicapped her.

I actually know many of the nurses working in this
hospital and I get on well with them, but I do not
know all the doctors and the administrative
staff. . . . When I launched this change initiative, I
was convinced that it would be good for the hospi-
tal, but maybe I rushed too much. I should have
taken more time to get to know the consultants, and
to convince them of the importance of nurse-led
discharge for them and for the hospital.

A doctor we interviewed confirmed the change
agent’s assessment of the situation:

I made it clear to the CEO of this hospital that I
would not do it. This whole initiative will increase
my workload. I feel it is a waste of time. Nurses
should not be the ones making discharge deci-

sions. . . . The person in charge of this initiative
doesn’t know how we work here.

The foregoing examples illustrate the utility of
structural holes in a change agent’s network when
it comes to persuading other organization members
to adopt a change that diverges from the institu-
tional status quo. However, networks rich in struc-
tural holes are not always an asset. When it comes
to the adoption of changes that do not diverge from
the institutional status quo, change agents with rel-
atively closed networks fared better. The cases of
two change agents involved in similar change ini-
tiatives in their respective primary care organiza-
tions are a telling example. Both were trying to
convince other organization members of the merits
of a new computerized booking system, the adop-
tion of which would not involve a divergence from
the institutional status quo, affecting neither the
division of labor nor the balance of power among
the health care professionals in the respective or-
ganizations. Moreover, other primary care organi-
zations had already adopted the system. The net-
work of one of the change agents was highly
cohesive, that of the other rich in structural holes.
Whereas the former was able to implement the new
booking system, the latter encountered issues. A
receptionist explained what happened in the case
of the former organization:

I trust [name of the change agent]. Everyone does
here. . . . We all know each other and we all care
about what is best for our patients. . . It was clear
when [name of the change agent] told us about the
new booking system that we would all be better off
using it.

TABLE 4
Results of OLS Regression Analyses Predicting Degree of Change Adoptiona

Variable Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Tenure in management role �0.02 (0.02) �0.02 (0.02) –0.02 (0.02)
Tenure in current role 0.02 (0.04) 0.02 (0.04) 0.02 (0.04)
Hierarchical level �0.14 (0.09) �0.13 (0.08) –0.13 (0.09)
Professional status (doctor) 0.18 (0.26) 0.14 (0.24) 0.07 (0.24)
Change divergence 0.09 (0.33) 0.14 (0.34) –0.11 (0.30)
Creation of new service �0.31 (0.23) �0.30 (0.25) –0.28 (0.23)
Organizational status (PCT) 0.04 (0.33) 0.04 (0.33) 0.03 (0.32)
Organizational size �0.01 (0.01) �0.01 (0.01) –0.01 (0.01)
Prominence in task advice network 0.30*** (0.07) 0.29*** (0.08) 0.33** (0.10)
Ego network constraint 0.69 (1.33) 0.30 (1.28)
Constraint � divergence –5.83** (2.04)
R2 .21 .22 .29

a Standard errors are in parentheses; n � 68.
** p � .01

*** p � .001
Two-tailed tests.

392 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

A receptionist in the latter organization de-
scribed her relationship with the change agent who
was struggling with the implementation of the
system:

I do not know (name of the change agent) well. . . .
One of my colleagues knows her. . . . One of the
doctors and some nurses seem to like her, but I think
that others in the organization feel just like me that
they do not know her.

Figure 2 graphs the moderation between diver-
gence and constraint observed in our data, using
the median split of the distribution of change di-
vergence. The crossover interaction is explained by
the influence mechanisms available to change
agents at opposite ends of the distribution of clo-
sure, with both cohesion and structural holes con-
ferring potential advantages. The graph also shows
that, in spite of the tendency of change agents with
networks rich in structural holes to initiate more
divergent changes, our sample included a sizable
number of observations in all four cells of the 2�2
in Figure 1. The matching of type of change to the
network structure most conducive to its adoption
was therefore highly imperfect in our sample.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The notion that change agents’ structural posi-
tions affect their ability to introduce change in or-
ganizations is well established, but because re-
search on organizational change has thus far not
systematically accounted for the fact that all
changes are not equivalent, we have not known
whether the effects of structural position might
vary with the nature of change initiatives. The pres-
ent study provides clear support for a contingency

theory of organizational change and network struc-
ture. Structural holes in change agents’ networks
increase the likelihood that these actors will initi-
ate organizational changes with a higher degree of
divergence from the institutional status quo. The
effects of structural holes on a change agent’s abil-
ity to persuade organizational constituencies to
adopt a change, however, are strictly contingent on
the change’s degree of divergence from the institu-
tional status quo. Structural holes in a change
agent’s network aid the adoption of changes that
diverge from the institutional status quo, but they
hinder the adoption of less divergent changes.

Contributions

These findings and the underlying contingency
theory that explains them advance current research
on organizational change and social networks in
several ways. First, we contribute to the organiza-
tional change literature by showing that the degree
to which organizational changes diverge from the
institutional status quo may have important impli-
cations for the factors that enable adoption. In do-
ing so, our study bridges the organizational change
and institutional change literatures that have
tended to evolve on separate tracks (Greenwood &
Hinings, 2006). The literature on organizational
change has not systematically accounted for the
institutional environment in which organizations
are embedded, and the institutional change litera-
ture has tended to neglect intraorganizational dy-
namics in favor of field dynamics. By demonstrat-
ing that the effect of network closure on change
initiation and adoption is contingent on the degree
to which an organizational change initiative di-
verges from the institutional status quo, this study
paves the way for a new direction in research on
organizational change that accounts for whether a
change breaks with practices so taken-for-granted
in a field of activity as to have become institution-
alized (Battilana et al., 2009).

Second, research on organizational change has
focused on the influence of change agents’ posi-
tions in their organizations’ formal structures over
their informal positions in organizational net-
works. Ibarra (1993) began to address this gap by
suggesting that actors’ network centrality might af-
fect the likelihood of their innovating successfully.
Our study complements her work by highlighting
the influence of structural closure in change agents’
networks on their ability to initiate and implement
change.

Third, our study advances the body of work on
social networks in organizations. Network scholars
have contributed greatly to understanding organi-

FIGURE 2
Observed Interactive Effect of Ego Network

Constraint and Divergence from Institutional
Status Quo on Change Adoption

5

4.5

4

3.5

3

Change
Adoption

Ego Network Constraint
.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6

Low divergence High divergence

2012 393Battilana and Casciaro

zational phenomena associated with change, in-
cluding knowledge search and transfer (Hansen,
1999; Levin & Cross, 2004; Reagans & McEvily,
2003; Tsai, 2002) and creativity and innovation
(Burt, 2004; Fleming et al., 2007; Obstfeld, 2005;
Tsai, 2001). We extend this literature with insights
into the structural mechanism for social influence
through which network closure aids or impedes
change agents’ attempts to initiate and implement
organizational change. We thus build on the long-
standing tradition of scholarship on the relation-
ship between network position and social influ-
ence (Brass, 1984; Brass & Burkhardt, 1993;
Gargiulo, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt, 1990).

Finally, despite its remarkable impact on net-
work research, structural holes theory remains un-
derspecified with regard to boundary conditions.
By documenting that the benefits of structural
holes are strictly contingent on an organizational
change initiative’s degree of divergence from an
institutional status quo, we join other scholars in
highlighting the need to specify the contextual
boundaries of brokerage and closure in organiza-
tions (Fleming et al., 2007; Gargiulo et al., 2009;
Stevenson & Greenberg, 2000; Tortoriello & Krack-
hardt, 2010; Xiao & Tsui, 2007). As for the phe-
nomenological boundaries, scholars have thus far
focused primarily on the notion that the nonredun-
dant information generated by bridging structural
holes is germane to idea generation (Burt, 2004)
and identifying opportunities for change, and they
have attended less to the role of structural holes in
capitalizing on opportunities for change once they
are identified. Yet gains from new ideas are real-
ized only when an organization adopts them (Klein
& Sorra, 1996; Meyer & Goes, 1988). Our findings
move beyond anecdotal evidence (Burt, 2005) to
show the relevance of structural holes in the do-
main of change implementation.

In addition to these theoretical contributions, our
findings can advance public policy and managerial
practice by informing the development and selec-
tion of change agents in organizations. The ques-
tion of how to reform existing institutions, such as
financial and health care systems, has taken on
great urgency all over the world. A better under-
standing of the factors that facilitate the initiation
and adoption of change that diverges from an insti-
tutional status quo is crucial to ensuring successful
institutional reforms. A key question policy makers
face when executing major public sector reforms,
such as the NHS reforms that the Labour govern-
ment attempted to implement at the turn of this
century, is how to identify champions who will
become local change agents in their organizations.
Our study suggests that one important dimension

in selecting local champions is the pattern of their
connections with others in their organizations.
Change agents can be unaware that their social
networks in their organizations may be ill suited to
the type of change they wish to introduce. In our
sample, although change agents with networks rich
in structural holes were more likely to initiate di-
vergent changes, mismatches between the degree of
divergence of a change initiative and the network
structure most conducive to its adoption were com-
mon (see Figure 2). Because managers can be taught
how to identify structural hole positions and mod-
ify their networks to occupy brokerage roles in
them (Burt & Ronchi, 2007), organizations can im-
prove the matching of change agents to change type
by educating aspiring change agents to recognize
structural holes in organizational networks. Orga-
nizations can also leverage change agents who al-
ready operate as informal brokers by becoming
aware of predictors of structural holes, such as ac-
tors’ personality traits (Burt, Jannotta, & Mahoney,
1998) and characteristics of the structural positions
they have occupied in their organizations over time
(Zaheer & Soda, 2009).

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Our study can be extended in several directions.
With regard to research design, because collecting
data on multiple change initiatives over time is
arduous (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001),
constructing a sizable sample of observations in the
domain of change implementation constitutes an
empirical challenge. Despite the limited statistical
power afforded by the phenomenon we studied, the
data confirmed our predictions, increasing our con-
fidence in the robustness of our findings. But these
reassuring findings notwithstanding, future re-
search would benefit from investigating these re-
search questions with larger samples of observa-
tions, laborious as they may be to assemble. Our
sample was also nonprobabilistic in that we pur-
posefully selected self-appointed change agents.
This is a population of interest in its own right,
because the change initiatives embarked upon by
change agents can vary considerably in type and
the degree to which they are adopted. Although
pursuing an understanding of the determinants of
change agents’ performance is a worthy endeavor
even when the process of self-selection into the role
is not analyzed, why and how organizational actors
become change agents are as important questions as
why and how they succeed.

Our use of ego network data might also be viewed
as a limitation. In-depth interviews with a substan-
tial number of organizational actors in a subsample

394 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

of eight change projects enabled us to corroborate
change agents’ self-reports and reduce perceptual
bias concerns. This validation notwithstanding,
ego network data remain an oft-used but subopti-
mal alternative to whole network data. Although
ego network data correlate well with dyadic data
based on information gathered from both members
of each pair (Bondonio, 1998; McEvily, 1997), and
measures from ego network data correlate highly
with measures from whole-network data (Everett &
Borgatti, 2005), several studies have documented
inaccuracies in how respondents perceive their so-
cial networks (for a review, see Bernard, Killworth,
Kronenfeld, and Sailer [1984]). Future research can
productively complement our analysis with fully
validated ego-network data or whole-network data.

The time structure of our data can also be further
enriched. Collecting data on adoption 12 months
after the initiation of a change enabled us to sepa-
rate the outcome of the change initiative from its
inception, and the qualitative evidence provided
by our case studies suggested intervening mecha-
nisms that might affect the change process. Our
data do not, however, support a systematic study of
the process through which change unfolds over
time and change agents’ networks evolve. Future
studies can extend work in this direction.

With regard to context, although we were able to
control for the influence of organizational size and
status on the initiation and adoption of divergent
change, studies are needed that will provide a fin-
er-grained account of the possible influence of the
organizational contexts in which change agents op-
erate. The NHS is a highly institutionalized envi-
ronment in which the dominant template of medi-
cal professionalism contributed to making the
culture of NHS organizations highly homogenous
(Giaimo, 2002). In environments characterized by
greater cultural heterogeneity, organizational dif-
ferences may influence the relationship between
change agents’ network features and the ability to
initiate and implement more or less divergent
change. Future research should explore the influ-
ence of other germane organizational characteris-
tics, such as the organizational climate for imple-
menting innovations (Klein & Sorra, 1996).

Because our analysis concerned a sample of
planned organizational change projects initiated by
clinical managers in the NHS, the external validity
of our findings is also open to question. The hier-
archical nature of this large public sector organiza-
tion can increase both the constraints faced by
change agents and the importance of informal
channels of influence for overcoming resistance in
the entrenched organizational culture. These idio-
syncratic features that make the NHS an ideal set-

ting for the present study call for comparative stud-
ies conducted in different settings that better
account for the potentially interactive effects of
actors’ positions in organizational networks and
contextual factors on the adoption of planned
changes. Given that this study of the NHS explores
a mature field with institutionalized norms, it
would be fruitful to examine the influence of ac-
tors’ network positions in emerging fields.

These questions and concerns notwithstand-
ing, our findings demonstrate the explanatory
power that derives from recognizing the comple-
mentary roles of institutional theory and social
network theory for understanding organizational
change. The informal channels of influence on
which change agents rely to build coalitions,
overcome resistance, and shift attitudes toward
new ideas emerge from our research as important
engines of change within an organization; their
effects, however, can be fully understood only
when the institutional pressures that constrain
an organization and the actions of the change
agents in it are included in a comprehensive
model of organizational change.

REFERENCES

Ahuja, G. 2000. Collaboration networks, structural holes,
and innovation: A longitudinal study. Administra-
tive Science Quarterly, 45: 425– 455.

Amis, J., Slack, T., & Hinings, C. R. 2004. The pace,
sequence, and linearity of radical change. Academy
of Management Journal, 47: 15–39.

Battilana, J. 2006. Agency and institutions: The enabling
role of individuals’ social position. Organization,
13: 653– 676.

Battilana, J. 2011. The enabling role of social position in
diverging from the institutional status quo: Evidence
from the U.K. National Health Service. Organization
Science, 22: 817– 834.

Battilana, J., Leca, B., & Boxenbaum, E. 2009. How actors
change institutions: Towards a theory of institu-
tional entrepreneurship. In J. P. Walsh & A. P. Brief
(Eds.), Academy of Management annals, vol. 3:
65–107. Essex, U.K.: Routledge.

Bernard, H. R., Killworth, P., Kronenfeld, D., & Sailer, L.
1984. The problem of informant accuracy—The va-
lidity of retrospective data. In Annual review of
anthropology, vol. 13: 495–517. Palo Alto, CA: An-
nual Reviews.

Bondonio, D. 1998. Predictors of accuracy in perceiving
informal social networks. Social Networks, 20: 301–
330.

Brass, D. J. 1984. Being in the right place—A structural

2012 395Battilana and Casciaro

analysis of individual influence in an organization.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 29: 518 –539.

Brass, D. J., & Burkhardt, M. E. 1993. Potential power and
power use—An investigation of structure and behav-
ior. Academy of Management Journal, 36: 441–
470.

Burt, R. S. 1992. Structural holes: The social structure
of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.

Burt, R. S. 2004. Structural holes and good ideas. Amer-
ican Journal of Sociology, 110: 349 –399.

Burt, R. S., Jannotta, J. E., & Mahoney, J. T. 1998. Person-
ality correlates of structural holes. Social Networks,
20: 63– 87.

Burt, R. S., & Ronchi, D. 2007. Teaching executives to see
social capital: Results from a field experiment. So-
cial Science Research, 36: 1156 –1183.

Burt, R. 2005. Brokerage and closure: An introduction
to social capital. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
Press.

Coleman, J. S. 1988. Social capital in the creation of
human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94:
95–120.

Coleman, J. 1990. Foundations of social theory. Cam-
bridge, MA: Belknap.

D’Aunno, T., Succi, M., & Alexander, J. 2000. The role of
institutional and market forces in divergent organi-
zational change. Administrative Science Quarterly,
45: 679 –703.

Department of Health. 1997. The new NHS—Modern,
dependable. London: HMSO.

Department of Health. 2004. NHS job evaluation hand-
book (2nd ed.). London: Department of Health.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. 1983. The iron cage
revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective
rationality in organizational fields. American Soci-
ological Review, 48: 1750 –1762.

Douglas, M. 1986. How institutions think. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press.

Everett, M., & Borgatti, S. P. 2005. Ego network between-
ness. Social Networks, 27: 31–38.

Ferlie, E., Fitzgerald, L., Wood, M., & Hawkins, C. 2005.
The nonspread of innovations: The mediating role of
professionals. Academy of Management Journal,
48: 117–134.

Fleiss, J. L. 1981. Statistical methods for rates and pro-
portions. New York: Wiley.

Fleming, L., Mingo, S., & Chen, D. 2007. Collaborative
brokerage, generative creativity, and creative suc-
cess. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52: 443–
475.

Frost, P. J., & Egri, C. P. 1991. The political process of
innovation. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.),
Research in organizational behavior, vol. 13: 229 –
295. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Gargiulo, M. 1993. 2-step leverage—Managing constraint
in organizational politics. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 38: 1–19.

Gargiulo, M., Ertug, G., & Galunic, C. 2009. The two faces
of control: Network closure and individual perfor-
mance among knowledge workers. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 54: 299 –333.

Giaimo, S. 2002. Markets and medicine: The politics of
health care reform in Britain, Germany and the
United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.

Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic action and social struc-
ture: The problem of embeddedness. American
Journal of Sociology, 91: 481–510.

Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. 1996. Understanding
radical organizational change: Bringing together the
old and the new institutionalism. Academy of Man-
agement Review, 21: 1022–1054.

Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. 2006. Radical organiza-
tional change. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Law-
rence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.), Sage handbook of or-
ganization studies: 814 – 842. London: Sage.

Hansen, M. T. 1999. The search-transfer problem: The
role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organ-
ization subunits. Administrative Science Quar-
terly, 44: 82–111.

Harrison, S., Hunter, D., Marnoch, G., & Pollitt, C. 1992.
Just managing: Power and culture in the National
Health Service. London: Macmillan.

Heugens, P., & Lander, M. W. 2009. Structure! Agency!
(and other quarrels): A meta-analysis of institutional
theories of organization. Academy of Management
Journal, 52: 61– 85.

Ibarra, H. 1993. Network centrality, power, and innova-
tion involvement—Determinants of technical and
administrative roles. Academy of Management
Journal, 36: 471–501.

Ibarra, H., & Andrews, S. B. 1993. Power, social-influ-
ence, and sense making—Effects of network central-
ity and proximity on employee perceptions. Admin-
istrative Science Quarterly, 38: 277–303.

Jones, E. E. 1964. Ingratiation. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts.

Kanter, R. M. 1983. The change masters: Corporate en-
trepreneurs at work. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Kellogg, K. C. 2011. Hot lights and cold steel: Cultural
and political toolkits for practice change in surgery.
Organization Science, 22: 482–502.

396 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

Kitchener, M. 2002. Mobilizing the logic of managerialism
in professional fields: The case of academic health
centre mergers. Organization Studies, 23: 391– 420.

Klein, K. J., & Sorra, J. S. 1996. The challenge of innova-
tion implementation. Academy of Management Re-
view, 21: 1055–1080.

Krackhardt, D. 1990. Assessing the political landscape—
Structure, cognition, and power in organizations.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 35: 342–369.

Krackhardt, D. 1999. The ties that torture: Simmelian tie
analysis in organizations. In S. B. Andrews, & D.
Knoke (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organi-
zations, vol. 16: 183–210. Greenwich, CT: JAI.

Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. 1977. The measurement of
observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics,
33: 159 –174.

Larsson, R. 1993. Case survey methodology: Quantitative
analysis of patterns across case studies. Academy of
Management Journal, 36: 1515–1546.

Laumann, E. O., Knoke, D., & Kim, Y. H. 1985. An organ-
izational approach to state policy formation—A
comparative study of energy and health domains.
American Sociological Review, 50: 1–19.

Le Grand, J. 1999. Competition, cooperation or control?
Tales from the British National Health Service.
Health Affairs, 18: 27–39.

Leblebici, H., Salancik, G. R., Copay, A., & King, T. 1991.
Institutional change and the transformation of inter-
organizational fields: An organizational history of
the U.S. radio broadcasting industry. Administra-
tive Science Quarterly, 36: 333–363.

Levin, D. Z., & Cross, R. 2004. The strength of weak ties
you can trust: The mediating role of trust in effective
knowledge transfer. Management Science, 50:
1477–1490.

Lingo, E. L., & O’Mahony, S. 2010. Nexus work: Broker-
age on creative projects. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 1: 47– 81.

Lippitt, R. 1958. The dynamics of planned change: New
York: Harcourt Brace.

Maguire, S., Hardy, C., & Lawrence, T. B. 2004. Institu-
tional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/
AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. Academy of
Management Journal, 47: 667– 679.

Marsden, P. V., & Friedkin, N. E. 1993. Network studies
of social influence. Sociological Methods and Re-
search, 22: 127–151.

McClelland, G. H., & Judd, C. M. 1993. Statistical diffi-
culties of detecting interactions and moderator ef-
fects. Psychological Bulletin, 114: 376 –390.

McEvily, B. 1997. Bridging the industrial divide: Small
firm innovativeness and regional institutions in

geographical clusters. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota.

McFadyen, M. A., Semadeni, M., & Cannella, A. A. 2009.
Value of strong ties to disconnected others: Examin-
ing knowledge creation in biomedicine. Organiza-
tion Science, 20: 552–564.

Meyer, A. D., & Goes, J. B. 1988. Organizational assimi-
lation of innovations: A Multi-level contextual anal-
ysis. Academy of Management Review, 31: 897–
923.

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organ-
izations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.
American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340 –363.

Nunnally, J. C. 1978. Psychometric theory. New York:
McGraw-Hill.

Obstfeld, D. 2005. Social networks, the tertius iungens
and orientation involvement in innovation. Admin-
istrative Science Quarterly, 50: 100 –130.

Padgett, J. F., & Ansell, C. K. 1993. Robust action and the
rise of the Medici, 1400 –1434. American Journal of
Sociology, 98: 1259 –1319.

Peckham, S. 2003. Primary care in the UK. Basingstoke,
U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pettigrew, A. 1973. The politics of organizational deci-
sion making. London: Tavistock.

Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. S.
2001. Studying organizational change and develop-
ment: Challenges for future research. Academy of
Management Journal, 44: 697–713.

Podolny, J. M., & Baron, J. N. 1997. Resources and
relationships: Social networks and mobility in the
workplace. American Sociological Review, 62:
673– 693.

Reagans, R., & McEvily, B. 2003. Network structure and
knowledge transfer: The effects of cohesion and
range. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 554.

Richter, A. W., West, M. A., Van Dick, R., & Dawson, J. F.
2006. Boundary spanners’ identification, intergroup
contact, and effective intergroup relations. Academy
of Management Journal, 49: 1252–1269.

Rodan, S., & Galunic, C. 2004. More than network struc-
ture: How knowledge heterogeneity influences man-
agerial performance and innovativeness. Strategic
Management Journal, 25: 541–562.

Romanelli, E., & Tushman, M. L. 1994. Organizational
transformation as punctuated equilibrium: An em-
pirical test. Academy of Management Journal, 37:
1141–1166.

Ruef, M. 2002. Strong ties, weak ties and islands: Struc-
tural and cultural predictors of organizational inno-
vation. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11: 427–
449.

2012 397Battilana and Casciaro

Scott, W. R., Ruef, M., Mendel, P. J., & Caronna, C. A.
2000. Institutional change and healthcare organi-
zations: From professional dominance to managed
care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sherer, P. D., & Lee, K. 2002. Institutional change in large
law firms: A resource dependency and institutional
perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 45:
102–110.

Simmel, G. 1950. The sociology of George Simmel.
Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Stevenson, W. B., & Greenberg, D. 2000. Agency and
social networks: Strategies of action in a social struc-
ture of position, opposition, and opportunity. Ad-
ministrative Science Quarterly, 45: 651– 678.

Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. 1959. The social psychol-
ogy of groups. New York: Wiley.

Tortoriello, M., & Krackhardt, D. 2010. Activating cross-
boundary knowledge: The role of Simmelian ties in
the generation of innovations. Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, 53: 167–181.

Tsai, W. 2001. Knowledge transfer in intraorganizational
networks: Effects of network position and absorptive
capacity on business unit innovation and performance.
Academy of Management Journal, 44: 996 –1004.

Tsai, W. 2002. Social structure of “coopetition” within a
multiunit organization: Coordination, competition,
and intraorganizational knowledge sharing. Organi-
zation Science, 13: 179 –190.

Van de Ven, A. H. 1986. Central problems in the man-
agement of innovation. Management Science, 32:
590 – 607.

Van de Ven, A. H., Angle, H. L., & Poole, M. S. 1989.
Research on the management of innovation. Grand
Rapids, MI: Ballinger Division.

Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. 1995. Explaining
development and change in organizations. Academy
of Management Review, 20: 510 –540.

Xiao, Z. X., & Tsui, A. S. 2007. When brokers may not
work: The cultural contingency of social capital in
Chinese high-tech firms. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 52: 1–31.

Zaheer, A., & Soda, G. 2009. Network evolution: The
origins of structural holes. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 54: 1–31.

Julie Battilana (jbattilana@hbs.edu) is an associate pro-
fessor of business administration in the Organizational
Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. She holds a
joint Ph.D. in organizational behavior from INSEAD and
in management and economics from École Normale Su-
périeure de Cachan. Her research examines the process
by which organizations or individuals initiate and imple-
ment changes that diverge from the taken-for-granted
practices in a field of activity.

Tiziana Casciaro (tiziana.casciaro@rotman.utoronto.ca)
is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the
Rotman School of Management of the University of To-
ronto. She received her Ph.D. in organizational theory
and sociology from the Department of Social and Deci-
sion Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Her re-
search focuses on organizational networks, with particu-
lar emphasis on affect and cognition in interpersonal
networks and the power structure of interorganizational
relations.

398 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

Copyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may

not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written

permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

1

Title of the Paper in Full Goes Here

Student Name Here

Walden University

Abstract

Abstracts are not required for all course papers. Please ask your instructor if you have questions regarding whether an abstract is required for a particular assignment.

Title of the Paper in Full Goes Here

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 1 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 2 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Another Level 2 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 3 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 4 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 4 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 3 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 1 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

References

(Please note that the following references are intended as examples only.)

Alexander, G., & Bonaparte, N. (2008). My way or the highway that I built. Ancient Dictators, 25(7), 14-31. doi:10.8220/CTCE.52.1.23-91

Babar, E. (2007). The art of being a French elephant. Adventurous Cartoon Animals, 19, 4319-4392. Retrieved from http://www.elephants104.ace.org

Bumstead, D. (2009). The essentials: Sandwiches and sleep. Journals of Famous Loafers, 5, 565-582. doi:12.2847/CEDG.39.2.51-71

Hansel, G., & Gretel, D. (1973). Candied houses and unfriendly occupants. Thousand Oaks, CA: Fairy Tale Publishing.

Hera, J. (2008). Why Paris was wrong. Journal of Greek Goddess Sore Spots, 20(4), 19-21. doi: 15.555/GGE.64.1.76-82

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2007). How to cite a video: The city is always Baltimore [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Name of program [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com

Sinatra, F. (2008). Zing! Went the strings of my heart. Making Good Songs Great, 18(3), 31-22. Retrieved from http://articlesextollingrecordingsofyore.192/fs.com

Smasfaldi, H., Wareumph, I., Aeoli, Q., Rickies, F., Furoush, P., Aaegrade, V., … Fiiel, B. (2005). The art of correcting surname mispronunciation. New York, NY: Supportive Publisher Press. Retrieved from http://www.onewaytociteelectronicbooksperAPA7.02.com

White, S., & Red, R. (2001). Stop and smell the what now? Floral arranging for beginners (Research Report No. 40-921). Retrieved from University of Wooded Glen, Center for Aesthetic Improvements in Fairy Tales website: http://www.uwg.caift/~40_921

Managing Organizational Change:
A Philosophies of Change Approach

FIONA GRAETZ∗ & AARON C.T. SMITH∗∗

∗Graduate School of Management, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia, ∗∗RMIT Business, RMIT
University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT The underlying assumption of the classical, linear approach to organizational change
is that it involves a series of predictable, reducible steps that enable senior management to establish
a new work order and routines. This article confronts the conventional assumption that change is a
finite, one-off phenomenon, representing the exception rather than the rule. Beginning with the
rational change model as an exemplar, and subsequently by examining 10 organizational change
philosophies, this article reviews the fundamental assumptions governing different change
management approaches. In revealing the biases and uni-dimensional nature of theoretical
philosophies of organizational change, this article argues for a multi-philosophy approach that
applies an interactive mix of continuity and change. Managing the continuity-change continuum
helps to guard against complacency and inertia, and underpins an organization’s capacity both
to exploit and explore.

KEY WORDS: Continuity-change dilemma, complementary-competing, paradox, ambiguity,
duality

Introduction

Traditional approaches to organizational change generally follow a linear, rational
model in which the focus is on controllability under the stewardship of a strong
leader or ‘guiding coalition’. The underlying assumption of this classical
approach, ever popular among change consultants, is that organizational change
involves a series of predictable, reducible steps that can be planned and
managed (Collins, 1998). The evidence from case studies of failed change
implementations indicates, however, that this uni-dimensional, rational focus is

Journal of Change Management

Vol. 10, No. 2, 135–154, June 2010

Correspondence Address: Fiona Graetz, Graduate School of Management, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC

3086 Australia. Tel.: + 61 3 9479 3109; Email: f.graetz@latrobe.edu.au

1469-7017 Print/1479-1811 Online/10/020135 – 20 # 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14697011003795602

limited because it treats change as a single, momentary disturbance that must be
stabilized and controlled. Such a view fails not only to appreciate that change is a
natural phenomenon which is intimately entwined with continuity but, also, that
the change-continuity continuum is what defines organizations and their ability
both to exploit and explore. Change and continuity represent competing but comp-
lementary narratives, bringing in ambiguity and novelty to destabilize as well as
validate existing organizational routines.

Our argument is that understanding change as part of a continuing work in pro-
gress calls for a much broader canvas that seeks out competing voices, and works
with the resulting ambiguities, contradictions and tensions of messy reality. We
advocate a multi-philosophy approach because continuity depends on change as
much as change depends on continuity. They are both essential for organizational
growth and survival. Continuity underpins the search for new meaning and new
understandings. As Evans (1992: 256 – 257) argued, ‘almost all qualities of an
organization have a complementary opposite quality, and excessive focus on
one pole of a duality ultimately leads an organization into stagnation and
decline (undue continuity), while the corrective swing to the opposite pole leads
to disruptive and discontinuous crisis (excessive change)’.

As an exemplar, this article looks firstly at the context for the traditional,
rational approach to organizational change. It subsequently illustrates how rational
change is depicted and deployed with reference to three different organizational
cases on leadership and change. The following section explores a range of organ-
izational change philosophies and considers how these might provide a broader
frame of reference in understanding the change process and its undeniable,
though sometimes tense, partnership with continuity. Based on this discussion,
the conclusion considers how an appreciation of the philosophies of change
may help to turn around the way organizations and, in particular, senior manage-
ment, view the process of change. It, therefore, puts forward the case for a multi-
perspectives approach in managing the continuity-change dilemma and offers
advice for practitioners attempting to navigate the turbulent waters of organiz-
ational change.

The Traditional Change Agenda

Recognizing changing forms of organizing as a ‘fuzzy, deeply ambiguous process’
(Collins, 2003: v) with no obvious ending calls into question the snake oil sales
pitch used to promote popular change models. Consider, for example, Grundy’s
(1992) ‘power tools for change’, Kanter et al.’s (1992) ‘Ten commandments’,
Kotter’s (1995) ‘Eight steps to transforming your organization’, and Hammer
and Champy’s (1993) ‘Business process re-engineering’. The nomenclature
assigned to these popular 1990s offerings typifies a formulaic approach which pre-
supposes that organizational change can and should be a controlled and orderly
affair, a simple case of ‘unfreezing’, ‘moving’ and ‘refreezing’. Central to suc-
cessful implementation is the key role the ‘magic’ leader plays (Nadler and
Tushman, 1989; Kotter, 1990). The implication is that his or her charismatic
qualities in communicating the new vision are all it takes to inspire and win
over the masses. These factors expose a number of critical flaws in the purely

136 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

rational perspective. Firstly, it begs the question as to whether organizations are
‘as amenable to control as a block of ice’ (Grey, 2003). Secondly, it ignores the
not-so rational wild card – the human factor – treating individuals as automatons
rather than active agents (Giddens, 1981: 224) in the change process. An inherent
assumption in rational models is that organizational actors will respond enthusias-
tically and uniformly to their leader’s call to arms. With stability and control the
end goals, rational models represent a singular, partial story told by senior man-
agement and consequently ignore the many other distinctive stories unfolding
around them in the organizational narrative (Buchanan, 2003). As a result, the
principal response is not to listen to, but to silence, dissident voices.

Despite the limitations of n-step (Collins, 1998), goal-directed models of change,
the management penchant for these types of tools continues unsated. They are, of
course, seductively simple and the labels attached (power tools, transforming, com-
mandments, magic) imply that success is guaranteed if they are followed to the
letter. In addition, n-step models ensure that the change process is controlled
‘from the top’. Management texts and business magazine ‘case studies’ tend to per-
petuate and legitimize a rational, leader-centered model of organizational change.
Take, for example, the report in AFRBoss (Hughes, 2008) on ‘turnaround’ change
at the Reader’s Digest Association, instigated by incoming CEO, Mary Berner.
Berner is variously referred to as the new ‘chief’, ‘straight shooting’, and, more sig-
nificantly, ‘Cyclone Mary’. Propounding the notion that ‘turnover is actually good
for an organization’, Berner undertook a massive cost-cutting exercise with the aim
of creating ‘a new “FACE” (fast, accountable, candid and engaged)’. In presenting
Berner’s story and her prescription for change, the article pays homage to the key
elements of a rational perspective: the magic leader principle, the focus on account-
ability and control, and the need to eliminate contradiction, dissent and uncertainty
in order to move forward and ‘grow the business’.

Other change management cases in business magazines paint a more humanistic
picture. Here, one sees the new twenty first century leader as a people person,
adopting a more participatory, inclusive style. This observes a shift from autocrat
to democrat, the leader who recognizes that organizational knowledge and exper-
tise does not reside solely within the senior management cadre. The role of the
twenty first century leader is to energize and revive the creativity lying dormant
at all levels of the organization. The emphasis here is on teamwork, as highlighted
in articles on Marius Kloppers, the head of BHP Billiton (Gray, 2008; Williams,
2008). Kloppers is described as a ‘detail person’ who actively seeks out infor-
mation from people ‘conducting the nuts and bolts operations’. During an interview,
Kloppers himself draws a parallel between organizational strategy-making and test
cricket. What he likes about the game of cricket is the power of the captain and the
team. It is not about an omniscient coach but about ‘11 men planning, performing
and enduring as best they can themselves.’ Similarly, discussion of turnaround
change at the Melbourne arm of advertising agency, Clemenger BBDO, under
the direction of new chief, Peter Biggs, highlights his team-centric leadership
style (Gettler, 2008). Through his open door, hands-on approach, Biggs sought to
unlock creativity by ‘opening up’ the agency and encouraging people ‘to interact
and show their personality.’ He wanted to transform the self-focused, individualistic
culture into one which prized generosity and collegiality.

A Philosophies of Change Approach 137

These expressed aims are laudable and undoubtedly sincere. They demonstrate
a clear desire among organizational leaders to challenge the status quo, increase
risk-taking and creativity, and open up organizational boundaries through infor-
mation sharing and collaborative teamwork. Yet the methods adopted to
achieve these new ways of working and organizing remain, by and large,
embedded in rational, analytical orthodoxy about organizational change and
change leadership. And, the problem with rational orthodoxy is its inability to
understand, let alone cope with, the centrality of paradox in organizations; that
is, the ‘simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states’ (Eisenhardt, 2000:
703). Rational orthodoxy in contrast presupposes the importance of discipline,
order and control. The possibility of implementing change by simultaneously
maintaining divergent dual states does not enter the frame. Managerial
decision-making is therefore based on either – or choices, or some sort of bland
compromise between assumed opposites that define change and continuity, such
as innovation and efficiency, collaboration and competition, freedom and account-
ability, empowerment and leadership, or economic and social goals.

Both Kloppers (BHP Billiton) and Biggs (Clemenger) appear to have some
sense of these continuity-change tensions. In Kloppers case, he combines an
analytical mind and an eye for detail with the need for adaptive strategy-
making to cope with sudden, unforeseen circumstances. He also looks to key
players for information and ideas. Representing a blend of economic and social
goals, the focus for Biggs is on increasing competition through a collaborative,
collegial and ‘generous’ workplace. There is a clear leadership – commander
‘presence’ bound up with the aim to empower and foster creativity through the
rank and file. Biggs’ advocacy of a ‘culture of discontent’ also implies a view
of change as having no finite end, thereby rejecting the classical ‘unfreeze-
move-refreeze’ model.

In the end, however, the indelible impression from all of these change cases is
the classic model of top-down, change in the hands of a strong, forceful and char-
ismatic leader. Kloppers is ‘the big South African’, and Clemenger BBDO is ‘born
again’ under the guidance of Biggs. The predominant focus is on increasing
competition through economic discipline and accountability under strong ‘take-
no-prisoners’ leadership. While input and involvement are actively sought and
encouraged, the underlying message is not about managing paradox but about
maintaining control. There is an assumption that the leader’s vision is the right
one or that everyone is on the same wavelength. Leana and Barry (2000) noted
that while new forms of organizing are seen as less hierarchical and centralized,
these new forms in fact enable senior managers to ‘consolidate power and
control’ without the need for centralization. It is control by stealth as managers
‘set performance targets rather than impose direction’ (Leana and Barry, 2000:
754). In this environment there is little tolerance for ambiguity or dissent. At
Clemenger, for example, Biggs recruited ‘six or seven core people that make
the soul of the agency and keep it true to what its purpose is.’ The implication
from Biggs’ statement is that existing employees were not appreciative of his
vision for a new soul and it was necessary to bring in some proselytizing
muscle to ‘guide’ employees to the light. At Readers Digest, Berner declared ‘It
matters that people are aligned with what we are trying to do and people are

138 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

paid for performance. There’s no more paying for trying’ (author emphasis in
italics).

Lewin and Volberda (1999) counseled that progress requires combining and
recombining multiple theoretical lenses to improve the integration of theories
and avoid increasing fragmentation. They argued that change is neither an
outcome of managerial adaptation nor of environmental selection, but rather is
a co-evolutionary outcome of strategic intentionality and environmental impera-
tives. For Lewin and Volberda, the management of change means accepting
that adaptation and selection are interrelated rather than opposing forces. In prac-
tice, their position emphasizes that a single, linear commitment to change theory
will fail to account for the non-linear, recursive and multi-level nature of change
reality. As Morgan (1997: 350) advised, ‘reality has a tendency to reveal itself in
accordance with the perspectives through which it is engaged’. Therefore, tapping
into a range of different perspectives provides the scope to understand a situation
from many angles and create different modes of engagement (Morgan, 1997).

The following section of this article explores a range of organizational change
philosophies and comments upon their impact on the tools and techniques typi-
cally employed in change interventions. The complementary and competing
insights they offer also demonstrate that complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty
are part of the organizational dynamic and do not respond well to a rational,
leader-centric approach bent on establishing certainty and control.

Change Philosophies

We note that a philosophy of change is a general way of looking at organizational
change, or what might be considered a paradigm: a structured set of assumptions,
premises and beliefs about the way change works in organizations. Philosophies of
change are important because they reveal the deep suppositions that are being
made about organizations and the ways that change operates within and around
them. In the forthcoming section we take an in depth look at 10 philosophies, sum-
marizing their methods and approach to change. A philosophy’s method for
change is expressed in terms of its inferences about the mechanisms through
which a change intervention can be brought about. Typically, these are expressed
as theories, which in turn generate hypotheses and predictions about organiz-
ational change. Any given philosophy may have generated numerous theories,
but it is not always clear what they have to do with each other, and in some
cases, what they have to do with theories emanating from other philosophies.
Nevertheless, philosophies are advantageous because they offer both description
and prescription. Regarding the former, philosophies provide a metaphorical
and theoretical explanation of assumptions and, therefore, of methods for
change. While the usefulness of metaphors for explaining change is well sup-
ported (Palmer and Dunford, 1996; Oztel and Hinz, 2001; Wood, 2002), the
way metaphors can offer prescriptive guidance is less well articulated.
However, a general consensus would suggest that they are effective as change
management heuristics under certain conditions because they liberate observers
from entrenched thinking, encourage creativity by suggesting new interpretations
of old circumstances, stimulate emotional engagement, and fuel action by probing

A Philosophies of Change Approach 139

the unconscious mind (Green and Ruhleder, 1995; Palmer and Dunford, 1996;
Wood, 2002).

As with many complex aspects of organizational life, metaphors are useful in
conveying the range of paradigms from which change can be viewed. Paradigms
describe the fundamentally different event sequences and generative mechanisms,
or what can be thought of as motors of change (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995).
While it is not possible to consider every metaphor or paradigm conceived, we
have re-conceptualized a range of divergent approaches for change into 10 the-
matic philosophies. Each of the philosophies is explained in turn, with emphasis
on their respective interpretations of change. We also comment on the influence
each has upon the tools and techniques typically employed for change interven-
tions. The aim is to show that the underpinning philosophical assumptions associ-
ated with various change interventions not only help to map the terrain of change
options, but also reveal why change is so difficult to introduce successfully when a
single approach is overlaid upon a complex and ambiguous organizational
scenario.

The Biological Philosophy

The most long held change philosophy has been commandeered from biology. In
fact, biology has been used in several different ways as a metaphor for organiz-
ational change (Witt, 2004). The first is appropriated from evolution itself. It
refers to the adaptations experienced by a species – or in this case, a population
of organizations – during its evolution. This application of biology, pioneered by
Hannan and Freeman (1977) under the terminology of population ecology, focuses
on incremental change within industries rather than individual organizations.
Population ecologists (McKelvey and Aldrich, 1983) subsequently began to
take a biological view of industrial behavior. They suggested that change comes
about as a consequence of Darwinian-like natural selection where industries
gradually evolve to match the constraints of their environmental context. Ulti-
mately, population ecologists seek to determine why there are so many different
kinds of organizations within a population when the biological imperative for effi-
ciency and a best fit would suggest that there should be an ideal configuration that
has evolved into dominance (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995).

The second biological sub-philosophy refers to the individual experiences of
members of a species (organizations within an industry) and is summarized by
reference to its life cycle. The contrast is, therefore, between the Darwinian
concept of natural selection and the developmental life cycle of individual organ-
izations. Life cycle theory (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995; Kezar, 2000) explains
change in organizations from start-up to divestment. Birth, growth, maturity,
decline and death are all natural parts of an organization’s development (Levy
and Merry, 1986). The philosophy is developmental in nature, comparing the
ongoing stages of progress and change in organizations to organic processes of
growth and reproduction. These can be analogous to child, human, organic,
moral, or even financial development. The life cycle philosophy implicitly
assumes that change is imminent and progressive. The biological philosophy
can get confusing because it is not uncommon for theorists to write about

140 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

organizations seeking to adapt to their respective environments (Chakravarthy,
1982). While correct in practical application, this is a technically inaccurate
view of evolution which is concerned with species (industries), not individual
organisms (organizations).

Change from a biological perspective must be viewed as dynamic. In addition,
the evolutionary and life cycle sub-philosophies, as opposed to punctuated-
equilibrium, reflect a slow and incremental pace of change, moderately affected
by the environment, moderately controllable, and tending toward certainty.

The Rational Philosophy

The rational philosophy (also referred to as strategic) concerns the alignment
between an organization’s composition, competencies and state over time, and
its environmental context (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995). Sometimes also
known as teleological theories (because the final destination of the organization
is its guiding logic) or planned change, the rational philosophy assumes that
organizations are purposeful and adaptive (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995; Kezar,
2000). As highlighted in an earlier discussion of the rational perspective,
change occurs simply because senior managers and other change agents deem it
necessary. The process for change is rational and linear, like in evolutionary
and life cycle approaches, but with managers as the pivotal instigators of
change (Carnall, 1995; Carr et al., 1996).

Strategic choice theorists (Child, 1972; Smith and Berg, 1987) belong to the
rational philosophy and maintain that leaders and managers have ultimate
control of their organizations. The proliferation of management ‘gurus’ such as
Kotter (1995), Huber and Glick (1995) and Kanter et al. (1992), who each
propose their own ‘holy grail’ of change interventions, fit into this conceptual
classification. They argue that any events outside the organization are exogenous;
successful change is firmly in the hands of managers. The corollary of this argu-
ment, of course, is that unsuccessful change is also the responsibility of managers,
although sometimes there is the acceptance that the actors cannot override the
environment and resource limitations. In other words, when change goes well it
is because leaders and managers were insightful and prescient, but when change
goes badly it is because something happened that could never have been foreseen.

The rational philosophy assumes that change can be brought about at any pace
and on any scale deemed suitable. Similarly, change is internally directed,
controlled and certain. Approaches consistent with the rational philosophy give
precedence to strategic decision-making and careful planning towards
organizational goals. It is therefore the most popular philosophy for leaders
seeking to impose a direction upon an organization.

The Institutional Philosophy

The institutional philosophy makes some fundamentally evolutionary assump-
tions, but does so in the context of a strong belief in the sensitivity of organizations
to the external environments in which they are placed. Like population ecologists,
institutionalists expect organizations to increase homogeneity within their

A Philosophies of Change Approach 141

industrial sector over time, but view the shaping mechanism to be the pressure of
the institutional environment rather than competition for resources. It is less the
strategy in place or even the competition for scarce resources that stimulates
organizational change, but rather the pressures in the wider institutional context.
These might come in the form of new regulatory, financial or legal conditions
(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, 1991). Irrespective of the specific forces, change
is largely a function of a shifting industrial landscape. The implication is that suc-
cessful organizations are successful because their set-up neatly accommodates the
industrial pressures to which they are obligated to respond. The key to this philo-
sophical standpoint is that organizations are coerced into change by pressures
from within their institutional environment. Clever strategy cannot out-manoeuvre
the rules set by an institutional context. Since organizational form is instrumental
to the institutional philosophy, it remains essential to study how similarities are
driven by external forces that coerce companies into set patterns and structures
(Meyer and Rowan, 2006).

One of the strengths of the institutional philosophy is that it explains similarities
between organizations and stability of organizational arrangements within an
industry. For example, institutional advocates would point to legal firms as an
exemplar of institutional compliance where most are configured in the same
way simply because they have hit on the best approach for success. Institutional
theory is, therefore, valuable in explaining the way in which social, economic
and legal pressures influence organizational structures and practices, and how
an organization’s ability to adapt to these play a part in determining organizational
survival and prosperity. On the other hand, the institutional philosophy tends to
downplay internal forces and the impact that organizational actors can have on
their own predicament.

The institutional philosophy tends to view change as slow and small in scale,
although institutional pressures can encourage a more rapid pace and magnitude
of change. The stimulus for change is external, control is mostly undirected,
and certainty is moderate.

The Resource Philosophy

An instructive starting point is to contrast the resource philosophy with the insti-
tutional philosophy. Where the latter explains the industry-specific pressures
encouraging organizations to conform, or at least move toward some greater orga-
nizing homogeneity, the resource philosophy helps to explain deviance. Accord-
ing to what is typically called the resource-dependence theory, any given
organization does not possess all the resources it needs in a competitive environ-
ment. Acquisition of these resources is therefore the critical activity for both
survival and prosperity (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Thus, successful organi-
zations over time are the ones which are the best at acquiring, developing and
deploying scarce resources and skills. Moreover, the most valuable resources to
acquire are either unique in themselves or in the ways in which they can be
combined with other assets (Connor, 2002).

From a resource philosophy standpoint, organizational change begins by iden-
tifying needed resources, which can be traced back to sources of availability and

142 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

evaluated in terms of criticality and scarcity. Understanding that a dependence on
resources increases uncertainty for organizations, is particularly useful to change
attempts because it encourages an awareness of critical threats and obstacles to
performance. While resource dependency creates uncertainty, theorists note
that the direction of uncertainty is generally predictable even if its magnitude is
not.

As core competencies are seen as assets that will generate an ongoing set of new
products and services, the focus of organizational change from a resource perspec-
tive is on the strategic capabilities of the organization, rather than on its fit with the
environment. In this sense, the only limitation to an organization’s success is its
management of resources. Change can, therefore, be fast or slow as well as
small or large. The stimulus for change comes principally from within – as organ-
izations seek the resources they require – while control is directed and compara-
tively certain.

The Contingency Perspective

The contingency philosophy is based on the proposition that organizational per-
formance is a consequence of the fit between two or more factors, such as an
organization’s environment, use of technology, strategy, structure, systems,
style or culture (Pfeffer, 1982). However, variables such as inertia, inflexibility,
resource immobility and industry pressure make the fit between factors difficult
to predict. This fact explains why researchers have noted different levels of organ-
izational performance, with performance reflecting degree of fit (Van de Ven and
Drazin, 1985). Contingency philosophy advocates suggest that over the long-term,
managers in competitive markets are forced to adjust their practices and their
organization’s configurations so that they are consistent with efficiency
demands (McLoughlin and Clark, 1988; Alder, 1992). However, the search for
best fit is limited by the impossibility of modeling all the contingent variables
and the difficulty of predicting their connections and causal relations.

The strength of the contingency philosophy is that it explains organizational
change from a behavioral viewpoint where managers should make decisions
that account for specific circumstances, focusing on those which are the most
directly relevant, and intervening with the most appropriate actions. The best
actions to initiate change come back to two words: ‘it depends’. In fact, the
best course of action is one that is fundamentally situational, matched to the
needs of the circumstances. For example, although introducing change in the mili-
tary might typically be autocratic, whereas change in a small business might typi-
cally be consultative, there could be times when the reverse is the most effective
solution. There are no formulas or guiding principles to organizational change.
The focus of management in organizational change is on achieving alignment
and ‘good fits’ to ensure stability and control.

The flexible nature of the contingency perspective means that change can be fast
or slow, small or large, loosely or tightly controlled, be driven by internal or exter-
nal stimuli, and deal with varying levels of certainty. It just depends on the
situation.

A Philosophies of Change Approach 143

The Psychological Philosophy

The psychological philosophy is based on the assumption that the most important
dimension of change is found in personal and individual experience. In the
tradition of applied social psychology pioneered by Lewin (1947), the psycho-
logical perspective focuses on the experiences that individuals have within organi-
zations. It is concerned with the human side of change (Iacavini, 1993; Stuart,
1995) and has clear links with human relations, human development and organi-
zational development approaches, which emerged in response to the overly
mechanistic methods of scientific management. Since the psychological philo-
sophy assumes that individuals are the most important unit in organizational
change, it also has strong links with behavioral science as well.

Two of the most prominent approaches to change that are based on assumptions
implicit to the psychological philosophy are known as ‘organizational develop-
ment’ and ‘change transitions’. Organizational development is an approach to
change based on applied behavioral science, and founded on the action research
approach (Burke, 2002). Data are collected about problems and then actions
taken accordingly. Change management is, therefore, the process of collecting
the right information about the impediments to change and removing them by
assuaging organizational members’ fears and uncertainties. Change transitions,
as a sub-philosophy of the psychological model, is even more focused on the
psychological status of organizational members. Like Kubler-Ross’ (1973)
stages of death and dying, from denial to acceptance, the process of organizational
change is primarily about how people cope with the often traumatic psychological
transitions that accompany change (Bridges, 1980, 1992; Jick, 1990). Accord-
ingly, personal feelings, emotions and learning are seen as amongst the most
important contributors to the management of change transitions. These assump-
tions all imply that emotions are learned aspects of behavior, are culturally
mediated, and can be managed.

By its nature, psychological change is slow and undertaken on a small scale.
That is not to say that organizational change itself is necessarily slow
and small, but it does imply that individuals cannot accommodate fast and
large-scale change without discomfort. Personal psychological adjustment to
change is also an internal process, rather than one imposed by the environment,
and it is undirected and uncertain, at least partly because every individual is
different.

The Political Philosophy

Originating from the sociological work of Marx and Hegel, the political philos-
ophy explains change as the result of clashing ideology or belief systems
(Morgan, 1986). Conflict is seen as not only an inherent attribute of human inter-
action, but also as the most important one driving change. As a result, the political
philosophy assumes that it is the clashing of opposing political forces that produce
change. When one group with a political agenda gradually gains power, they chal-
lenge the status quo in the hope of shifting the organization toward their own inter-
ests. This conflict approach means that change processes inevitably revolve

144 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

around activities such as bargaining, consciousness-raising, persuasion, influence
and power, and social movements (Bolman and Deal, 1991).

Organizations are viewed as political systems which employ a system of rules,
and where day-to-day activity is filled with ‘wheeling and dealing’, or finding
ways to make the system work to one’s advantage. Given the political nature of
organizations, it may be assumed that they are composed of numerous coalitions
and alliances which work together both overtly and covertly to secure power and
influence. In this respect, change is a function of the movement of power from one
coalition to another because each seeks the introduction of new philosophies,
approaches or ideas. The political philosophy focuses attention on how things
get done through political activity and because coalitions have competing
agendas and each are seeking to acquire more power, conflict lies at the heart
of the political philosophy. Change managers would be advised to focus on culti-
vating the political support of strong coalitions, as well as securing the resources
that confer power, such as leadership positions and financial support. The strength
of the political philosophy is that it reveals the importance of clashing ideological
imperatives in organizations, as well as the inescapable axiom that without power
change is futile. However, the political philosophy also has the tendency to over-
look the impetus for change that comes from the environment or from power bases
external to the organization. It is dangerous to get distracted by internal political
adversaries when in reality the real competition lies outside an organization.

As ideology is the catalyst for dissatisfaction with the status quo, the stages
leading up to change can be lengthy in order to cultivate a group of sufficient
power to take overt steps and risk censure. However, although the development
process can be slow, actual change can spring quickly, on a large scale, and some-
times quite unexpectedly. The stimuli for change (conflict) can come from an
external or internal party or parties. In addition, control is largely undirected
and the change process is uncertain.

The Cultural Philosophy

The cultural philosophy owes its emergence to the field of anthropology where the
concept of organizational culture emerged, first translated to an organizational
setting by Pettigrew (1979). In the cultural philosophy, change is normal in that
it is a response to changes in the human environment (Morgan, 1986). The diffi-
culty is that this process is natural, leading to the construction of firm ways of
thinking about how things should be done. As a result, imposing change means
fighting entrenched sets of values and beliefs shared by organizational members.

Culture, like many of the philosophies addressed in this section, is fragmented
and subject to controversy and inconsistency. The most cited cultural researcher,
Schein (1979, 1984, 1993, 1997), takes a psycho-dynamic view in which culture is
seen as an unconscious phenomenon, and the source of the most basic human
assumptions and beliefs shared by organization members. Schein considers organ-
izational members’ behaviors and spoken attitudes to be the artifacts and symbolic
representations of these deeper unconscious assumptions. While there are simi-
larities between the cultural and psychological philosophies, a key difference
between the two can be found in their assumptions about the most important

A Philosophies of Change Approach 145

unit of change to manage. The psychological philosophy is concerned with indi-
vidual experiences of change (which is both individually and socially determined),
whereas the cultural perspective is exclusively concerned with collective experi-
ences of change, and the shared values that guide them.

The cultural philosophy assumes that the change process will be long-term, slow
and small-scale (Schein, 1985). Unlike natural cultural change, which is an
ongoing reflection of incremental adjustments to the environment, imposed cul-
tural change is internally-driven. However, cultural change can be brought
about through radical environmental change as well. If internal in stimulus,
control of cultural change can be directed with some certainty, although the
process is troublesome.

The Systems Philosophy

Encouraged by Kuhn (1974), the systems philosophy emerged from ‘systems
thinking’ and general systems theory developed originally from viewing organiz-
ations as complex machines, later as open systems, and most recently as entities
capable of self-organization (Gharajedaghi, 1999). The systems philosophy
looks beyond simplistic causal views of management and the constituent parts
of organizations. It developed with the intention of acknowledging the importance
of holistic analysis rather than focusing on compartments of organizations. Thus,
organizations were seen as the sum of their parts rather than as a collection of
reduced units. The key to change for systems theorists is to first appreciate that
any imposed change has numerous and sometimes multiplied effects across an
organization, and consequently, in order for change management to be successful,
it must be introduced across the range of organizational units and sub-systems.

Systems are typically considered to be sets of objects or entities that interrelate
with each other to form a whole. These can be physical, mental or natural (Laszlo,
1972). In looking at change with a systems view, it is typically assumed that
organizations are rational and non-political entities. It is generally the systemic
approaches which take best-practice viewpoints by prescribing steps and linear
solutions. It is a holistic, integrated approach to the continuous improvement of
all aspects of an organization’s operations, which when effectively linked together
can be expected to lead to high performance (Australian Manufacturing Council,
1994; Rimmer et al., 1996). The claim that a set of best practices is universally
applicable may, however, unrealistically lead us to ignore the powerful and
highly significant changes occurring outside an organization, such as those in tech-
nology, employment and society. Critics argue that the search for sets of best prac-
tices may be important, but so is the search for where and when they might be best
applied, like the contingency philosophy advocates.

If organizations are perceived to be systems – interrelated parts that affect each
other and depend upon the whole to function properly (Hatch, 1997) – then organ-
izational change is effective only when interventions are leveled throughout the
entire system. In fact, the presumption of critical interrelationships between
parts is the unique contribution of the systems philosophy. Every system may
be characterized by two diverse forces: differentiation and integration. Organiz-
ational systems are differentiated into specialist functions (in the human body,

146 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

for example, the lungs, heart and liver are all distinct functions), like divisions and
departments for human resources, finance, operations and marketing. At the same
time, in order to maintain unity amongst the differentiated parts and to form a
complete whole, every system has a process of integration. In organizations, inte-
gration is typically achieved through coordinating devices such as levels of hier-
archy, direct supervision, and rules, procedures and policies. Every system
therefore requires differentiation to identify its sub-parts and integration to
ensure that the system does not break down into separate elements.

The systems philosophy assumes that change can be relatively fast and large
scale. This is because it implicitly requires all sub-systems in an organization to
be changed at once. Of course, this means that change is internally driven, control-
lable and certain.

The Postmodern Philosophy

The postmodern philosophy challenges singular or grand theories about organiz-
ational change, instead insisting that change is a function of socially constructed
views of reality contributed by multiple players (Buchanan, 2003). The postmo-
dern change philosophy is probably best described as one which is comfortable
with ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity and chaos, but also seeks to
take action rationally toward ongoing improvement (White and Jacques, 1995).
The notion of postmodernism accompanied the transition from industrial to
post-industrial society; from manufacturing and materials to knowledge and infor-
mation. The postmodern analysis of change finds that words, symbols and signs
are increasingly divorced from direct, real-world experience (Fox, 1996). It is a
juxtaposition of the old and new, characterized by a change management approach
that emphasizes diffusion, empowerment, flexibility, trust and market responsive-
ness (Clegg, 1992).

The postmodern philosophy views reality as multiplicitous, fragmented and
contradictory. The rational philosophy approach to change will be restricted in
its success because no one unified view of an organization’s future reality can
be communicated. Postmodernism is also deeply suspicious of the rational impo-
sition of change because it holds a particular sensitivity to power and its appli-
cation. Power is typically viewed as a mechanism for exploitation rather than a
reasonable means to achieve common goals. Embedded in the postmodern philos-
ophy is the idea that power and knowledge are intrinsically connected. This has led
to a more textured presentation of the postmodern philosophy known as discourse
analysis, heavily influenced by the work of Foucault (1980). Change is seen as a
product of ‘discourse’ within organizations and its application is the subject of sig-
nificant debate and contention (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000; Hardy et al., 2000).
Discursive analysis is concerned with the way in which language helps to reveal
social phenomena (Grant et al., 2004; Clegg et al., 2006). Discursive analysis
recognizes that language (what is written, spoken, heard and read) plays an
active role in creating our social worlds. Discourse analysis suggests that our
systems of representation help to create our social worlds where ‘reality’ itself
is a social construction. This means that the world appears different to everyone.
There is no universal way to see things, or one universal reality that all people

A Philosophies of Change Approach 147

subscribe to. For most practically-minded managers, however, the postmodern
philosophy ventures too far into the abstract and is difficult to wield without relin-
quishing the very power needed to instantiate change.

Unlike the systems perspective that encourages best practice thinking, a post-
modern analysis precludes the use of an overarching theoretical approach. As a
result, change can occur at any pace, scale, stimulus, control and level of certainty.
In fact, since there is no universal ‘truth’ or reality about anything, the mere
attempt to categorize the postmodern philosophy is inappropriate and flawed.

Dualities: Competing and Complementary Insights

The first part of this article highlighted the limitations of adopting a singular,
rational philosophy when managing the process of change, while the previous
section demonstrated that the other prominent philosophies about how change
works in organizations are similarly rigid or subject to the limitations of their prin-
ciple assumptions. At one end of the spectrum, formal, rational logic may be valu-
able in articulating a clear course of action, and in providing structure and process
to the complex task of strategy making, yet its scope is limited because inconsis-
tency and ambiguity are beyond its repertoire. At the other end, postmodern,
discursive philosophies preference individual experience and power, but are
more ambiguous when it comes to specifying practical change interventions
without falling into the power trap it eschews or encouraging anarchy. Somewhere
in the middle, the contingency philosophy has a bet each way, while on either side
theorists are inclined either towards systemic views or speak of culture as the key.
Others still suggest that acquiring resources is the crucial step for successful
change, and at the same time further commentators declare that acquiring
power is the most critical success factor to change.

How then do we turn around the way organizations, and in particular senior
management, view the process of change? Given that change is neither simple
nor straightforward, and unlikely to conform to an n-step formula, this article
has argued that a paradigmatically different sort of philosophy is needed that cap-
tures the complexities and dynamics of organizations and actively seeks out the
accumulated knowledge, skills, experience and learning of the different commu-
nities interacting in them. While reason and logic have their place, without any
counter-weight, the tendency from such a limited perspective is to pursue
change with a scientific, clinical resolve that overrides the ‘complex, emotive
and fluid character of changing’ (Badham, 2003). The latter point underlines the
true nature of organizations as dynamic, evolving entities that must be continually
changing, organizing, strategizing.

This perspective is reflective of the wider strategy-as-practice trend in strategic
management, which is concerned with how managers ‘do strategy’, or strategize
(Whittington, 1996, 2003; Hendry, 2000; Johnson et al., 2003). The view that
organization or structure is subservient to agency or strategy may be considered
an artifact of Chandlerian (Chandler, 1962) thinking, which demanded a sharp dis-
tinction between the two as different properties and processes (Whittington and
Melin, 2003). However, Whittington and Melin (2003) concluded that strategy
and organization are not distinct states. They underlined the importance of

148 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

considering the two as a single merged duality. The assumption is that a change to
organizing is a strategic change (Paroutis and Pettigrew, 2005). In addition, the
use of the terms ‘organizing’ and ‘strategizing’ is central to this proposition. As
verbs, the terms impart the importance of continuous rather than static change pro-
cesses. Organization and strategy therefore become organizing and strategizing,
wherein the former is a type of the latter and change in both is ongoing. Strategiz-
ing and organizing are neither linear nor sequential activities, but are actually
iterative and reciprocal in action (Dijksterhuis et al., 2003).

The challenge for future research is to understand and explain how organiz-
ations manage the dynamic relationship between competing philosophies of
change. Modular and ambidextrous forms of organization, which embrace hetero-
geneity, for example, might provide a sound theoretical platform. Modularity the-
orists would propose adding to or reconfiguring strategic components (Baldwin
and Clark, 2000; Galunic and Eisenhardt, 2001; Schilling and Steensma, 2001;
Pil and Cohen, 2006;). Pil and Cohen define modular systems as ‘elements or,
“modules”, that independently perform distinctive functions’ (Pil and Cohen,
2006: 997). As these are able to evolve autonomously, they do not impinge on
the system’s overall structure. Modular systems are, therefore, more resilient
and better able to manage environmental flux and uncertainty than their more
tightly coupled counterparts (Pil and Cohen, 2006). Modularity thus confers flexi-
bility as organizing components can be reconfigured, such as the selective repla-
cement of hierarchical structures with more loosely coupled forms, using tactics
such as sub-contracting, alternative work arrangements or alliances. The impor-
tant strategic decisions come in the choice of which aspect of structure should
be reconfigured and, with greater heterogeneity within the firm, more options
become available (Smith and Graetz, 2006).

Innovating organizations have also adopted ‘ambidextrous’ (O’Reilly and
Tushman, 2004) strategies where networks have been developed alongside hierar-
chies, horizontal integration has been supported while promoting upwards per-
formance accountability, and central control of strategy-making has been
maintained during decentralized operations (Sanchez-Runde and Pettigrew,
2003). Similarly, Stark (2001), proposed that adaptability is enhanced by the
organization of diversity within an enterprise. That is, diversity is organized
into an enterprise, creating a strategic orientation that is characterized by
minimal hierarchy and maximum heterogeneity. Naming this mixture a
heterarchy, Stark considered it a response to complexity in an organization’s
environment. Although institutional homogeneity can lead to adaptation in the
short-term, it can stifle diversity inside a firm, diminishing its adaptability in the
longer term (Smith and Graetz, 2006). Kraatz and Zajac’s (2001)) data indicated
that firms possessing high levels of historically valuable resources were less likely
to undertake adaptive strategic change. Thus, ostensibly efficient strategies that
copy institutional norms may restrict options for change in the medium- to
long-term (March, 1991). For example, diversity can lead to innovation while
also offering greater scope for re-deploying firm capabilities toward new targets
(Teece et al., 2004).

As Cameron and Quinn (1988: 14) argued over 20 years ago, traditional models
and theories of organization assume consistency and symmetry, yet studies

A Philosophies of Change Approach 149

suggest that ‘disconfirmation, contradiction and nonlinearity are inherent in all
organizations.’ Traditional frameworks represent change as a programmatic,
step-by-step process with a clear beginning, middle and end, largely choreo-
graphed and controlled by a transformational leader. Change within this context
is about establishing a new order. It is about setting new boundaries and putting
in place new structures, systems, processes, and often new people who personify
the new ideology. This focus on re-establishing order and stability therefore side-
steps the concept of change as a naturally occurring, ongoing phenomenon which
serves to nourish and affirm continuity. Traditional frameworks thus ignore the
complexities and contradictory nature of organizations, as well as the diverse
range of people working in them. Such a linear, simplistic approach inevitably
leads to one-dimensional thinking and, as Eisenhardt pointed out, ‘simplicity is
elegant but often untrue’ (Eisenhardt, 2000: 704). From this standpoint, ambiguity
and uncertainty are anathema. Rather than attempting to recognize and understand
the nexus between the dual perspectives as encapsulated in the change dilemmas,
traditional models concentrate on one perspective at the expense of the competing
perspective (accountability versus freedom, leadership versus empowerment,
economic versus social goals, or vice versa). Davis and Lawrence (1977: xi) high-
lighted this in their study of the centralization – decentralization debate, noting that
‘the more you realized the benefits of the one, the less you got the benefits of the
other. The dilemma of organization was the dilemma of an either-or world.’

Conclusion

By outlining the 10 philosophies, we have attempted to illustrate the distinctive
assumptions each makes into a particular situation or set of events. As Morgan
(1997) argued, this has important implications for managing organizations
because it creates different modes of engagement and provides a richer under-
standing of situations that need to be addressed, suggesting actions that otherwise
might not be considered. These different philosophies also bring into focus the
complementary and competing forces that organizations face in managing the
tension between continuity and change and how to deal with perennial issues
such as certainty/uncertainty, tight/loose control, large-/small-scale change,
slow/fast change, and external/internal stimuli.

Perhaps organizations may best be described in Swanson’s (1991) language, as
based on complementary but disjoint structures. A multi-philosophy approach
therefore recognizes the centrality of paradox in organizations, and that it is not
only possible but also desirable for two ‘inconsistent states’ to exist simul-
taneously (Eisenhardt, 2000: 703). Our argument is that rather than concentrating
on one theoretical or philosophical perspective at the expense of competing per-
spectives, the value to practice is in developing an understanding of the nexus
between multiple philosophical perspectives, their differences and commonalities.
As Hedberg et al. (1976) argued over 30 years ago, a degree of ambiguity, contra-
diction, and incoherence provides the catalyst for organizational learning, diver-
sity and renewal. The plea here, therefore, is for organizations to put in place
systems that can cope with ambiguity, ambivalence and contradiction. This
suggests that organizations must learn to manage the paradoxical tensions

150 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

between continuity and change. For example, nurturing innovation alongside
rigorous financial and operational systems; fostering empowerment through
strong and supportive leadership; considering the impact of economic realities
on social goals; and balancing formalized, central controls and policies with
decentralized decision-making that would support more flexible forms of organiz-
ing. As Lewis (2000: 760) argued, paradox offers a ‘powerful framework for
examining the impacts of plurality and change’, because paradox assists ‘under-
standings of divergent perspectives and disruptive experiences.’

Managers cannot control organizations the same way that an operator can
control a machine made of moving, but inanimate parts. The multi-philosophy
approach reinforces the need to discard assumptions about opposing values,
instead replacing them with an appreciation of complementary concepts. The
change-stability and order-flexibility paradoxes do not need to be interpreted as
uni-dimensional choices. Flexibility might be essential in a turbulent environment
in order to find new paths to innovation, but order is also necessary to ensure that
innovation is focused and relevant.

References

Alder, P. (ed.) (1992) Technology and the Future of Work (New York: Oxford

University

Press).

Alvesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2000) Varieties of discourse: on the study of organizations through discourse

analysis, Human Relations, 53(9), pp. 1125–1149.

Australian Manufacturing Council (1994) Leading the way: a study of best manufacturing practices in Australia

and New Zealand (Melbourne, Australia: Australian Manufacturing Council).

Badham, R. (2003) Living in the blender of change: the carnival of control in a culture of culture, Tamara:

Journal of critical postmodern organization science, 2(4), pp. 22–38.

Baldwin, C. and Clark, K. (2000) Design Rules: The Power of Modularity

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E. (1991) Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership (San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass).

Bridges, W. (1980) Transitions (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).

Bridges, W. (1992) Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).

Buchanan, D. (2003) Getting the story straight: illusions and delusions in the organizational change process,

Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern Organization Science, 2(4), pp. 7–21.

Burke, W. (2002) Organizational Change: Theory and Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications).

Cameron, K.S. and Quinn, R.E. (1988) Organizational paradox and transformation, in: R.E. Quinn and K.S.

Cameron (eds) Paradox and Transformation: Toward a Theory of Change in Organization and Manage-

ment, pp. 1–18 (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company).

Carnall, C.A. (1995) Managing Change in Organizations, 2nd edn (London: Prentice Hall).

Carr, D., Hard, K. and Trahant, W. (1996) Managing the Change Process: A Field Book for Change Agents,

Consultants, Team Leaders, and Reengineering Managers (New York: McGraw-Hill).

Chakravarthy, B. (1982) Adaptation: a promising metaphor for strategic management, The Academy of Manage-

ment Review, 7(1), pp. 35–44.

Chandler, A.D. (1962) Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Amercian Industrial Enterprise

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).

Child, J. (1972) Organizational structure, environment and performance: the role of strategic choice, Sociology, 6,

pp. 1–22.

Clegg, S. (1992) Postmodern management? Journal of Organizational Change Management, 5(2), pp. 31–49.

Clegg, S.R., Courpasson, D. and Phillips, N. (2006) Power and Organisations (London: Sage Publications).

Collins, D. (1998) Organizational Change: Sociological Perspectives (London: Routledge).

Collins, D. (2003) Guest editor’s introduction: re-imagining change, Tamara: Journal of Critical Postmodern

Organization Science, 2(4), pp. iv–xi.

A Philosophies of Change Approach 151

Connor, T. (2002) The resource-based view of strategy and its value to practising managers, Strategic Change,

11(6), pp. 307–316.

Davis, S.M. and Lawrence, P.R. (1977) Matrix (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley).

Dijksterhuis, M.S., Van den Bosch, F.A.J. and Volberda, H.W. (2003) A cognitive perspective on strategizing/orga-

nizing, in: A.M. Pettigrew, R. Whittington, L. Melin, C. Sanchez-Runde, F.A.J. Van Den Bosch, W. Ruigrok

and T. Numagami (eds) Innovative Forms of Organizing, pp. 95–122 (London: Sage Publications).

DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1991) Introduction, in: W.W. Powell and P.J. DiMaggio (eds) The New Institution-

alism in Organizational Analysis, pp. 1–38 (Chicago: Chicago Press, University of Chicago).

DiMaggio, P.J. and Powell, W.W. (1983) The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective ration-

ality in organizational fields, American Sociological Review, 48, pp. 147–160.

Eisenhardt, K.E. (2000) Paradox, spirals, ambivalence: the new language of change and pluralism, Academy of

Management Review, 25(4), pp. 703–705.

Evans, P. (1992) Balancing continuity and change: the constructive tension in individual and organizational

development, in: W. Bennis, R.O. Mason and I.I. Mitroff (eds) Executive and Organizational Continuity:

Managing the Paradoxes of Stability and Change, pp. 253–283 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers).

Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon).
Fox, C. (1996) Reinventing government as postmodern symbolic politics, Public Administration Review, 56(3),

pp. 256–262.

Galunic, D.C. and Eisenhardt, K.M. (2001) Architectural innovation and modular corporate forms, Academy of

Management Journal, 44(6), pp. 1229–1249.

Gettler, L. (2008) Born again, AFRBoss, July, pp. 36–39.

Gharajedaghi, J. (1999) Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business

Architecture (Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heineman).

Giddens, A. (1981) A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (London: Macmillan).

Grant, R.M., Hardy, C., Oswick, C. and Putman, L. (2004) The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse

(London: Sage).

Gray, J. (2008) Bound for Rio. AFR Magazine, 28 November, pp. 27–31.

Green, C. and Ruhleder, K. (1995) Metaphors gone awry: globalization, borderless worlds, and the Tower of

Babel, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 8(4), pp. 55–68.

Grey, C. (2003) The fetish of change, Tamara, Journal of Critical postmodern Organization Science, 2(2),

pp. 1–19.

Grundy, T. (1992) Implementing Strategic Change (London: Kogan Page).

Hammer, M. and Champy, J. (1993) Reengineering the Corporation (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing).

Hannan, M. and Freeman, F. (1977) The population ecology of organizations, American Journal of Sociology, 82,

pp. 929–964.

Hardy, C., Palmer, I. and Phillips, N. (2000) Discourse as a strategic resource, Human Relations, 53(9),

pp. 1227–1248.

Hatch, M. (1997) Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Postmodern Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford

University Press).

Hedberg, B., Nystrom, P. and Starbuck, W.H. (1976) Camping on seesaws: prescriptions for a self designing

organization, Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, pp. 41–65.

Hendry, J. (2000) Strategic decision making: discourse and strategy as social practice, Journal of Management

Studies, 37, pp. 955–977.

Huber, G. and Glick, W. (eds) (1995) Organizational Change and Redesign: Ideas and Insights for Improving

Performance (New York: Oxford University Press).

Hughes, A. (2008) Cyclone Mary, AFRBoss, October, pp. 48–50.

Iacovini, J. (1993) The human side of organization change, Training and Development, pp. 65–68.

Jick, T.D. (1990) Note: the recipients of change. Harvard Business School 9-491-039, Harvard Business School

Press, Boston, MA.

Johnson, G., Melin, L. and Whittington, R. (2003) Micro strategy and strategizing: towards an activity-based

view, Journal of Management Studies, 40(1), pp. 3–22.

Kanter, R.M., Stein, B.A. and Jick, T.D. (1992) The Challenge of Organizational Change (New York: The Free

Press).

Kezar, A. (2000) Understanding and Facilitating Change in Higher Education in the 21st Century (Washington

DC: Jossey-Bass).

Kotter, J.P. (1990) What leaders really do, Harvard Business Review, May – June, pp. 103–111.

152 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

Kotter, J.P. (1995) Leading change: why transformation efforts fail, Harvard Business Review, May – June,

pp. 59–67.

Kraatz, M. and Zajac, E. (2001) How organizational resources affect strategic change and performance in turbu-

lent environments: theory and evidence, Organization Science, 12(5), pp. 632–657.

Kubler-Ross, E. (1973) On Death and Dying (London: Tavistock Publications).

Kuhn, A. (1974) The Logic of Social Systems (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers).

Laszlo, E. (1972) The Systems View of the World: The Natural Philosophy of the New Developments in the

Sciences (New York: G. Braziller).

Leana, C.R. and Barry, B. (2000) Stability and change as simultaneous experiences in organizational life,

Academy of Management Review, 25(4), pp. 753–759.

Levy, A. and Merry, U. (1986) Organizational Transformation: Approaches, Strategies, Theories (New York:

Praeger).

Lewin, A.Y. and Volberda, H.W. (1999) Prolegomena on coevolution: a framework for research on strategy and

new organizational forms, Organization Science, 10(5), pp. 519–534.

Lewin, K. (1947) Frontiers in group dynamics: concept, method and reality in social sciences: social equilibria

and social change, Human Relations, 1, pp. 5–41.

Lewis, M.W. (2000) Exploring paradox: toward a more comprehensive guide, Academy of Management Review,

25(4), pp. 760–776.

March, J.G. (1991) Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning, Organization Science, 2(1),

pp. 71–87.

McKelvey, W. and Aldrich, H. (1983) Populations, natural selection and applied organizational science, Admin-

istrative Science Quarterly, 28, pp. 101–128.

McLoughlin, I. and Clark, J. (1988) Technological Change at Work (UK: Open University Press).

Meyer, H.-D. and Rowan, B. (2006) The New Institutionalism in Education (Albury: SUNY Press).

Morgan, G. (1986) Images of Organization (London: Sage Publications).

Nadler, D.A. and Tushman, M.L. (1989) Organizational frame bending: principles for managing reorientation,

The Academy of Management Executive, III(3), pp. 194–204.

O’Reilly, C.A. and Tushman, M.L. (2004) The ambidextrous organization, Harvard Business Review, April,

pp. 74–81.

Oztel, H. and Hinz, O. (2001) Changing organizations with metaphors, The Learning Organization, 8(4),

pp. 153–158.

Palmer, I. and Dunford, R. (1996) Conflicting uses of metaphors: reconceptualizing their use in the field of organ-

izational change, The Academy of Management Review, 21(3), pp. 691–717.

Paroutis, S. and Pettigrew, A. (2005) Studying strategizing and organizing within the multibusiness firm: capa-

bilities, evidence and learning, Organization Studies. Summer Workshop on ‘Theorizing Process in Organ-

izational Research’, Santorini, Greece.

Pettigrew, A. (1979) On studying organizational cultures, Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, pp. 570–581.

Pfeffer, J. (1982) Organizations and Organizations Theory (Boston: Pitman).

Pfeffer, J. and Salancik, G.R. (1978) The External Control of Organizations. A Resource Dependence Perspective

(New York: Harper & Row).

Pil, F.K. and Cohen, S.K. (2006) Modularity: implications for imitation, innovation, and sustained advantage,

Academy of Management Review, 31(4), pp. 995–1011.

Rimmer, M., Macneil, J., Chenhall, R., Langfield-Smith, K. and Watts, L. (1996) Reinventing Competitiveness

(Melbourne: Pitman Publishing).

Sanchez-Runde, C.J. and Pettigrew, A.M. (2003) Managing dualities, in: A.M. Pettigrew, R.I. Whittington,

L. Melin, C. Sanchez-Runde, F.A.J. Van Den Bosch, W. Ruigrok and T. Numagami (eds) Innovative

Forms of Organizing, pp. 243 – 250 (London: Sage Publications).

Schein, E. (1979) Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

Schein, E. (1984) Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

Schein, E. (1985) Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View (San Francisco: Jossey Bass).

Schein, E. (1993) On dialogue, culture and organizational learning, Organizational Dynamics, 20, pp. 40–51.

Schein, E. (1997) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd edn (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

Schilling, M.A. and Steensma, H. (2001) The use of modular organizational forms: an industry-level analysis,

Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), pp. 1149–1168.

Smith, A. and Graetz, F. (2006) Organizing dualities and strategizing for change, Strategic Change, 15,

pp. 231–239.

A Philosophies of Change Approach 153

Smith, K. and Berg, D. (1987) Paradoxes of Group Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

Stark, D. (2001) Ambiguous assets for uncertain environments: heterarchy in postsocialist firms, in: P. Dimaggio

(ed) The Twenty-first Century Firm, pp. 69–104 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Stuart, R. (1995) The research context and change triggers, Personnel Review, 24(2), pp. 3–88.

Swanson, D. (1991) Complementary structures in disjoint science literatures. Paper presented at the Proceedings

of the 14th Annual International ACM/SIGIR Conference, New York.
Teece, D.J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A. (2004) Dynamic capabilities and strategic management, in: M.L. Tushman

and P. Anderson (eds) Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, 2nd edn, pp. 308–332 (Oxford: Oxford

University Press).

Van de Ven, A. and Drazin, R (1985) The concept of fit in contingency theory, in: L. Cummings and B. Staw (eds)

Research in Organizational Behavior, 7, pp. 333–365 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press).

Van de Ven, A. and Poole, M. (1995) Explaining development and change in organizations, The Academy of Man-

agement Review, 20(3), pp. 510–540.

White, R.F. and Jacques, R. (1995) Operationalising the postmodernity construct for efficient organizational

change management, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 8, pp. 45–71.

Whittington, R. (1996) Strategy as practice, Long Range Planning, 29(5), pp. 731–735.

Whittington, R. (2003) The work of strategizing and organizing: for a practice perspective, Strategic Organiz-

ation, 1(1), pp. 119–127.

Whittington, R. and Melin, L. (2003) The challenge of organizing/strategizing, in: A.M. Pettigrew, R. Whitting-
ton, L. Melin, C. Sanchez-Runde, F.A.J. Van Den Bosch, W. Ruigrok and T. Numagami (eds) Innovative

Forms of Organizing, pp. 35–48 (London: Sage Publications).

Williams, R. (2008) The big South African, Good Weekend, July 26, pp. 18–24.

Witt, U. (2004) The evolutionary perspective on organizational change and the theory of the firm, 3rd ETE work-

shop, Sophia-Antipolis, January 29 – 30, pp. 1–23.

Wood, T. (2002) Spectacular metaphors: from theatre to cinema, Journal of Organizational Change Manage-

ment, 15(1), pp. 11–20.

154 F. Graetz & A.C.T. Smith

Copyright of Journal of Change Management is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or

emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission.

However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

RESOURCES

D esigning fo r Change
M a r y A n n e M . G o b b le

As the articles in this special issue illus­
trate, successful culture change can re­
make a company’s fortunes. It’s often
easy to determine that cultural change
is needed. A platform is burning, a
m arket is shrinking, customers are
disappearing, the R&D pipeline is
withering—clearly, something needs to
change if the organization is to survive.
Sometimes, there’s a more positive
driver: a radical innovation demands a
new business model, a different market,
an entirely original approach.

Occasionally, a portfolio analysis
like the one described by Smith and
Sonnenblick in a 2013 RTM article sug­
gests that, while the company is fine at
the moment, a new outlook is needed
to meet coming challenges. Or a futures
exercise helps the company see that it
needs to prepare for a very different fu­
ture from the one it has assumed is
coming. Indeed, as Carleton, Cockayne,
and Tahvanainen argue in their Play-
book for Strategic Foresight and Innovation,
developing such a program can help an
organization to maintain a future orien­
tation and avoid becoming mired in
what Christian Crews calls, in his
inaugural column in this issue, an

In this space, we offer a series o f summaries on
key topics, with pointers to im portant resources,
to keep you informed o f new developments and
help you expand your repertoire of tools and
ideas. We welcome your contributions, in the
form o f suggestions fo r topics and of column
submissions.

DOI: 10.5437/08956308X5803005

“official future” that blinds the organi­
zation to unexpected shifts in the envi­
ronment. Shell’s longstanding scenarios
program, described by Wilkinson and
Kupers in their HBR article “Living in
the Futures,” is an example of how an
ongoing futures effort can help a com­
pany envision, and prepare for, chal­
lenges just over the horizon.

What’s hard is asking the second set
of questions. You know you need to
be more agile, more innovative, more
forward-looking—but what does that
look like? How do you design the orga­
nization you need to support the change
you need? Plenty of books and articles
provide high-level models for the kinds
of organizations that excel. Tushman
and O’Reilly’s thinking about the of am­
bidextrous organizations to balance
breakthrough innovation with sustain­
ing work; Reis’s ideas about how his
lean management model, adapted from
the startup world, can help big compa­
nies be more agile; and Kim and
Mauborgne’s focus on creating new
markets through increased differentia­
tion and value innovation all offer keen
insight, and solid foundations for driv­
ing organizational change.

But those high-level views need to
be supported by concrete, street-level
structures that integrate the various
components of the organization and
harness the energy for change in a way
that matches outputs to strategy—and
creates value. Creating those structures
and determining how they relate to

each other is the role of organizational
design.

Unfortunately, for many managers,
organizational design begins and ends
with the “org chart”—that construction
of boxes and lines that defines who re­
ports to whom, and about what. The
org chart is a useful map of the lines of
authority and responsibility in a con­
ventional hierarchical organization; it
emanates from the same source as
the assembly line and is designed to ac­
complish much the same thing—to
modularize and systematize work for
maximum efficiency. Of course, much
like the assembly line, it assumes that
little changes; the line produces the
same product over and over again, the
organization follows the same processes
to manufacture its products, respond to
its customers, and sustain itself.

Designing to support change, or even
just to survive in an increasingly dy­
namic and complex competitive envi­
ronment, means more than moving
around the boxes on the org chart. In­
deed, some of the flatter, more collab­
orative models that have emerged
render the traditional org chart largely
meaningless. Rather, the manager faced
with designing for change must rethink
all of the elements of the organizational
structure and how they interact. A
structure that is misaligned to strategy,
or aligned to an old strategy, will fail. A
structure that doesn’t balance auton­
omy and control in a way that aligns
with the company’s strategy and values

64 | Research-Technology Management • May— June 2015

will produce frustration and unhappi­
ness, and likely fail.

One way to avoid such mismatches is
to involve every stakeholder—from the
front-line clerk to the C-suite—in the
design process. Participatory design,
also known as cooperative design, offers
one method for allowing the members
of an organization to structure their
work and their workspace. Marvin
Weisbord’s Productive Workplaces de­
scribes how “getting everybody improv­
ing the whole system” can produce
more open, agile organizations that, not
coincidentally, respect the autonomy
and dignity of workers.

Nadler and Tushman argue in in
Competing by Design that organizational
design can itself be a source of competi­
tive advantage, if it works to maximize
a company’s capabilities and exploit its
strengths. Given its power, the authors
argue, organizational design should be
an integral, and ongoing, process in ev­
ery forward-looking organization.

There are a number of frameworks
available for thinking about organi­
zational structure and design. Jay
Galbraith, a leader in the field of orga­
nizational design, proposes a Star Model
that maps the interactions among five
factors:
• Strategy, which provides direction

for the other elements.
• Structure policies, which determine

where power and authority lie as
well as the degree of specialization
and centralization.

• Process definitions, which map how
information and decisions flow.

• Reward systems, which are designed
to motivate people to act in ways
that further the strategic direction.

• People policies, which govern re­
cruitment, training and other HR
functions.

The Bridgespan Group, which provides
management advice to nonprofits, of­
fers a slightly different framework,
adapted from a Bain & Company tool­
kit, that breaks organizational design
into four elements—leadership, deci­
sion making and structure, people, and
work processes and systems—interacting
around culture in a wheel. The wheel­
shaped presentation emphasizes the de­
gree to which all of the elements must

IN PRINT
Richard M. Burton, Borge Obel, and Gerardine DeSanctis. 2011. Organizational
Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Christian Crews. 2015. Killing the official future. Future Praxis. Research-Technology
Management 58(3): 59-60.

Jay Galbraith. 2014. Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at
the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels. New York: Jossey-Bass.

Gregory Kesler and Amy Kates. 2010. Leading Organization Design: How to
Make Organization Design Decisions to Drive the Results You Want. New York:
Josse-Bass.

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. 2015. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create
Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Expanded Edi­
tion. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

David Nadler and Michael Tushman. 1997. Competing by Design: The Power o f
Organizational Architecture. New York: Oxford University Press.

Eric Ries. 2011. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use C ontinu­
ous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Crown
Business.

Dan Smith and Richard Sonnenblick. 2013. From budget-based to strategy-based
portfolio management: A six-year case study. Research-Technology Management
56(5): 45-51.

Naomi Stanford. 2007. Guide to Organisation Design: Creating High-Performing
and Adaptable Enterprises. An Economist Guide. London, UK: Profile Books.

Michael Tushman and Charles O’Reilly III. 2002. Winning through Innovation: A
Practical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal. Revised Edition.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Marvin Weisbord. 2012. Productive Workplaces: Dignity, Meaning, and Commu­
nity in the 21st Century. 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

ONLINE
John Beeson. 2014. Five questions every leader should ask about organiza­
tional design. Harvard Business Review, January 23. https://hbr.org/2014/01/
five-questions-every-leader-should-ask-about-organizational-design

Bridgespan Group. 2009. Designing an Effective Organization Structure. Pre­
sentation, January, http://w ww .bridgespan.org/getm edia/b1139597-adfe-4dd7-
bbb2-ac8c67883020/effective-organizations„-structural-design .aspx

Tamara Carleton, William Cockayne, and Antti-Jussi Tahvanainen. 2013. Playbook
for Strategic Foresight and Innovation: A Hands-On Guide for Modeling, De­
signing, and Leading Your Company’s Next Radical Innovation. Helsinki, Finland:
Tekes. https://www.box.eom/s/59y1940p88y0srvroiid

Jay R. Galbraith, n.d. The Star Model, http://www.jaygalbraith.com/im ages/pdfs/
StarModel

M ind Tools. 2015. Organization design: Aligning organizational structure with
business goals. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_95.htm

Charles A. O’Reilly and Michael L. Tushman. 2004. The ambidextrous organiza­
tion. Harvard Business Review 82(4). https://hbr.org/2004/04/the-ambidextrous-
organization

Lex Sisney. 2012. The 5 classic mistakes in organizational structure: Or, how to
design your organization the right way. Organizational Physics, January 9. h ttp ://
organizationalphysics.com/2012/01/09/the-5-classic-mistakes-in-organizational-
structure-or-how-to-design-your-organization-the-right-way/

Angela Wilkinson and Roland Kupers. 2013. Living in the futures. Harvard Busi­
ness Review 91 (5). https://hbr.org/2013/05/living-in-the-futures

Resources May— June 2015 | 65

https://hbr.org/2014/01/

http://www.bridgespan.org/getmedia/b1139597-adfe-4dd7-bbb2-ac8c67883020/effective-organizations%e2%80%9e-structural-design .aspx

http://www.bridgespan.org/getmedia/b1139597-adfe-4dd7-bbb2-ac8c67883020/effective-organizations%e2%80%9e-structural-design .aspx

https://www.box.eom/s/59y1940p88y0srvroiid

http://www.jaygalbraith.com/images/pdfs/

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_95.htm

https://hbr.org/2004/04/the-ambidextrous-organization

https://hbr.org/2004/04/the-ambidextrous-organization

https://hbr.org/2013/05/living-in-the-futures

fit together to keep the organization
running.

Lex Sisney, author of Organizational
Physics, lays out three highly abbreviated
steps for building an organization design:

• Identify the core functions needed
to support the strategy.

• Define w hat each function is account­
able for and how it will be measured.

• Place the functions in a structure.

The result is a structural diagram that
may look like a traditional org chart, but
has a different intent. Where the org
chart maps reporting lines betw een
people, the structural diagram maps
w hat functions need to be performed
and w here responsibility for those func­
tions lie. The org chart emerges from
the structural diagram. There’s a lot
implied in that high-level process, but
Sisney’s very comprehensive blog post
offers a well-explained before-and-after
example illustrating his points.

As John Beeson notes in a 2014 HBR
article, organizational design is fre­
quently the province of consultants,
and every consultant has his or her own
model or framework. But, Beeson ar­
gues, organizational design has evolved
from a “big bang event,” most often as­
sociated with significant downsizing, to
an ongoing process of continual adjust­
ments to improve efficiency and spur
growth. That m eans every m anager has
to deal with, and every m anager should
have a model for approaching it. For
Beeson, it doesn’t much m atter what
model, as long as it helps you to address
five key questions:

• W hat is the business’s value propo­
sition and sources of competitive
advantage?

• Which activities directly deliver on
th at value proposition?

• Which structure should we choose
and how do we overcome its in h er­
ent downsides?

• W hat type of leadership and culture
are required to deliver the value
proposition?

• W hat organizational practices are
required to reinforce the organiza­
tional intent?

There are, of course, some more-or-less
standard structures used by many

organizations, including traditional h i­
erarchical structures, as well as more
organic variations such as matrix and
netw ork structures; each varies in terms
of the level of complexity, formality,
and inclusiveness it allows and in how
communication occurs. A Mind Tools
survey article on organization design of­
fers a useful sum m ary and comparison
of each of these models (as well as a
good introduction to the basic principles
of organizational design).

For those seeking a m ore systematic
introduction to the discipline of organi­
zational design, along with frameworks,
tools, and processes for u n d erta k in g
a stru ctu ra l redesign process, th ere
are several options. Burton, Obel, and
DeSandis offer a primer on the basics of
organizational design and a step-by-step
process for structural design. Stanford
offers an overview of the field and an
approach structured around five core
principles in the Economist’s Guide to Or­
ganisation Design. Kesler and Kates offer
their own “scalable, five-step process”
for organization design, directed specifi­
cally at business leaders. Any of these will
provide a solid overview of the field along
with some tools for engaging with it.

Organizational design may seem
m undane, but it is every bit as critical as
the big work of culture change. As Lex
Sisney, author of Organizational Physics,
put it in a blog post, “how your organi­
zation is designed determines how it
performs.” How an organization is
structured will determ ine how it re ­
sponds to changes in its environm ent.
An organization’s structure m ay n u r­
ture or inhibit innovation. W here the
structure runs counter to the strategy,
people will become frustrated and aban­
don change in favor of the path of least
resistance.

Reviews
The Big Data-Driven Business: How
to Use Big Data to Win Customers,
Beat Competitors, and Boost Profits
Russell Glass and Sean Callahan
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2014)

Although big data has become a perva­
sive buzzword, few businesses fully u n ­
derstand w hat exactly big data is or how

it can be leveraged to support growth
and innovation. Russell Glass and Sean
Callahan attem pt to address these issues
and deconstruct the dauntingly com­
plex notion of harnessing big data for
business applications. Glass and Callahan
are pioneers in this field, having de­
ployed big data strategies to grow Bizo,
a business-to-business marketing com ­
pany, until its acquisition by Linkedln
for $175 million. Both are now at
Linkedln; Glass is the head of marketing
products and Callahan is a senior m a n ­
ager of content marketing. The authors
give readers an insider’s look at how big
data can be used by laying out the avail­
able technologies and their im plem en­
tation and showing how a new com er
can deploy big data tools for business
goals.

Beginning with a simple idea—that
“the companies that most effectively
use big data to gain insight into their
customers and act on that data will
win”—the authors conclude that m od­
ern businesses should “be data-driven
and customer focused.” The notion that
a business should be customer focused
is hardly novel, but historically it has
been difficult and expensive merely to
collect and store the data needed to
glean transformative insights—let alone
perform the analyses that lead to these
insights. The advent of inexpensive
large-scale data storage and advanced
analytics capabilities is quickly eroding
this barrier, making it possible for busi­
nesses to im plement a data-driven ap­
proach across the organization. Big data
analytics can provide new insights in
the form of m ore focused information
about w hat customers like and what
m akes them buy—leading to m ore-
informed decisions about, for instance,
w hat could be optimized in the pipeline.
Coupled with existing data and re ­
sources, big data can be used to gener­
ate and score new leads for sales, inform
product development, and provide a
hyper-focus on customers—potentially
all in real time.

These benefits are not restricted to
business-to-consumer companies; the
authors provide several examples of
business-to-business applications. For
instance, they describe how DocuSign,
which provides solutions to manage

6 6 | Research-Technology Management Resources

Copyright of Research Technology Management is the property of Industrial Research
Institute, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a
listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print,
download, or email articles for individual use.

PAGE

Writing Style Prose

Michael Anonymous

Walden University

This paper contains improper writing formats. As I pretend I am an instructor, I will use the Track Changes feature of my Word document tool, and I will use my Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) text as my guide to identify the errors within this paper. Some of the common things I should look for include: (a) anthropomorphisms, (b) improper citation formats, (c) passive voice, (d) improperly formatted reference list, (e) improperly APA formatted paper, and (f) seriation issues, among other errors.

Pursuing a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Degree is a journey that provides an opportunity for both personal and professional growth. The writing of this paper is occurring during a time when the United States is in an economic crisis. Research studies (Curtis, 2014; Williams, 2014Schildkraut, 2014, , Zack, 2015, Adelino, 2014) regarding foreclosures; other research studies (Jurinski, 2016; Ryan, 2014) concerning the decline in small business startups, and scholarly dialogue (Atkinson, 2012; crossley, 2014; Jin, 2014; Jolly, 2015; McGuinness, 2014) regarding job loss and its effects on various aspects of life are affecting the economy. In fact, the state of the economy has therefore caused many individuals to return to higher educational institutions for the purpose of enhancing their professional skills and expanding their horizons. For some who have taken on the challenge of completing a doctoral degree, they struggle to understand the appropriate scholarly writing prose expected by their selected educational institution academicians. In fact, writing at the doctoral level presents a unique set of challenges. Much has been written about research methods and designs (Moustakas, 1994; Yin, 2014; Zikmund, 2013) and how to structure dissertations and research studies. Laboratories for practicing scholarly writing prose are nonexistent and doctoral students practice in the natural classroom setting. I realize like some doctoral students I may struggle to understand the appropriate steps to take when developing my scholarly writing prose. In fact, the anxiety of beginning the DBA journey, focusing on my writing prose, and understanding the various phases of the doctoral program are a bit overwhelming. However, I will overcome my anxiety as I must prioritize those things I find require strengthening, and my scholarly writing prose is primary. I began perusing the Walden University Writing Center and I found common APA nuances that, if understood and applied, will enhance my scholarly writing prose. Below are those APA nuances.

1. Use the proper basic document template thus resulting in correct (e.g. fonts, line spacing, margins, and punctuation) formatting.

2. Apply properly formatted citations.

3. Properly format my reference list.

4. Minimize the use of passive voice.

5. Apply capitalizations properly.

6. Use non-biased language.

Having taking this initial step will help minimize my anxiety and prepare me for this exciting doctoral journey.

References

A. Jolly, N. (2015). Geographic Mobility and the Costs of Job Loss. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 15(4), 1793–1829. doi:10.1515/bejeap-2014-0131

Atkinson, R. D. (2012). u.s. manufacturing: DECLINE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS. Economic Development Journal, 11(3), 5–11.

Adelino, M., Gerardi, K., & Willen, P. (2014). Identifying the Effect of Securitization on Foreclosure and Modification Rates Using Early Payment Defaults. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics, 49(3), 352–378. doi:10.1007/s11146-013-9433-0

Crossley, T. F., & Low, H. W. (2014). Job loss, credit constraints, and consumption growth. Review of Economics & Statistics, 96(5), 876–884. doi:10.1162/REST_a_00417

Curtis, Q. (2014). State foreclosure laws and mortgage origination in the subprime. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics, 49(3), 303–328. doi:10.1007/s11146-013-9437-9

Jin, H., Birkenmaier, J., & Youngmi, K. (2014). Job loss and unmet health care needs in the economic recession: Different associations by family income. American Journal of Public Health, 104(11), e178–e183. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.301998

Jurinski, J. J., Down, J., & Kolay, M. (2016). Helping older, encore entrepreneurs anticipate financial risks. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 70(1), 81–90.

McGuinness, S., Wooden, M., & Hahn, M. (2014). The perceived probability of job loss and future labour market outcomes. Industrial Relations Journal, 45(4), 329–347. doi:10.1111/irj.12061

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Ryan, B. (2014). Starved of financing, new businesses are in decline. Gallup Business Journal, 1.

Schildkraut, J., & Mustaine, E. E. (2014). Movin’, but not up to the east side: Foreclosures and social disorganization in Orange County, Florida. Housing Studies, 29(2), 177–197. doi:10.1080/02673037.2014.848263

Williams, S., Galster, G., & Verma, N. (2014). Home foreclosures and neighborhood crime dynamics. Housing Studies, 29(3), 380–406. doi:10.1080/02673037.2013.803041

Zacks, E. A., & Zacks, D. A. (2015). A standing question: mortgages, assignment, and foreclosure. Journal of Corporation Law, 40(3), 705–737s.

Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods. Mason, Ohio: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

PAGE

Writing Style Prose

Michael Anonymous

Walden University

This paper contains improper writing formats. As I pretend I am an instructor, I will use the Track Changes feature of my Word document tool, and I will use my Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) text as my guide to identify the errors within this paper. Some of the common things I should look for include: (a) anthropomorphisms, (b) improper citation formats, (c) passive voice, (d) improperly formatted reference list, (e) improperly APA formatted paper, and (f) seriation issues, among other errors.

Pursuing a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Degree is a journey that provides an opportunity for both personal and professional growth. The writing of this paper is occurring during a time when the United States is in an economic crisis. Research studies (Curtis, 2014; Williams, 2014Schildkraut, 2014, , Zack, 2015, Adelino, 2014) regarding foreclosures; other research studies (Jurinski, 2016; Ryan, 2014) concerning the decline in small business startups, and scholarly dialogue (Atkinson, 2012; crossley, 2014; Jin, 2014; Jolly, 2015; McGuinness, 2014) regarding job loss and its effects on various aspects of life are affecting the economy. In fact, the state of the economy has therefore caused many individuals to return to higher educational institutions for the purpose of enhancing their professional skills and expanding their horizons. For some who have taken on the challenge of completing a doctoral degree, they struggle to understand the appropriate scholarly writing prose expected by their selected educational institution academicians. In fact, writing at the doctoral level presents a unique set of challenges. Much has been written about research methods and designs (Moustakas, 1994; Yin, 2014; Zikmund, 2013) and how to structure dissertations and research studies. Laboratories for practicing scholarly writing prose are nonexistent and doctoral students practice in the natural classroom setting. I realize like some doctoral students I may struggle to understand the appropriate steps to take when developing my scholarly writing prose. In fact, the anxiety of beginning the DBA journey, focusing on my writing prose, and understanding the various phases of the doctoral program are a bit overwhelming. However, I will overcome my anxiety as I must prioritize those things I find require strengthening, and my scholarly writing prose is primary. I began perusing the Walden University Writing Center and I found common APA nuances that, if understood and applied, will enhance my scholarly writing prose. Below are those APA nuances.

1. Use the proper basic document template thus resulting in correct (e.g. fonts, line spacing, margins, and punctuation) formatting.

2. Apply properly formatted citations.

3. Properly format my reference list.

4. Minimize the use of passive voice.

5. Apply capitalizations properly.

6. Use non-biased language.

Having taking this initial step will help minimize my anxiety and prepare me for this exciting doctoral journey.

References

A. Jolly, N. (2015). Geographic Mobility and the Costs of Job Loss. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 15(4), 1793–1829. doi:10.1515/bejeap-2014-0131

Atkinson, R. D. (2012). u.s. manufacturing: DECLINE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS. Economic Development Journal, 11(3), 5–11.

Adelino, M., Gerardi, K., & Willen, P. (2014). Identifying the Effect of Securitization on Foreclosure and Modification Rates Using Early Payment Defaults. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics, 49(3), 352–378. doi:10.1007/s11146-013-9433-0

Crossley, T. F., & Low, H. W. (2014). Job loss, credit constraints, and consumption growth. Review of Economics & Statistics, 96(5), 876–884. doi:10.1162/REST_a_00417

Curtis, Q. (2014). State foreclosure laws and mortgage origination in the subprime. Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics, 49(3), 303–328. doi:10.1007/s11146-013-9437-9

Jin, H., Birkenmaier, J., & Youngmi, K. (2014). Job loss and unmet health care needs in the economic recession: Different associations by family income. American Journal of Public Health, 104(11), e178–e183. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.301998

Jurinski, J. J., Down, J., & Kolay, M. (2016). Helping older, encore entrepreneurs anticipate financial risks. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 70(1), 81–90.

McGuinness, S., Wooden, M., & Hahn, M. (2014). The perceived probability of job loss and future labour market outcomes. Industrial Relations Journal, 45(4), 329–347. doi:10.1111/irj.12061

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Ryan, B. (2014). Starved of financing, new businesses are in decline. Gallup Business Journal, 1.

Schildkraut, J., & Mustaine, E. E. (2014). Movin’, but not up to the east side: Foreclosures and social disorganization in Orange County, Florida. Housing Studies, 29(2), 177–197. doi:10.1080/02673037.2014.848263

Williams, S., Galster, G., & Verma, N. (2014). Home foreclosures and neighborhood crime dynamics. Housing Studies, 29(3), 380–406. doi:10.1080/02673037.2013.803041

Zacks, E. A., & Zacks, D. A. (2015). A standing question: mortgages, assignment, and foreclosure. Journal of Corporation Law, 40(3), 705–737s.

Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods. Mason, Ohio: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

1

Title of the Paper in Full Goes Here

Student Name Here

Walden University

Abstract

Abstracts are not required for all course papers. Please ask your instructor if you have questions regarding whether an abstract is required for a particular assignment.

Title of the Paper in Full Goes Here

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 1 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 2 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Another Level 2 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 3 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 4 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 4 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 3 heading.
AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

Level 1 Heading

AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz. AAA bbb cccc dddd eeee ffff gggg hhhh iiii jjjj kkkk llll mmmm nnnn oooo pppp qqqq rrrr sssss tttt uuuu vvvv wwww xxxx yyyy zzzz.

References

(Please note that the following references are intended as examples only.)

Alexander, G., & Bonaparte, N. (2008). My way or the highway that I built. Ancient Dictators, 25(7), 14-31. doi:10.8220/CTCE.52.1.23-91

Babar, E. (2007). The art of being a French elephant. Adventurous Cartoon Animals, 19, 4319-4392. Retrieved from http://www.elephants104.ace.org

Bumstead, D. (2009). The essentials: Sandwiches and sleep. Journals of Famous Loafers, 5, 565-582. doi:12.2847/CEDG.39.2.51-71

Hansel, G., & Gretel, D. (1973). Candied houses and unfriendly occupants. Thousand Oaks, CA: Fairy Tale Publishing.

Hera, J. (2008). Why Paris was wrong. Journal of Greek Goddess Sore Spots, 20(4), 19-21. doi: 15.555/GGE.64.1.76-82

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2007). How to cite a video: The city is always Baltimore [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Name of program [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://www.courseurl.com

Sinatra, F. (2008). Zing! Went the strings of my heart. Making Good Songs Great, 18(3), 31-22. Retrieved from http://articlesextollingrecordingsofyore.192/fs.com

Smasfaldi, H., Wareumph, I., Aeoli, Q., Rickies, F., Furoush, P., Aaegrade, V., … Fiiel, B. (2005). The art of correcting surname mispronunciation. New York, NY: Supportive Publisher Press. Retrieved from http://www.onewaytociteelectronicbooksperAPA7.02.com

White, S., & Red, R. (2001). Stop and smell the what now? Floral arranging for beginners (Research Report No. 40-921). Retrieved from University of Wooded Glen, Center for Aesthetic Improvements in Fairy Tales website: http://www.uwg.caift/~40_921

CHANGE AGENTS, NETWORKS, AND INSTITUTIONS:
A CONTINGENCY THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

JULIE BATTILANA
Harvard University

TIZIANA CASCIARO
University of Toronto

We develop a contingency theory for how structural closure in a network, defined as
terms of the extent to which an actor’s network contacts are connected to one another,
affects the initiation and adoption of change in organizations. Using longitudinal
survey data supplemented with eight in-depth case studies, we analyze 68 organiza-
tional change initiatives undertaken in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.
We show that low levels of structural closure (i.e., “structural holes”) in a change
agent’s network aid the initiation and adoption of changes that diverge from the
institutional status quo but hinder the adoption of less divergent changes.

Scholars have long recognized the political na-
ture of change in organizations (Frost & Egri, 1991;
Pettigrew, 1973; Van de Ven & Poole, 1995). To
implement planned organizational changes—that
is, premeditated interventions intended to modify
the functioning of an organization (Lippitt, 1958)—
change agents may need to overcome resistance
from other members of their organization and en-
courage them to adopt new practices (Kanter, 1983;
Van de Ven, 1986). Change implementation within
an organization can thus be conceptualized as an
exercise in social influence, defined as the alteration
of an attitude or behavior by one actor in response to
another actor’s actions (Marsden & Friedkin, 1993).

Research on organizational change has improved
understanding of the challenges inherent in change
implementation, but it has not accounted system-
atically for how characteristics of a change initia-
tive affect its adoption in organizations. Not all

organizational changes are equivalent, however.
One important dimension along which they vary is
the extent to which they break with existing insti-
tutions in a field of activity (Battilana, 2006; Green-
wood & Hinings, 2006). Existing institutions are
defined as patterns that are so taken-for-granted
that actors perceive them as the only possible ways
of acting and organizing (Douglas, 1986). Consider
the example of medical professionalism, the insti-
tutionalized template for organizing in the United
Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) in the
early 2000s. According to this template, physicians
are the key decision makers in both the administra-
tive and clinical domains. In this context, central-
izing information to enable physicians to better
control patient discharge decisions would be
aligned with the institutionalized template. By con-
trast, implementing nurse-led discharge or pread-
mission clinics would diverge from the institu-
tional status quo by transferring clinical tasks and
decision-making authority from physicians to
nurses. Organizational changes may thus converge
with or diverge from an institutional status quo
(Amis, Slack, & Hinings, 2004; D’Aunno, Succi, &
Alexander, 2000; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996).
Changes that diverge from the status quo, hereafter
referred to as divergent organizational changes, are
particularly challenging to implement. They re-
quire change agents to distance themselves from
their existing institutions and persuade other or-
ganization members to adopt practices that not
only are new, but also break with the norms of their
institutional environment (Battilana, Leca, & Box-
enbaum, 2009; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996; Kel-
logg, 2011).

We would like to thank Wenpin Tsai and three anon-
ymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier
versions of this article. We also wish to acknowledge the
helpful comments we received from Jeffrey Alexander,
Michel Anteby, Joel Baum, Peter Bracken, Thomas
d’Aunno, Stefan Dimitriadis, Martin Gargiulo, Mattia
Gilmartin, Ranjay Gulati, Morten Hansen, Herminia
Ibarra, Sarah Kaplan, Otto Koppius, Tal Levy, Christo-
pher Marquis, Bill McEvily, Jacob Model, Lakshmi Ra-
marajan, Metin Sengul, Bill Simpson, Michael Tushman,
and seminar participants at INSEAD, McGill, Harvard,
Bocconi, and HEC Paris.

Both authors contributed equally to this article.
Editor’s note: The manuscript for this article was ac-

cepted for publication during the term of AMJ’s previous
editor-in-chief, R. Duane Ireland.

� Academy of Management Journal
2012, Vol. 55, No. 2, 381–398.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0891

381

Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express
written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

In this article, we examine the conditions under
which change agents are able to influence other
organization members to adopt changes with differ-
ent degrees of divergence from the institutional
status quo. Because informal networks have been
identified as key sources of influence in organiza-
tions (Brass, 1984; Brass & Burkhardt, 1993; Gar-
giulo, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt,
1990) and policy systems (Laumann, Knoke, & Kim,
1985; Padgett & Ansell, 1993; Stevenson & Green-
berg, 2000), we focus on how change agents’ posi-
tions in such networks affect their success in initi-
ating and implementing organizational change.

Network research has shown that the degree of
structural closure in a network, defined as the ex-
tent to which an actor’s network contacts are con-
nected to one another, has important implications
for generating novel ideas and exercising social
influence. A high degree of structural closure cre-
ates a cohesive network of tightly linked social
actors, and a low degree of structural closure cre-
ates a network with “structural holes” and broker-
age potential (Burt, 2005; Coleman, 1988). The ex-
isting evidence suggests that actors with networks
rich in structural holes are more likely to generate
novel ideas (e.g., Burt, 2004; Fleming, Mingo, &
Chen, 2007; Rodan & Galunic, 2004). Studies that
have examined the effect of network closure on
actors’ ability to implement innovative ideas, how-
ever, have yielded contradictory findings, some
showing that high levels of network closure facili-
tate change adoption (Fleming et al., 2007; Obst-
feld, 2005), others showing that low levels of net-
work closure do so (Burt, 2005).

In this study, we aim to reconcile these findings
by developing a contingency theory of the role of
network closure in the initiation and adoption of
organizational change. We posit that the informa-
tion and control benefits of structural holes (Burt,
1992) take different forms in change initiation than
in change adoption, and these benefits are strictly
contingent on the degree to which a change di-
verges from the institutional status quo in the or-
ganization’s field of activity. Accordingly, struc-
tural holes in a change agent’s network aid the
initiation and adoption of changes that diverge
from the institutional status quo but hinder the
adoption of less divergent changes.

In developing a contingency theory of the hith-
erto underspecified relationship between network
closure and organizational change, we draw a the-
oretical link between individual-level analyses of
network bases for social influence in organizations
and field-level analyses of institutional pressures
on organizational action. We thus aim to demon-
strate the explanatory power that derives from rec-

ognizing the complementary roles of institutional
and social network theory in a model of organiza-
tional change. To test our theory, we collected data
on 68 organizational changes initiated by clinical
managers in the United Kingdom’s National Health
Service (NHS) from 2004 to 2005 through longitu-
dinal surveys and eight in-depth case studies.

NETWORK CLOSURE AND DIVERGENT
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

In order to survive, organizations must convince
the public of their legitimacy (Meyer & Rowan,
1977) by conforming, at least in appearance, to the
prevailing institutions that define how things are
done in their environment. This emphasis on legit-
imacy constrains change by exerting pressure to
adopt particular managerial practices and organiza-
tional forms (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983); therefore,
organizations embedded in the same environment,
and thus subject to the same institutional pres-
sures, tend to adopt similar practices.

Organization members are thus motivated to ini-
tiate and implement changes that do not affect their
organizations’ alignment with existing institutions
(for a review, see Heugens and Lander [2009]). Nev-
ertheless, not all organizational changes will be
convergent with the institutional status quo. In-
deed, within the NHS, although many of the
changes enacted have been convergent with the
institutionalized template of medical professional-
ism, a few have diverged from it. The variability in
the degree of divergence of organizational changes
poses two questions: (1) what accounts for the like-
lihood that an organization member will initiate a
change that diverges from the institutional status
quo and (2) what explains the ability of a change
agent to persuade other organization members to
adopt such a change.

Research into the enabling role of actors’ social
positions in implementing divergent change
(Greenwood & Hinings, 2006; Leblebici, Salancik,
Copay, & King, 1991; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence,
2004; Sherer & Lee, 2002) has tended to focus on
the position of the organization within its field of
activity, eschewing the intraorganizational level of
analysis. The few studies that have accounted for
intraorganizational factors have focused on the in-
fluence of change agents’ formal position on the
initiation of divergent change and largely over-
looked the influence of their informal position in
organizational networks (Battilana, 2011). This is
surprising in light of well-established theory and ev-
idence concerning informal networks as sources of
influence in organizations (Brass, 1984; Brass &
Burkhardt, 1993; Gargiulo, 1993; Ibarra & Andrews,

382 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt, 1990). To the extent
that the ability to implement change hinges on
social influence, network position should signifi-
cantly affect actors’ ability to initiate divergent
changes and persuade other organization members
to adopt them.

A network-level structural feature with theoreti-
cal relevance to generating new ideas and social
influence is the degree of network closure. A con-
tinuum of configurations exists: cohesive networks
of dense, tightly knit relationships among actors’
contacts are at one end, and networks of contacts
separated by structural holes that provide actors
with brokerage opportunities are at the other. A
number of studies have documented the negative
relationship between network closure and the gen-
eration of new ideas (Ahuja, 2000; Burt, 2004;
Fleming et al., 2007; Lingo & O’Mahony, 2010; Mc-
Fadyen, Semadeni, & Cannella, 2009). Two mech-
anisms account for this negative association: re-
dundancy of information and normative pressures
(Ruef, 2002). With regard to the former, occupying
a network position rich in structural holes exposes
an actor to nonredundant information (Burt, 1992).
To the extent that it reflects originality and new-
ness, creativity is more likely to be engendered by
exposure to nonredundant than to repetitious in-
formation. As for normative pressure, network co-
hesion not only limits the amount of novel infor-
mation that reaches actors, but also pressures them
to conform to the modus operandi and norms of the
social groups in which they are embedded (Cole-
man, 1990; Krackhardt, 1999; Simmel, 1950),
which reduces the extent to which available infor-
mation can be deployed.

Thus far, no study has directly investigated the
relationship between network closure and the char-
acteristics of change initiatives in organizations.
We propose that the informational and normative
mechanisms that underlie the negative association
between network cohesion and the generation of
new ideas imply that organizational actors embed-
ded in networks rich in structural holes are more
likely to initiate changes that diverge from the in-
stitutional status quo. Bridging structural holes ex-
poses change agents to novel information that
might suggest opportunities for change not evident
to others, and it reduces normative constraints on
how agents can use information to initiate changes
that do not conform to prevailing institutional
pressures.

Hypothesis 1. The richer in structural holes a
change agent’s network, the more likely the
agent is to initiate a change that diverges from
the institutional status quo.

With respect to the probability that a change
initiative will actually modify organizational func-
tioning, few studies have explored how the degree
of closure in change agents’ networks affects the
adoption of organizational changes. This dearth of
empirical evidence notwithstanding, Burt (2005:
86 – 87) suggested several ways in which brokerage
opportunities provided by structural holes in an
actor’s network may aid adaptive implementation,
which he defined as the ability to carry out projects
that take advantage of opportunities—as distinct
from the ability to detect opportunities. Structural
holes may equip a potential broker with a broad
base of referrals and knowledge of how to pitch a
project so as to appeal to different constituencies,
as well as the ability to anticipate problems and
adapt the project to changing circumstances
(Burt, 1992).

These potential advantages suggest that struc-
tural holes may aid change initiation differently
from how they aid change adoption. In change ini-
tiation, the information and control benefits of
structural holes give a change agent greater expo-
sure to opportunities for change, and creative free-
dom from taken-for-granted institutional norms.
These are, therefore, mainly incoming benefits that
flow in the direction of the change agent. By con-
trast, in change adoption, the information and con-
trol benefits of structural holes are primarily out-
going, in that they are directed to the organizational
constituencies the change agent is aiming to per-
suade. These benefits can be characterized as struc-
tural reach and tailoring. Reach concerns a change
agent’s social contact with the constituencies that a
change project would affect, information about the
needs and wants of these constituencies, and infor-
mation about how best to communicate how the
project will benefit them. Tailoring refers to a
change agent’s control over when and how to use
available information to persuade diverse audi-
ences to mobilize their resources in support of a
change project. Being the only connection among
otherwise disconnected others, brokers can tailor
their use of information and their image in accor-
dance with each network contact’s preferences and
requirements. Brokers can do this with minimal
risk that potential inconsistencies in the presenta-
tion of the change will become apparent (Padgett &
Ansell, 1993) and possibly delegitimize them.

The argument that structural holes may facilitate
change adoption stands in contrast to the argument
that network cohesion enhances the adoption of
innovation (Fleming et al., 2007; Obstfeld, 2005).
Proponents of network cohesion maintain that peo-
ple and resources are more readily mobilized in a
cohesive network because multiple connections

2012 383Battilana and Casciaro

among members facilitate the sharing of knowledge
and meanings and generate normative pressures for
collaboration (Coleman, 1988; Gargiulo, Ertug, &
Galunic, 2009; Granovetter, 1985; Tortoriello &
Krackhardt, 2010). Supporting evidence is pro-
vided by Obstfeld (2005), who found cohesive net-
work positions to be positively correlated with in-
volvement in successful product development, and
by Fleming and colleagues (2007), who found col-
laborative brokerage to aid in the generation of
innovative ideas but maintained that it is network
cohesion that facilitates the ideas’ diffusion and
use by others.

These seemingly discrepant results are resolved
when organizational change is recognized to be a
political process that unfolds over time and takes
on various forms. The form taken by a change ini-
tiative is contingent on the extent to which it di-
verges from the institutional status quo. Obstfeld
described innovation as

an active political process at the microsocial
level. . . . To be successful, the tertius needs to iden-
tify the parties to be joined and establish a basis on
which each alter would participate in the joining
effort. The logic for joining might be presented to
both parties simultaneously or might involve ap-
peals tailored to each alter before the introduction or
on an ongoing basis as the project unfolds. (2005: 188)

Change implementation, according to this ac-
count, involves decisions concerning not only
which network contacts should be involved, but
also the timing and sequencing of appeals directed
to different constituencies. A network rich in struc-
tural holes affords change agents more freedom in
deciding when and how to approach these constit-
uencies and facilitate connections among them.

Building on this argument, we predict that in the
domain of organizational change the respective ad-
vantages of cohesion and structural holes are
strictly contingent on whether a change diverges
from the institutional status quo, thereby disrupt-
ing extant organizational equilibria and creating
the potential for significant opposition. Such diver-
gent changes are likely to engender greater resis-
tance from organization members, who are in turn
likely to attempt building coalitions with organiza-
tional constituencies to mobilize them against the
change initiative. In this case, a high level of net-
work cohesion among a change agent’s contacts
makes it easy for them to mobilize and form a
coalition against the change. By contrast, a network
rich in structural holes affords change agents flex-
ibility in tailoring arguments to different constitu-
encies and deciding when to connect to them,
whether separately or jointly, simultaneously or

over time. Less divergent change, because it is less
likely to elicit resistance and related attempts at
coalition building, renders the tactical flexibility
afforded by structural holes unnecessary. Under
these circumstances, the advantages of the cooper-
ative norms fostered in a cohesive network are
more desirable for the change agent. Consequently,
we do not posit a main effect for network closure on
change implementation, but only predict an inter-
action effect, the direction of which depends on a
change’s degree of divergence. Figure 1 graphically
summarizes the predicted moderation pattern.

Hypothesis 2. The more a change diverges from
the institutional status quo, the more closure in
a change agent’s network of contacts dimin-
ishes the likelihood of change adoption.

METHODS

Site

We tested our model using quantitative and qual-
itative data on 68 change initiatives undertaken in
the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, a
government-funded health care system consisting
of more than 600 organizations that fall into three
broad categories: administrative units, primary care
service providers, and secondary care service pro-
viders. In 2004, when the present study was con-
ducted, the NHS had a budget of more than £60 bil-
lion and employed more than one million people,
including health care professionals and managers
specializing in the delivery of guaranteed universal
health care free at the point of service.

FIGURE 1
Predicted Interactive Effects of Network Closure
and Divergence from Institutional Status Quo on

Change Adoption

+

+

–

–

High

High

Low

Low

Network
Closure

Change Divergence

384 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

The NHS, being highly institutionalized, was a
particularly appropriate context in which to test
our hypotheses. Like other health care systems
throughout the Western world (e.g., Kitchener,
2002; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000), the
NHS is organized according to the model of medi-
cal professionalism (Giaimo, 2002), which pre-
scribes specific role divisions among professionals
and organizations.1 The model of professional
groups’ role division is predicated on physicians’
dominance over all other categories of health care
professionals. Physicians are the key decision mak-
ers, controlling not only the delivery of services,
but also, in collaboration with successive govern-
ments, the organization of the NHS (for a review,
see Harrison, Hunter, Marnoch, and Pollitt [1992]).
The model of role division among organizations
places hospitals at the heart of the health care sys-
tem (Peckham, 2003). Often enjoying a monopoly
position as providers of secondary care services in
their health communities (Le Grand, 1999), hospi-
tals ultimately receive the most resources. The em-
phasis on treating acute episodes of disease in a
hospital over providing follow-up and preventive
care in home or community settings under the re-
sponsibility of primary care organizations is char-
acteristic of an acute episodic health system.

In 1997, under the leadership of the Labour Gov-
ernment, the NHS embarked on a ten-year modern-
ization effort aimed at improving the quality, reli-
ability, effectiveness, and value of its health care
services (Department of Health, 1999). The initia-
tive was intended to imbue the NHS with a new
model for organizing that challenged the institu-
tionalized model of medical professionalism. De-
spite the attempt to shift from an acute episodic
health care system to one focused on providing con-
tinuing care by integrating services and increasing
cooperation among professional groups, at the time of
the study, a distinct dominance order persisted across
NHS organizations, with physicians (Ferlie, Fitzger-
ald, Wood, & Hawkins, 2005; Harrison et al., 1992;
Richter, West, Van Dick, & Dawson, 2006) and hos-
pitals (Peckham, 2003) at the apex. This context—
wherein the extant model of medical professionalism
continued to define the institutional status quo in
these organizations—afforded a unique opportunity
to study organizational change in an entrenched

system in which enhancing the capacity for inno-
vation and adaptation had potentially vast societal
implications.

Sample

The focus of the study being on variability in
divergence and adoption of organizational change
initiatives, the population germane to our model
was that of self-appointed change agents, actors
who voluntarily initiate planned organizational
changes. Our sample is comprised of 68 clinical
managers (i.e., actors with both clinical and mana-
gerial responsibilities) responsible for initiating
and attempting to implement change initiatives.
All had worked in different organizations in the
NHS and participated in the Clinical Strategists
Programme, a two-week residential learning expe-
rience conducted by a European business school.
The first week focused on cultivating skills and
awareness to improve participants’ effectiveness in
their immediate spheres of influence and leader-
ship ability within the clinical bureaucracies, the
second week on developing participants’ strategic
change capabilities at the levels of the organization
and the community health system. Applicants were
asked to provide a description of a change project
they would begin to implement within their organ-
ization upon completing the program. Project im-
plementation was a required part of the program,
which was open to all clinical managers in the NHS
and advertised both online and in NHS brochures.
There was no mention of divergent organizational
change in either the title of the executive program
or its presentation. Participation was voluntary. All
95 applicants were selected and chose to attend
and complete the program.

The final sample of 68 observations, which cor-
responds to 68 change projects, reflects the omis-
sion of 27 program participants who did not re-
spond to a social network survey administered in
the first week of the program. Participants ranged
in age from 35 to 56 years (average age, 44). All had
clinical backgrounds as well as managerial respon-
sibilities. Levels of responsibility varied from mid-
to top-level management. The participants also rep-
resented a variety of NHS organizations (54 percent
primary care organizations, 26 percent hospitals or
other secondary care organizations, and 19 percent
administrative units) and professions (25 percent
physicians and 75 percent nurses and allied health
professionals). To control for potential nonre-
sponse bias, we compared the full sample for
which descriptive data were available with the fi-
nal sample. Unpaired t-tests showed no statistically

1 This characterization of the NHS’s dominant tem-
plate for organizing is based on a comprehensive review
of NHS archival data and the literature on the NHS, as
well as on 46 semistructured interviews with NHS pro-
fessionals and 3 interviews with academic experts on the
NHS analyzed with the methodology developed by Scott
and colleagues (2000).

2012 385Battilana and Casciaro

significant differences for individual characteris-
tics recorded in both samples.

Procedures and Data

Data on the demographic characteristics, formal
positions, professional trajectories, and social net-
works of the change agents, together with detailed
information on the proposed changes, were col-
lected over a period of 12 months. The demo-
graphic and professional trajectories data were ob-
tained from participants’ curricula vitae, and data
on their formal positions were gathered from the
NHS’s human resource records. Data on social net-
works were collected during the first week of the
executive program, during which participants com-
pleted an extensive survey detailing their social
network ties both in their organizations and in the
NHS more broadly.

Participants were assured that data on the con-
tent of the change projects, collected at different
points during their design and implementation,
would remain confidential. They submitted de-
scriptions of their intended change projects upon
applying to the program and were asked to write a
refined project description three months after im-
plementation. The two descriptions were very sim-
ilar; the latter were generally an expansion of the
former. One-on-one (10 –15 minute) telephone in-
terviews conducted with the participants and
members of their organizations four months after
implementation of the change projects enabled us
to ascertain whether they had been implemented—
all had been—and whether the changes being im-
plemented corresponded to those described in the
project descriptions, which all did.

During two additional (20 – 40 minute) telephone
interviews conducted six and nine months after
project implementation, participants were asked to
(1) describe the main actions taken in relation to
implementing their changes, (2) identify the main
obstacles (if any) to implementation, (3) assess their
progress, and (4) describe their next steps in imple-
menting the changes. We took extensive notes dur-
ing the interviews, which were not recorded for
reasons of confidentiality. The change agents also
gave us access to all organizational documents and
NHS official records related to the change initia-
tives generated during the first year of implemen-
tation. We created longitudinal case studies of each
of the 68 change initiatives by aggregating the data
collected throughout the year from change agents
and other organization members and relevant or-
ganizational and NHS documents.

After 12 months of implementation, we con-
ducted another telephone survey to collect infor-

mation about the outcomes of the change projects
with an emphasis on the degree to which the
changes had been adopted. We corroborated the
information provided by each change agent by con-
ducting telephone interviews with two informants
who worked in the same organization. In most
cases, one informant was directly involved in the
change effort, and the other was either a peer or
superior of the agent who knew about, but was not
directly involved in, the change effort. These infor-
mants’ assessments of the adoption of the change
projects were, again for reasons of confidentiality,
not recorded; as during the six- and nine-month
interviews, we took extensive notes.

At the beginning of the study, we randomly se-
lected eight change projects to be the subjects of
in-depth case studies. Data on these projects were
collected over a year via both telephone and in-
person interviews. One year after implementation,
at each of the eight organizations, we conducted
between 12 and 20 interviews of 45 minutes to two
hours in duration. On the basis of these interviews,
all of which were transcribed, we wrote eight in-
depth case studies about the selected change initia-
tives. The qualitative data used to verify the con-
sistency of change agents’ reports with the reports
made by other organization members provided
broad validation for the survey data.

Dependent and Independent Variables

Divergence from the institutional status quo.
The institutional status quo for organizing within
the NHS is defined by the model of medical pro-
fessionalism that prescribes specific role divisions
among professionals and organizations (Peckham,
2003). To measure each change project’s degree of
divergence from the institutionalized model of pro-
fessionals’ and organizations’ role division, we
used two scales developed by Battilana (2011). The
first scale measures the degree to which change
projects diverged from the institutionalized model
of role division among professionals using four
items aimed at capturing the extent to which the
change challenged the dominance of doctors over
other health care professionals in both the clinical
and administrative domains. The second scale
measures the degree to which change projects di-
verged from the institutionalized model of role di-
vision among organizations using six items aimed
at capturing the extent to which the change chal-
lenged the dominance of hospitals over other types
of organizations in both the clinical and adminis-
trative domains. Each of the ten items in the ques-

386 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

tionnaire was assessed using a three-point rank-
ordered scale.2

Two independent raters blind to the study’s hy-
potheses used the two scales to code the change
project descriptions written by the participants af-
ter three months’ of implementation. The descrip-
tions averaged three pages and followed the same
template: presentation of project goals, resources
required to implement the project, people in-
volved, key success factors, and measurement of
outcomes. Interrater reliability, as assessed by the
kappa correlation coefficient, was .90. The raters
resolved coding discrepancies identifying and dis-
cussing passages in the change project descriptions
deemed relevant to the codes until they reached
consensus. Scores for the change projects on each
of the two scales corresponded to the average of the
items included in each scale. To account for change
projects that diverged from the institutionalized
models of both professionals’ and organizations’
role division, and thereby assess each project’s
overall degree of divergence, we measured change
divergence as the unweighted average of the scores
received on both scales. Table 1 provides examples
of change initiatives characterized by varying de-
grees of divergence from the institutionalized mod-
els of role division among organizations or profes-
sionals or both.

Change adoption. We measured level of adop-
tion using the following three-item scale from the
telephone survey administered one year after im-
plementation: (1) “On a scale of 1–5, how far did
you progress toward completing the change project,
where 1 is defining the project for the clinical strat-
egists program and 5 is institutionalizing the im-
plemented change as part of standard practice in
your organization.” (2) “In my view, the change is
now part of the standard operating practice of the
organization.” (3) “In my view, the change was not
adopted in the organization.” The third item was
reverse-coded. The last two items were assessed
using a five-point scale that ranged from 1
(“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). Cron-
bach’s alpha for the scale was .60, which is the
acceptable threshold value for exploratory studies
such as ours (Nunnally, 1978). Before gathering the
change agents’ responses, the research team that
had followed the evolution of the change projects
and collected all survey and interview data

throughout the year produced a joint assessment of
the projects’ level of adoption using the same three-
item scale later presented to the change agents. The
correlation between the responses produced by the
research team and those generated by the telephone
survey administered to the change agents was .98.

To further validate the measure of change adop-
tion, two additional raters independently coded the
notes taken during the interviews using the same
three-item scale as was used in the telephone sur-
vey. They based their coding on the entire set of
qualitative data collected from organizational infor-
mants on each change project’s level of adoption.
Interrater reliability, as assessed by the kappa cor-
relation coefficient, was .88, suggesting a high level
of agreement among the raters (Fleiss, 1981; Landis
& Koch, 1977). We then asked the two raters to
reconcile the differences in their respective assess-
ments and produce a consensual evaluation
(Larsson, 1993). The resulting measures were vir-
tually identical to the self-reported measures col-
lected from the change agents.

We also leveraged the case studies developed for
each change initiative from the participant inter-
views and relevant sets of organizational docu-
ments and NHS official records collected through-
out the year. Eight of these were in-depth case
studies for which extensive qualitative data were
collected. Two additional independent raters, for
whom a high level of interrater reliability was ob-
tained (� � .90), coded all case studies to assess the
level of adoption of the changes, and reconciled the
differences in their assessments to produce a con-
sensual evaluation. The final results of this coding
were nearly indistinguishable from the self-re-
ported measures of level of change adoption, fur-
ther alleviating concerns about potential self-report
biases.

Network closure. We measured network closure
using ego network data collected via a name gener-
ator survey approach commonly used in studies of
organizational networks (e.g., Ahuja, 2000; Burt,
1992; Podolny & Baron, 1997; Reagans & McEvily,
2003; Xiao & Tsui, 2007). In name generator sur-
veys, respondents are asked to list contacts (i.e.,
alters) with whom they have one or more criterion
relationships and specify the nature of the relation-
ships that link contacts to one another. As detailed
below, we corroborated our ego network data with
qualitative evidence from the eight in-depth case
studies.

To measure the degree of closure in a change
agent’s network, we followed the seminal approach
developed by Burt (1992), who measured the con-
tinuum of configurations between structural holes

2 Research on radical organizational change typically
measures the extent to which organizational transforma-
tions diverge from previous organizational arrangements
(Romanelli & Tushman, 1994). By contrast, we measured
the extent to which the changes in our sample diverged
from the institutional status quo in the field of the NHS.

2012 387Battilana and Casciaro

and cohesion in terms of the absence or presence of
constraint, defined as:

ci � �
j�i

�pij � �
k�i,k�j

pikpkj�2,
where pij is the proportion of time and effort in-
vested by i in contact j. Contact j constrains i to the

extent that i has focused a large proportion of time
and effort to reach j and j is surrounded by few
structural holes that i can leverage to influence j.
Unlike other measures of structural holes and
cohesion, such as effective size or density, con-
straint captures not only redundancy in a net-
work, but also an actor’s dependence on network

TABLE 1
Examples of Change Initiatives with High, Medium, and Low Divergence from the Institutional Status Quoa

High Divergence Medium Divergence Low Divergence

Example 1. Initiative to transfer stroke
rehabilitation services, such as
language retraining, from a hospital-
based unit to a PCT (i.e., from the
secondary to the primary care sector).
Prior to the change, stroke patients
were stabilized and rehabilitated in
the acute ward of the hospital. This
resulted in long hospital stays and
occupied resources that were more
appropriate for the acute treatment
than for the rehabilitation phase. As a
result, there was often not enough
room to admit all stroke patients to
the acute ward, as many beds were
used for patients undergoing
rehabilitation. With the transfer of
service, postacute patients, once they
were medically stable and ready for
rehabilitation, were relocated to a
unit operated by the PCT, ensuring
that the acute unit would be dealing
only with patients who were truly in
need of acute care. This transfer of
the delivery of rehabilitation services
from the secondary to the primary
care sector greatly diverged from the
institutionalized model of role
division among organizations.

Example 2. Initiative to develop nurse-
led discharge that would transfer
clinical tasks and decision-making
authority from physicians to nurses.
Traditionally, discharge decisions
were under the exclusive control of
physicians. With the new nurse-led
initiatives, nurses would take over
responsibility from specialist
physicians and make the final
decision to discharge patients, thus
assuming more responsibility as well
as accountability and risk for clinical
decisions. Physicians ceded control
over some aspects of decision-
making, freeing them to focus on
more complex patients and tasks.

Example 3. Initiative involving primary
and secondary care service providers
aimed at developing a day hospital
for elderly patients. The day hospital
was to facilitate continued care,
reduce hospital stays, and decrease
hospital readmission for frail elderly
patients too ill to be cared for at
home but not sufficiently ill to justify
full admission to the hospital.
Patients would check into the
hospital-operated day unit for a few
hours and receive services from both
primary and secondary care
professionals. Because the primary
care service providers were engaged
in the provision of services formerly
provided only by secondary care
service providers, there was
increased collaboration between the
primary and secondary care service
providers involved in this project.
Even so, the project diverged from
the institutionalized model of role
division among organizations only to
some extent because the new service
was still operated by the hospital.

Example 4. Initiative to have
ultrasound examinations performed
by nurses rather than by physicians.
Although this project enabled nurses
to perform medical examinations
they usually did not perform, the
nurses gained no decision-making
power in either the clinical or
administrative domain. Consequently,
this project diverged from the
institutionalized model of role
division among professionals only to
some extent.

Example 5. Initiative to transfer a ward
specializing in the treatment of
elderly patients from a PCT to a
hospital. Prior to the change, both the
PCT and hospitals provided services
for the elderly, who make up the
bulk of patients receiving care in the
hospital setting. Rather than
diverging from the institutionalized
model of role division among organi-
zations, the transfer of responsibility
for all elderly care services to the
hospital reinforced the centralization
of health care services around the
hospital, strengthening the dominant
role of the hospital over the PCT in
the institutionalized delivery model.

Example 6. Initiative of a general
practice to hire an administrative
assistant to implement and manage a
computerized appointment booking
system. The addition of this assistant
to the workforce changed neither the
division of labor nor the balance of
power between health care
professionals within the general
practice.

a A PCT is a primary care trust. At the time this study was conducted, all NHS professionals who provided primary care services
(services provided to patients when they first report health problems) were managed by primary care trusts (PCTs) serving populations of
250,000 or more. General practices were required to join PCTs when they were created in 1988. PCTs were thus local health organizations
responsible for managing health services in a given area. They provided primary care services and commissioned secondary care services
from hospitals.

388 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

contacts. This is a more pertinent measure of the
potential for tailoring because it assesses not only
whether two contacts are simply linked, but also
the extent to which social activity in the network
revolves around a given contact, making a link to
that actor more difficult to circumvent in present-
ing tailored arguments for change to different
contacts.

We measured alter-to-alter connections in a re-
spondent’s ego network using a survey item that
asked respondents to indicate, on a three-point
scale (1, “not at all”; 2, “somewhat”; and 3, “very
well”), how well two contacts knew each other. We
included relevant network contacts in the calcula-
tion of constraint based on two survey items that
measured the frequency and closeness of contact
between an actor and each network contact. The
first item (“How frequently have you interacted
with this person over the last year?”) used an eight-
point scale with point anchors ranging from “not at
all” to “twice a week or more.” The second item
(“How close would you say you are with this per-
son?”) used a seven-point scale that ranged from
“especially close” to “very distant,” with 4, “nei-
ther close nor distant,” as the neutral point and was
accompanied by the following explanation: “(Note
that ‘Especially close’ refers to one of your closest
personal contacts and that ‘Very distant’ refers to
the contacts with whom you do not enjoy spending
time, that is, the contacts with whom you spend
time only when it is absolutely necessary).” From
these survey items, we constructed four measures
of constraint to test the sensitivity of our prediction
to more or less inclusive specifications of agents’
networks. The first measure included alters with
whom ego was at least somewhat close. The second
measure, based on frequency of interaction, in-
cluded only alters with whom ego interacted at
least twice a month. The third measure combined
the first two by calculating constraint on the basis
of alters with whom ego either interacted at least
twice monthly or to whom ego was at least some-
what close. The fourth measure included every ac-
tor nominated by ego in the network survey.

We used the eight in-depth case studies to assess
convergence between the change agents’ and inter-
viewees’ perceptions of the relationships among
the people in the change agents’ networks. Two
external coders identified all the information in
the interviews that pertained to the extent to
which the people in change agents’ networks
knew each other and coded this information us-
ing the same scale used in the social network
survey. The interviews provided data on the re-
lationships among more than 75 percent of the
change agents’ contacts. For all these relation-

ships, the coders’ assessments of alter-to-alter
ties based on the interview data were consistent
with each other and with the measures reported
by change agents, thereby increasing our confi-
dence in the validity of the survey reports.

Control variables. We used five characteristics
of the change agents (hierarchical level, tenure in
current position, tenure in management role, pro-
fessional status, and prominence in the task-advice
network), two characteristics of the change agents’
organizations (size and status), and one character-
istic of the change (creation of new service) as con-
trols. We measured actors’ hierarchical position
with a rank-ordered categorical variable based on
formal job titles;3 tenure in current position was the
number of years change agents had spent in their
current formal roles, and tenure in management
position was the number of years they had spent in
a management role. As for the status of the profes-
sional group to which actors belonged, in the NHS,
as in most health care systems, physicians’ status is
superior to that of other health care professionals
(Harrison et al., 1992). Accordingly, we measured
professional status with a dummy variable coded 0
for low-status professionals (i.e., nurses and allied
health professionals) and 1 for high-status profes-
sionals (i.e., physicians). To account for change
agents’ informal status in their organizations, we
constructed a measure of the structural prominence
that accrues to asymmetrical advice-giving ties
(Jones, 1964; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). To that end,
we used two network survey items: (1) “During the
past year, are there any individuals in your Primary
Care Trust/Hospital Trust/Organization (delete as
appropriate) from whom you regularly sought in-
formation and advice to accomplish your work?
(Name up to 5 individuals),” and (2) “During the
past year, are there any individuals in your Primary
Care Trust/Hospital Trust/Organization (delete as
appropriate) who regularly came to you for infor-
mation and advice to accomplish their work?
(Name up to 5 individuals. Some of these may be
the same as those named before).” We measured
actors’ prominence in the task-advice network as
the difference between the number of “received”
advice ties and number of “sent” advice ties.

We also controlled for organization-level factors
including organizational size, which we measured
in units of total full-time equivalents, and organi-

3 The NHS, being a government-run set of organiza-
tions, has standardized definitions and pay scales for all
positions that assure uniformity of roles, responsibilities,
and hierarchical positions across organizational sites, ac-
cording to the Department of Health (2006).

2012 389Battilana and Casciaro

zational status. Of the three types of organizations
that compose the NHS, primary care organizations
were considered to be of lower status than hospitals
and administrative units (Peckham, 2003), but
there was no clear status hierarchy between the
latter (Peckham, 2003). Accordingly, we measured
organizational status with a dummy variable coded
1 for low-status organizations (i.e., primary care
trusts) and 0 for high-status organizations (i.e., hos-
pitals and administrative organizations). Finally,
although we theorize that a change’s degree of di-
vergence from the institutional status quo operates
as the key contingency in our model, other change
characteristics may affect adoption. In particular,
whether a change involves the redesign of an exist-
ing service or creation of a new one may play an
important role (Van de Ven, Angle, & Poole, 1989).
Our models therefore included a dummy variable
for creation of a new service.

RESULTS

Table 2 includes the descriptive statistics and
correlation matrix for all variables. Correlation co-
efficients greater than .30 are statistically signifi-
cant (p � .01). Most of the correlation coefficients
are modest in size and not statistically significant.

Table 3 presents the results of ordinary least
squares (OLS) regressions that predict change ini-
tiatives’ degree of divergence from the institutional
status quo. Model 1 includes control variables
likely to influence change initiatives’ degree of di-
vergence. The positive and significant effects of
tenure in a management role and of organizational
status and size are consistent with existing research
(Battilana, 2011). Model 2 introduces ego network
constraint, which measures the degree of structural
closure in a network. As predicted by Hypothesis 1,
the effect is negative and statistically significant

and increases model fit significantly (�1 � 3.85,
p � .05), which implies a positive association be-
tween structural holes in a change agent’s network
and the agent’s change initiative’s degree of diver-
gence.

4

Our qualitative data provided several illustra-
tions of this effect. A case in point is a change
initiative aimed at replacing the head of the reha-
bilitation unit for stroke patients— historically a

4 Supplemental regression models incorporated a host
of additional control variables including gender, age, ed-
ucational background, and organizational budget.
Whether added separately or in clusters, none of these
variables had statistically significant effects in any
model, nor did they affect the sign or significance of any
variables of interest. Consequently, we have excluded
them from the final set of regression models reported
here, mindful that our sample size constrains the model’s
degrees of freedom.

TABLE 2
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlationsa

Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Change adoption 3.91 0.82
2. Change divergence 1.14 0.38 .09
3. Senior management 10.37 5.94 �.05 .18
4. Seniority in role 2.32 2.05 �.03 .05 .11
5. Hierarchical level 3.85 0.95 �.07 �.11 �.02 �.0

3

6. Professional status (doctor) 0.25 0.43 .03 �.09 �.41 .02 .33
7. Organizational status (PCT) 0.52 0.50 .09 .35 �.12 �.06 .10 .06
8. Organizational size 22.70 21.20 �.13 �.04 .04 .06 �.20 �.20 –.59
9. Prominence in task advice
network

0.03 1.09 .25 .08 .22 �.02 .18 �.10 –.11 .08

10. Ego network constraint 0.34 0.12 .14 �.23 �.05 �.01 .03 .13 –.07 –.05 .09
11. Constraint � divergence �0.01 0.04 �.27 �.38 .01 .00 .01 �.14 –.19 .09 .12 –.11

a Correlation coefficients greater than .30 are statistically significant at p � .01.

TABLE 3
Results of OLS Regression Analyses Predicting Degree

of Change Divergencea

Variable Model 1 Model 2

Tenure in management role 0.02* (0.01) 0.02* (0.01)
Tenure in current role 0.01 (0.02) 0.01 (0.02)
Hierarchical level �0.07 (0.05) �0.08 (0.05)
Professional status (doctor) 0.08 (0.09) 0.11 (0.09)
Organizational status (PCT) 0.42*** (0.09) 0.40*** (0.09)
Organizational size 0.04* (0.02) 0.04 (0.02)
Prominence in task advice

network
0.03 (0.04) 0.04 (0.05)

Ego network constraint �0.68* (0.34)
R2 0.24 0.28

a Standard errors are in parentheses; n � 68.
* p � .0

5

*** p � .001
Two-tailed tests.

390 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

medical consultant—with a physiotherapist. This
change initiative diverged from the institutional
status quo in transferring decision-making power
from a doctor to a nondoctor. The change agent
responsible for the initiative described her motiva-
tion as follows:

In my role as head of physiotherapy for this health
community, I have had the opportunity to work
with doctors, nurses, allied health professionals,
managers and representatives of social services. . . .
Although I was aware of the challenges of coordi-
nating all the different players involved in stroke
care, I was also aware that it was key if we wanted to
improve our services. . . . I recommended the ap-
pointment of a non-medical consultant to lead the
rehabilitation unit because, based on my experience
working with the different players involved in
stroke services, I thought that it would be the best
way to insure effective coordination.

Table 4 presents the results of OLS regressions
that predict the likelihood of change adoption.
Model 3 includes the control variables, none of
which was significant except prominence in the
task advice network. This result suggests that
change agents’ informal status in their organiza-
tions is a critical source of social influence.5

Model 4 introduces the measure of constraint in
change agents’ networks. The coefficient is not sta-
tistically significant, providing no evidence of a
main effect of structural holes on change imple-
mentation. The coefficient for the multiplicative
term for ego network constraint and change diver-
gence (model 5) is negative and significant, sup-
porting Hypothesis 2. A postestimation test of joint
significance of the main effect and interaction term
for constraint was statistically significant (F[2,
52] � 4.87, p � .05), offering further evidence of the
robustness of this moderation effect. The multipli-
cative term for constraint and divergence from the
institutional status quo increased model fit signifi-
cantly (�1 � 6.40, p � .05). These findings, being
robust to all four specifications of the measure of
constraint, indicate a strong boundary condition on
the effect of network closure on change adoption,
with the degree of divergence from the institutional

status quo intrinsic to a change initiative operating
as a strict contingency.6, 7

Our qualitative data offered numerous illustra-
tions of this finding. For example, a change agent
with a network rich in structural holes who was
attempting to transfer a medical unit from the hos-
pital to the primary care trust (PCT; see Table 1) in
his health community (a change that diverged from
the institutionalized model of role division be-
tween organizations) explained the following:

Because of my role, I worked both in the hospital
and in the PCT. I also was part of the steering group
that looked at how the new national guidelines
would be implemented across our health commu-
nity. . . . Having the responsibility to work in more
than one organization gives you many advan-
tages. . . . I knew all the stakeholders and what to
expect from them. . . . It helped me figure out what I
should tell to each of these different stakeholders to
convince them that the project was worth their time
and energy.

The people we interviewed in both the hospital
and the PCT confirmed that they knew the change
agent well. Stated a hospital employee:

He is one of us, but he also knows the PCT environ-
ment well. His experience has helped him identify
opportunities for us to cooperate with the PCT. If it
was not for him, I do not think that we would have
launched this project. . . . He was able to bring us on
board as well as the PCT staff.

Similarly, a nurse trying to implement nurse-led
discharge in her hospital explained how her con-
nections to managers, nurses, and doctors helped
her to tailor and time her appeals to each constitu-
ency relevant to her endeavor:

I first met with the management of the hospital to
secure their support. . . . I insisted that nurse-led
discharge would help us reduce waiting times for
patients, which was one of the key targets that the
government had set. . . . I then focused on nurses. I
wanted them to understand how important it was to
increase the nursing voice in the hospital and to
demonstrate how nursing could contribute to the
organizational agenda. . . . Once I had the full sup-
port of nurses, I turned to doctors. . . . I expected
that they would stamp their feet and dig their heels

5 We also ran supplemental analyses that including
the control variables listed in footnote 4 as well as a
squared term for hierarchical level to account for the
possibility that middle managers may be particularly
well positioned in their organizations to implement
change. As with Hypothesis 1, none of the variables had
statistically significant effects in any model, nor did they
affect the sign or significance of any variables of interest.

6 Testing Hypothesis 2 using effective size and density
as alternative measures of closure yields findings consis-
tent with, albeit less robust than, those obtained using
constraint, as we expected, given the conceptual differ-
ences between these measures.

7 We tested the effects of several additional interaction
terms including one for divergence and prominence in
the task advice network. None of these moderations were
significant.

2012 391Battilana and Casciaro

in and say “no we’re not doing this.” . . . To over-
come their resistance, I insisted that the new dis-
charge process would reduce their workload,
thereby enabling them to focus on complex cases
and ensure quicker patient turnover, which, for spe-
cialists with long waiting lists of patients, had an
obvious benefit.

These quotes illustrate the positive association
between structural holes and the adoption of diver-
gent change. Our qualitative evidence also offers
examples of the flip side of this association, the
negative relationship between network cohesion
and the adoption of changes that diverge from the
institutional status quo. For instance, a nurse who
tried to establish nurse-led discharge in her hospi-
tal, a change that would have diverged from the
institutionalized model of role division between
professionals, explained how lack of connection to
some key stakeholders in the organization (in par-
ticular, doctors) handicapped her.

I actually know many of the nurses working in this
hospital and I get on well with them, but I do not
know all the doctors and the administrative
staff. . . . When I launched this change initiative, I
was convinced that it would be good for the hospi-
tal, but maybe I rushed too much. I should have
taken more time to get to know the consultants, and
to convince them of the importance of nurse-led
discharge for them and for the hospital.

A doctor we interviewed confirmed the change
agent’s assessment of the situation:

I made it clear to the CEO of this hospital that I
would not do it. This whole initiative will increase
my workload. I feel it is a waste of time. Nurses
should not be the ones making discharge deci-

sions. . . . The person in charge of this initiative
doesn’t know how we work here.

The foregoing examples illustrate the utility of
structural holes in a change agent’s network when
it comes to persuading other organization members
to adopt a change that diverges from the institu-
tional status quo. However, networks rich in struc-
tural holes are not always an asset. When it comes
to the adoption of changes that do not diverge from
the institutional status quo, change agents with rel-
atively closed networks fared better. The cases of
two change agents involved in similar change ini-
tiatives in their respective primary care organiza-
tions are a telling example. Both were trying to
convince other organization members of the merits
of a new computerized booking system, the adop-
tion of which would not involve a divergence from
the institutional status quo, affecting neither the
division of labor nor the balance of power among
the health care professionals in the respective or-
ganizations. Moreover, other primary care organi-
zations had already adopted the system. The net-
work of one of the change agents was highly
cohesive, that of the other rich in structural holes.
Whereas the former was able to implement the new
booking system, the latter encountered issues. A
receptionist explained what happened in the case
of the former organization:

I trust [name of the change agent]. Everyone does
here. . . . We all know each other and we all care
about what is best for our patients. . . It was clear
when [name of the change agent] told us about the
new booking system that we would all be better off
using it.

TABLE 4
Results of OLS Regression Analyses Predicting Degree of Change Adoptiona

Variable Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Tenure in management role �0.02 (0.02) �0.02 (0.02) –0.02 (0.02)
Tenure in current role 0.02 (0.04) 0.02 (0.04) 0.02 (0.04)
Hierarchical level �0.14 (0.09) �0.13 (0.08) –0.13 (0.09)
Professional status (doctor) 0.18 (0.26) 0.14 (0.24) 0.07 (0.24)
Change divergence 0.09 (0.33) 0.14 (0.34) –0.11 (0.30)
Creation of new service �0.31 (0.23) �0.30 (0.25) –0.28 (0.23)
Organizational status (PCT) 0.04 (0.33) 0.04 (0.33) 0.03 (0.32)
Organizational size �0.01 (0.01) �0.01 (0.01) –0.01 (0.01)
Prominence in task advice network 0.30*** (0.07) 0.29*** (0.08) 0.33** (0.10)
Ego network constraint 0.69 (1.33) 0.30 (1.28)
Constraint � divergence –5.83** (2.04)
R2 .21 .22 .29

a Standard errors are in parentheses; n � 68.
** p � .01

*** p � .001
Two-tailed tests.

392 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

A receptionist in the latter organization de-
scribed her relationship with the change agent who
was struggling with the implementation of the
system:

I do not know (name of the change agent) well. . . .
One of my colleagues knows her. . . . One of the
doctors and some nurses seem to like her, but I think
that others in the organization feel just like me that
they do not know her.

Figure 2 graphs the moderation between diver-
gence and constraint observed in our data, using
the median split of the distribution of change di-
vergence. The crossover interaction is explained by
the influence mechanisms available to change
agents at opposite ends of the distribution of clo-
sure, with both cohesion and structural holes con-
ferring potential advantages. The graph also shows
that, in spite of the tendency of change agents with
networks rich in structural holes to initiate more
divergent changes, our sample included a sizable
number of observations in all four cells of the 2�2
in Figure 1. The matching of type of change to the
network structure most conducive to its adoption
was therefore highly imperfect in our sample.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The notion that change agents’ structural posi-
tions affect their ability to introduce change in or-
ganizations is well established, but because re-
search on organizational change has thus far not
systematically accounted for the fact that all
changes are not equivalent, we have not known
whether the effects of structural position might
vary with the nature of change initiatives. The pres-
ent study provides clear support for a contingency

theory of organizational change and network struc-
ture. Structural holes in change agents’ networks
increase the likelihood that these actors will initi-
ate organizational changes with a higher degree of
divergence from the institutional status quo. The
effects of structural holes on a change agent’s abil-
ity to persuade organizational constituencies to
adopt a change, however, are strictly contingent on
the change’s degree of divergence from the institu-
tional status quo. Structural holes in a change
agent’s network aid the adoption of changes that
diverge from the institutional status quo, but they
hinder the adoption of less divergent changes.

Contributions

These findings and the underlying contingency
theory that explains them advance current research
on organizational change and social networks in
several ways. First, we contribute to the organiza-
tional change literature by showing that the degree
to which organizational changes diverge from the
institutional status quo may have important impli-
cations for the factors that enable adoption. In do-
ing so, our study bridges the organizational change
and institutional change literatures that have
tended to evolve on separate tracks (Greenwood &
Hinings, 2006). The literature on organizational
change has not systematically accounted for the
institutional environment in which organizations
are embedded, and the institutional change litera-
ture has tended to neglect intraorganizational dy-
namics in favor of field dynamics. By demonstrat-
ing that the effect of network closure on change
initiation and adoption is contingent on the degree
to which an organizational change initiative di-
verges from the institutional status quo, this study
paves the way for a new direction in research on
organizational change that accounts for whether a
change breaks with practices so taken-for-granted
in a field of activity as to have become institution-
alized (Battilana et al., 2009).

Second, research on organizational change has
focused on the influence of change agents’ posi-
tions in their organizations’ formal structures over
their informal positions in organizational net-
works. Ibarra (1993) began to address this gap by
suggesting that actors’ network centrality might af-
fect the likelihood of their innovating successfully.
Our study complements her work by highlighting
the influence of structural closure in change agents’
networks on their ability to initiate and implement
change.

Third, our study advances the body of work on
social networks in organizations. Network scholars
have contributed greatly to understanding organi-

FIGURE 2
Observed Interactive Effect of Ego Network

Constraint and Divergence from Institutional
Status Quo on Change Adoption

5

4.5

4

3.5

3

Change
Adoption

Ego Network Constraint
.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6

Low divergence High divergence

2012 393Battilana and Casciaro

zational phenomena associated with change, in-
cluding knowledge search and transfer (Hansen,
1999; Levin & Cross, 2004; Reagans & McEvily,
2003; Tsai, 2002) and creativity and innovation
(Burt, 2004; Fleming et al., 2007; Obstfeld, 2005;
Tsai, 2001). We extend this literature with insights
into the structural mechanism for social influence
through which network closure aids or impedes
change agents’ attempts to initiate and implement
organizational change. We thus build on the long-
standing tradition of scholarship on the relation-
ship between network position and social influ-
ence (Brass, 1984; Brass & Burkhardt, 1993;
Gargiulo, 1993; Ibarra, 1993; Krackhardt, 1990).

Finally, despite its remarkable impact on net-
work research, structural holes theory remains un-
derspecified with regard to boundary conditions.
By documenting that the benefits of structural
holes are strictly contingent on an organizational
change initiative’s degree of divergence from an
institutional status quo, we join other scholars in
highlighting the need to specify the contextual
boundaries of brokerage and closure in organiza-
tions (Fleming et al., 2007; Gargiulo et al., 2009;
Stevenson & Greenberg, 2000; Tortoriello & Krack-
hardt, 2010; Xiao & Tsui, 2007). As for the phe-
nomenological boundaries, scholars have thus far
focused primarily on the notion that the nonredun-
dant information generated by bridging structural
holes is germane to idea generation (Burt, 2004)
and identifying opportunities for change, and they
have attended less to the role of structural holes in
capitalizing on opportunities for change once they
are identified. Yet gains from new ideas are real-
ized only when an organization adopts them (Klein
& Sorra, 1996; Meyer & Goes, 1988). Our findings
move beyond anecdotal evidence (Burt, 2005) to
show the relevance of structural holes in the do-
main of change implementation.

In addition to these theoretical contributions, our
findings can advance public policy and managerial
practice by informing the development and selec-
tion of change agents in organizations. The ques-
tion of how to reform existing institutions, such as
financial and health care systems, has taken on
great urgency all over the world. A better under-
standing of the factors that facilitate the initiation
and adoption of change that diverges from an insti-
tutional status quo is crucial to ensuring successful
institutional reforms. A key question policy makers
face when executing major public sector reforms,
such as the NHS reforms that the Labour govern-
ment attempted to implement at the turn of this
century, is how to identify champions who will
become local change agents in their organizations.
Our study suggests that one important dimension

in selecting local champions is the pattern of their
connections with others in their organizations.
Change agents can be unaware that their social
networks in their organizations may be ill suited to
the type of change they wish to introduce. In our
sample, although change agents with networks rich
in structural holes were more likely to initiate di-
vergent changes, mismatches between the degree of
divergence of a change initiative and the network
structure most conducive to its adoption were com-
mon (see Figure 2). Because managers can be taught
how to identify structural hole positions and mod-
ify their networks to occupy brokerage roles in
them (Burt & Ronchi, 2007), organizations can im-
prove the matching of change agents to change type
by educating aspiring change agents to recognize
structural holes in organizational networks. Orga-
nizations can also leverage change agents who al-
ready operate as informal brokers by becoming
aware of predictors of structural holes, such as ac-
tors’ personality traits (Burt, Jannotta, & Mahoney,
1998) and characteristics of the structural positions
they have occupied in their organizations over time
(Zaheer & Soda, 2009).

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Our study can be extended in several directions.
With regard to research design, because collecting
data on multiple change initiatives over time is
arduous (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001),
constructing a sizable sample of observations in the
domain of change implementation constitutes an
empirical challenge. Despite the limited statistical
power afforded by the phenomenon we studied, the
data confirmed our predictions, increasing our con-
fidence in the robustness of our findings. But these
reassuring findings notwithstanding, future re-
search would benefit from investigating these re-
search questions with larger samples of observa-
tions, laborious as they may be to assemble. Our
sample was also nonprobabilistic in that we pur-
posefully selected self-appointed change agents.
This is a population of interest in its own right,
because the change initiatives embarked upon by
change agents can vary considerably in type and
the degree to which they are adopted. Although
pursuing an understanding of the determinants of
change agents’ performance is a worthy endeavor
even when the process of self-selection into the role
is not analyzed, why and how organizational actors
become change agents are as important questions as
why and how they succeed.

Our use of ego network data might also be viewed
as a limitation. In-depth interviews with a substan-
tial number of organizational actors in a subsample

394 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

of eight change projects enabled us to corroborate
change agents’ self-reports and reduce perceptual
bias concerns. This validation notwithstanding,
ego network data remain an oft-used but subopti-
mal alternative to whole network data. Although
ego network data correlate well with dyadic data
based on information gathered from both members
of each pair (Bondonio, 1998; McEvily, 1997), and
measures from ego network data correlate highly
with measures from whole-network data (Everett &
Borgatti, 2005), several studies have documented
inaccuracies in how respondents perceive their so-
cial networks (for a review, see Bernard, Killworth,
Kronenfeld, and Sailer [1984]). Future research can
productively complement our analysis with fully
validated ego-network data or whole-network data.

The time structure of our data can also be further
enriched. Collecting data on adoption 12 months
after the initiation of a change enabled us to sepa-
rate the outcome of the change initiative from its
inception, and the qualitative evidence provided
by our case studies suggested intervening mecha-
nisms that might affect the change process. Our
data do not, however, support a systematic study of
the process through which change unfolds over
time and change agents’ networks evolve. Future
studies can extend work in this direction.

With regard to context, although we were able to
control for the influence of organizational size and
status on the initiation and adoption of divergent
change, studies are needed that will provide a fin-
er-grained account of the possible influence of the
organizational contexts in which change agents op-
erate. The NHS is a highly institutionalized envi-
ronment in which the dominant template of medi-
cal professionalism contributed to making the
culture of NHS organizations highly homogenous
(Giaimo, 2002). In environments characterized by
greater cultural heterogeneity, organizational dif-
ferences may influence the relationship between
change agents’ network features and the ability to
initiate and implement more or less divergent
change. Future research should explore the influ-
ence of other germane organizational characteris-
tics, such as the organizational climate for imple-
menting innovations (Klein & Sorra, 1996).

Because our analysis concerned a sample of
planned organizational change projects initiated by
clinical managers in the NHS, the external validity
of our findings is also open to question. The hier-
archical nature of this large public sector organiza-
tion can increase both the constraints faced by
change agents and the importance of informal
channels of influence for overcoming resistance in
the entrenched organizational culture. These idio-
syncratic features that make the NHS an ideal set-

ting for the present study call for comparative stud-
ies conducted in different settings that better
account for the potentially interactive effects of
actors’ positions in organizational networks and
contextual factors on the adoption of planned
changes. Given that this study of the NHS explores
a mature field with institutionalized norms, it
would be fruitful to examine the influence of ac-
tors’ network positions in emerging fields.

These questions and concerns notwithstand-
ing, our findings demonstrate the explanatory
power that derives from recognizing the comple-
mentary roles of institutional theory and social
network theory for understanding organizational
change. The informal channels of influence on
which change agents rely to build coalitions,
overcome resistance, and shift attitudes toward
new ideas emerge from our research as important
engines of change within an organization; their
effects, however, can be fully understood only
when the institutional pressures that constrain
an organization and the actions of the change
agents in it are included in a comprehensive
model of organizational change.

REFERENCES

Ahuja, G. 2000. Collaboration networks, structural holes,
and innovation: A longitudinal study. Administra-
tive Science Quarterly, 45: 425– 455.

Amis, J., Slack, T., & Hinings, C. R. 2004. The pace,
sequence, and linearity of radical change. Academy
of Management Journal, 47: 15–39.

Battilana, J. 2006. Agency and institutions: The enabling
role of individuals’ social position. Organization,
13: 653– 676.

Battilana, J. 2011. The enabling role of social position in
diverging from the institutional status quo: Evidence
from the U.K. National Health Service. Organization
Science, 22: 817– 834.

Battilana, J., Leca, B., & Boxenbaum, E. 2009. How actors
change institutions: Towards a theory of institu-
tional entrepreneurship. In J. P. Walsh & A. P. Brief
(Eds.), Academy of Management annals, vol. 3:
65–107. Essex, U.K.: Routledge.

Bernard, H. R., Killworth, P., Kronenfeld, D., & Sailer, L.
1984. The problem of informant accuracy—The va-
lidity of retrospective data. In Annual review of
anthropology, vol. 13: 495–517. Palo Alto, CA: An-
nual Reviews.

Bondonio, D. 1998. Predictors of accuracy in perceiving
informal social networks. Social Networks, 20: 301–
330.

Brass, D. J. 1984. Being in the right place—A structural

2012 395Battilana and Casciaro

analysis of individual influence in an organization.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 29: 518 –539.

Brass, D. J., & Burkhardt, M. E. 1993. Potential power and
power use—An investigation of structure and behav-
ior. Academy of Management Journal, 36: 441–
470.

Burt, R. S. 1992. Structural holes: The social structure
of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.

Burt, R. S. 2004. Structural holes and good ideas. Amer-
ican Journal of Sociology, 110: 349 –399.

Burt, R. S., Jannotta, J. E., & Mahoney, J. T. 1998. Person-
ality correlates of structural holes. Social Networks,
20: 63– 87.

Burt, R. S., & Ronchi, D. 2007. Teaching executives to see
social capital: Results from a field experiment. So-
cial Science Research, 36: 1156 –1183.

Burt, R. 2005. Brokerage and closure: An introduction
to social capital. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University
Press.

Coleman, J. S. 1988. Social capital in the creation of
human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94:
95–120.

Coleman, J. 1990. Foundations of social theory. Cam-
bridge, MA: Belknap.

D’Aunno, T., Succi, M., & Alexander, J. 2000. The role of
institutional and market forces in divergent organi-
zational change. Administrative Science Quarterly,
45: 679 –703.

Department of Health. 1997. The new NHS—Modern,
dependable. London: HMSO.

Department of Health. 2004. NHS job evaluation hand-
book (2nd ed.). London: Department of Health.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. 1983. The iron cage
revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective
rationality in organizational fields. American Soci-
ological Review, 48: 1750 –1762.

Douglas, M. 1986. How institutions think. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press.

Everett, M., & Borgatti, S. P. 2005. Ego network between-
ness. Social Networks, 27: 31–38.

Ferlie, E., Fitzgerald, L., Wood, M., & Hawkins, C. 2005.
The nonspread of innovations: The mediating role of
professionals. Academy of Management Journal,
48: 117–134.

Fleiss, J. L. 1981. Statistical methods for rates and pro-
portions. New York: Wiley.

Fleming, L., Mingo, S., & Chen, D. 2007. Collaborative
brokerage, generative creativity, and creative suc-
cess. Administrative Science Quarterly, 52: 443–
475.

Frost, P. J., & Egri, C. P. 1991. The political process of
innovation. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.),
Research in organizational behavior, vol. 13: 229 –
295. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Gargiulo, M. 1993. 2-step leverage—Managing constraint
in organizational politics. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 38: 1–19.

Gargiulo, M., Ertug, G., & Galunic, C. 2009. The two faces
of control: Network closure and individual perfor-
mance among knowledge workers. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 54: 299 –333.

Giaimo, S. 2002. Markets and medicine: The politics of
health care reform in Britain, Germany and the
United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.

Granovetter, M. 1985. Economic action and social struc-
ture: The problem of embeddedness. American
Journal of Sociology, 91: 481–510.

Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. 1996. Understanding
radical organizational change: Bringing together the
old and the new institutionalism. Academy of Man-
agement Review, 21: 1022–1054.

Greenwood, R., & Hinings, C. R. 2006. Radical organiza-
tional change. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Law-
rence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.), Sage handbook of or-
ganization studies: 814 – 842. London: Sage.

Hansen, M. T. 1999. The search-transfer problem: The
role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organ-
ization subunits. Administrative Science Quar-
terly, 44: 82–111.

Harrison, S., Hunter, D., Marnoch, G., & Pollitt, C. 1992.
Just managing: Power and culture in the National
Health Service. London: Macmillan.

Heugens, P., & Lander, M. W. 2009. Structure! Agency!
(and other quarrels): A meta-analysis of institutional
theories of organization. Academy of Management
Journal, 52: 61– 85.

Ibarra, H. 1993. Network centrality, power, and innova-
tion involvement—Determinants of technical and
administrative roles. Academy of Management
Journal, 36: 471–501.

Ibarra, H., & Andrews, S. B. 1993. Power, social-influ-
ence, and sense making—Effects of network central-
ity and proximity on employee perceptions. Admin-
istrative Science Quarterly, 38: 277–303.

Jones, E. E. 1964. Ingratiation. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts.

Kanter, R. M. 1983. The change masters: Corporate en-
trepreneurs at work. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Kellogg, K. C. 2011. Hot lights and cold steel: Cultural
and political toolkits for practice change in surgery.
Organization Science, 22: 482–502.

396 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

Kitchener, M. 2002. Mobilizing the logic of managerialism
in professional fields: The case of academic health
centre mergers. Organization Studies, 23: 391– 420.

Klein, K. J., & Sorra, J. S. 1996. The challenge of innova-
tion implementation. Academy of Management Re-
view, 21: 1055–1080.

Krackhardt, D. 1990. Assessing the political landscape—
Structure, cognition, and power in organizations.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 35: 342–369.

Krackhardt, D. 1999. The ties that torture: Simmelian tie
analysis in organizations. In S. B. Andrews, & D.
Knoke (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organi-
zations, vol. 16: 183–210. Greenwich, CT: JAI.

Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. 1977. The measurement of
observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics,
33: 159 –174.

Larsson, R. 1993. Case survey methodology: Quantitative
analysis of patterns across case studies. Academy of
Management Journal, 36: 1515–1546.

Laumann, E. O., Knoke, D., & Kim, Y. H. 1985. An organ-
izational approach to state policy formation—A
comparative study of energy and health domains.
American Sociological Review, 50: 1–19.

Le Grand, J. 1999. Competition, cooperation or control?
Tales from the British National Health Service.
Health Affairs, 18: 27–39.

Leblebici, H., Salancik, G. R., Copay, A., & King, T. 1991.
Institutional change and the transformation of inter-
organizational fields: An organizational history of
the U.S. radio broadcasting industry. Administra-
tive Science Quarterly, 36: 333–363.

Levin, D. Z., & Cross, R. 2004. The strength of weak ties
you can trust: The mediating role of trust in effective
knowledge transfer. Management Science, 50:
1477–1490.

Lingo, E. L., & O’Mahony, S. 2010. Nexus work: Broker-
age on creative projects. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 1: 47– 81.

Lippitt, R. 1958. The dynamics of planned change: New
York: Harcourt Brace.

Maguire, S., Hardy, C., & Lawrence, T. B. 2004. Institu-
tional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/
AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. Academy of
Management Journal, 47: 667– 679.

Marsden, P. V., & Friedkin, N. E. 1993. Network studies
of social influence. Sociological Methods and Re-
search, 22: 127–151.

McClelland, G. H., & Judd, C. M. 1993. Statistical diffi-
culties of detecting interactions and moderator ef-
fects. Psychological Bulletin, 114: 376 –390.

McEvily, B. 1997. Bridging the industrial divide: Small
firm innovativeness and regional institutions in

geographical clusters. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota.

McFadyen, M. A., Semadeni, M., & Cannella, A. A. 2009.
Value of strong ties to disconnected others: Examin-
ing knowledge creation in biomedicine. Organiza-
tion Science, 20: 552–564.

Meyer, A. D., & Goes, J. B. 1988. Organizational assimi-
lation of innovations: A Multi-level contextual anal-
ysis. Academy of Management Review, 31: 897–
923.

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organ-
izations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.
American Journal of Sociology, 83: 340 –363.

Nunnally, J. C. 1978. Psychometric theory. New York:
McGraw-Hill.

Obstfeld, D. 2005. Social networks, the tertius iungens
and orientation involvement in innovation. Admin-
istrative Science Quarterly, 50: 100 –130.

Padgett, J. F., & Ansell, C. K. 1993. Robust action and the
rise of the Medici, 1400 –1434. American Journal of
Sociology, 98: 1259 –1319.

Peckham, S. 2003. Primary care in the UK. Basingstoke,
U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pettigrew, A. 1973. The politics of organizational deci-
sion making. London: Tavistock.

Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. S.
2001. Studying organizational change and develop-
ment: Challenges for future research. Academy of
Management Journal, 44: 697–713.

Podolny, J. M., & Baron, J. N. 1997. Resources and
relationships: Social networks and mobility in the
workplace. American Sociological Review, 62:
673– 693.

Reagans, R., & McEvily, B. 2003. Network structure and
knowledge transfer: The effects of cohesion and
range. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48: 554.

Richter, A. W., West, M. A., Van Dick, R., & Dawson, J. F.
2006. Boundary spanners’ identification, intergroup
contact, and effective intergroup relations. Academy
of Management Journal, 49: 1252–1269.

Rodan, S., & Galunic, C. 2004. More than network struc-
ture: How knowledge heterogeneity influences man-
agerial performance and innovativeness. Strategic
Management Journal, 25: 541–562.

Romanelli, E., & Tushman, M. L. 1994. Organizational
transformation as punctuated equilibrium: An em-
pirical test. Academy of Management Journal, 37:
1141–1166.

Ruef, M. 2002. Strong ties, weak ties and islands: Struc-
tural and cultural predictors of organizational inno-
vation. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11: 427–
449.

2012 397Battilana and Casciaro

Scott, W. R., Ruef, M., Mendel, P. J., & Caronna, C. A.
2000. Institutional change and healthcare organi-
zations: From professional dominance to managed
care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sherer, P. D., & Lee, K. 2002. Institutional change in large
law firms: A resource dependency and institutional
perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 45:
102–110.

Simmel, G. 1950. The sociology of George Simmel.
Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

Stevenson, W. B., & Greenberg, D. 2000. Agency and
social networks: Strategies of action in a social struc-
ture of position, opposition, and opportunity. Ad-
ministrative Science Quarterly, 45: 651– 678.

Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. 1959. The social psychol-
ogy of groups. New York: Wiley.

Tortoriello, M., & Krackhardt, D. 2010. Activating cross-
boundary knowledge: The role of Simmelian ties in
the generation of innovations. Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, 53: 167–181.

Tsai, W. 2001. Knowledge transfer in intraorganizational
networks: Effects of network position and absorptive
capacity on business unit innovation and performance.
Academy of Management Journal, 44: 996 –1004.

Tsai, W. 2002. Social structure of “coopetition” within a
multiunit organization: Coordination, competition,
and intraorganizational knowledge sharing. Organi-
zation Science, 13: 179 –190.

Van de Ven, A. H. 1986. Central problems in the man-
agement of innovation. Management Science, 32:
590 – 607.

Van de Ven, A. H., Angle, H. L., & Poole, M. S. 1989.
Research on the management of innovation. Grand
Rapids, MI: Ballinger Division.

Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. 1995. Explaining
development and change in organizations. Academy
of Management Review, 20: 510 –540.

Xiao, Z. X., & Tsui, A. S. 2007. When brokers may not
work: The cultural contingency of social capital in
Chinese high-tech firms. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 52: 1–31.

Zaheer, A., & Soda, G. 2009. Network evolution: The
origins of structural holes. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 54: 1–31.

Julie Battilana (jbattilana@hbs.edu) is an associate pro-
fessor of business administration in the Organizational
Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. She holds a
joint Ph.D. in organizational behavior from INSEAD and
in management and economics from École Normale Su-
périeure de Cachan. Her research examines the process
by which organizations or individuals initiate and imple-
ment changes that diverge from the taken-for-granted
practices in a field of activity.

Tiziana Casciaro (tiziana.casciaro@rotman.utoronto.ca)
is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the
Rotman School of Management of the University of To-
ronto. She received her Ph.D. in organizational theory
and sociology from the Department of Social and Deci-
sion Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Her re-
search focuses on organizational networks, with particu-
lar emphasis on affect and cognition in interpersonal
networks and the power structure of interorganizational
relations.

398 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

Copyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may

not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written

permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.