Page 108 - Managing Change in Organizations

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The evolution of theory about organization change
The evolution of theory about organization change

In the United Kingdom the evolution of organizational change theory happened
at roughly the same time as another theoretical explanation was being set out and
became influential for some of those seeking to explain the inability of the UK
economy to compete successfully in the post-Second World War era. In essence
the idea was that the UK economy was in long-term decline. Wiener (1981) and
Barnett (2002) offered historical explanations relating to the behaviour of elites.
Barnett concluded that behind the decline lay an assumed disdain on the part of
British elites for business, a preference for the arts and classics over science and
engineering, and the dominance of these beliefs and educational preferences in
the UK civil service and in government. The lower status of engineers and busi-
ness people in the UK contrasted with other countries, notably the USA, Germany
and Japan. In part Barnett, but not Wiener, was arguing that underinvestment in
defence (with spin-off benefits for industry) was part of the explanation. Clearly
this was a difficult case to argue, at least when comparing the UK to either
Germany and Japan between 1945 and, say, 1980. However, it was possible to
argue that the British were neither investing in defence spending, as compared
with the USA, nor, with the acceleration of welfare state provision since 1945, pri-
oritizing social programmes and pensions as compared to defence investment in
the crucial period 1945–1960. Note also that over that period the UK carried the
costs but perhaps few benefits of imperial ‘over-stretch’ and yet had not experi-
enced the devastation of the bombing campaigns fought in 1943–45. Clearly the
decline was not terminal! The so called ‘Thatcher era’ of the 1980s saw the UK
economy change significantly but the interesting point to note here is that the
idea that organizational change is inherently difficult and often fails in its pur-
poses was certainly well established in the 1960s. This was despite the clear evi-
dence of output growth under the stimulus of war during the 1939–1945 conflict.
It was also despite the experience of many organizations achieving substantial
changes over the last 30 years. Of course, critics can question whether these
changes are creating desirable outcomes and they can point to unintended conse-
quences. Moreover, doing so is important. We should challenge the longer-term

consequences of the many changes going on around us. But we cannot use that
to say that change is not being achieved. So while we can ask questions about who
benefits and who pays we can hardly argue that changes fail in and of themselves.
As far as the USA is concerned perhaps the most interesting point here is to
note the pessimism regarding organization change of much of the literature on
the topic published in the last 40 years. While some authors (e.g. Kanter and
Kotter) strike a more positive note the surprise is that so many researchers take a
more pessimistic line. After all the USA has seen very significant output and pro-
ductivity growth over the last 20 years. However, we should not ignore the point
that many of the iconic US companies have experienced major problems with
changed market conditions over those same 20 years (e.g. IBM, GM and Hewlett
Packard), although there are many very successful companies (e.g. Microsoft). Are
the concerns about organization change exclusively a European concern? Clearly
not. But is the incidence of these concerns to be explained simply by notions
such as ‘resistance to change’ or other explanations limited to the organizational

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