Page 211 - The Resilient Organization

Postcard No. 3 from San Jose, California 197

with peers and with people just above them in the hierarchy. However,
developing needed relations with senior managers may overwhelm them.

RESILIENT ACTIVISM

This analysis shows that there is reason to believe that activism and the
social movements that activists build in organizations can contribute
enormously to change in large firms. The movement that the Opportunity
Discovery Department spawned made remarkable progress in encouraging
evolution. It failed to achieve true transformation in part because activists
simply did not understand or focus on processes of enrolling senior
management in their vision. (Some blame is surely on senior management
also in failing to develop the interest.)
Institutional theory provides credible guidance for activists on how to
achieve the success that eluded the ODDsters. The challenge is fundamen-
tally political: institutional entrepreneurship. Activists need to bring
together strong groups of supporters including top-level executives.
Our knowledge of activism inside organizations remains rudimentary.
We especially need case studies that are more theoretically informed than
those published to date. Such research is needed because businesses need
a better, more theoretically informed practice of activism today, when
environmental changes clearly call for dramatic evolution. Business needs
more theoretically informed practice on two levels. First is among
activists themselves. They need to think through their political roles and
tactics. The second, equally important, is among senior managers. If
senior managers are to be in charge of the evolution of their firms, they
need to look to activists to mobilize expertise, articulate possibilities, and
play key roles in assembling coalitions. ODD was advocating and making
progress toward creating genuinely different ways of thinking about the
whole business. Theory provided no guidance to upper management in
how to respond.
Activism has the potential to bring about desperately needed institutional
changes in large established firms and to facilitate international collabora-
tion. But much more work is needed by scholars, activists, and senior exec-
utives if the promise is to be realized.