Book review: Philosophies of Organisational Change

It was JM Keynes’ contention that every madman and politician is motivated by the scribblings of some defunct economist. Perhaps it’s also the case that every CEO and corporate strategist is motivated by the scribblings of organizational theorists defunct and otherwise. This comprehensive survey of the driving philosophies of organizational change represents a significant theoretical tool for those engaged in a mindful appraisal of organization change. However much the rush to action propels us as practitioners and academics alike, we should value the thinking space this excellent and balanced approach offers us.

The authors first contextualize the central argument with a chapter on ‘Theories about theories’. I confess to being slightly alarmed by this title. It is normally the precursor to a meandering tract sodden with heavy continental philosophy and bogged down in often obscure and sometimes downright obscurantist social theory. That’s not anti-intellectualism, its anti the leaden, tortuous and ultimately circular preoccupations of some academics who have taken organizational research in a direction almost tailor-made to exclude its practitioners. Luckily the authors invest this problem chapter with real purpose and insight. They stay very much in the analytical territory by delineating what the theory is for, what it is supposed to support, and the claims it makes. They do explain for the uninitiated the nature of paradigm and unification as well as the difference between theories and the ‘theoretic’. The authors also help the reader to navigate the nuanced discussion with a helpful table outlining for example, the ‘inter-theoretic’ dimensions of various approaches. It is a worthwhile though less than compelling insight that those theories cannot and should not be used in isolation, that the blend of approaches allows us to examine tensions and contradictions at various levels.

Teaching lumbering elephants to dance and beleaguered polar bears to escape melting icebergs is the favoured metaphorical spin of many corporate change architects. This rationalist/functionalist philosophy, predicated on urgency and action, and a top-down blueprint tends to dominate the thinking of many managers as well. The authors challenge us to examine the assumptions behind this change model.

For the rationalist or strategic choice approach purposeful leaders shape change, and that change and strategy are inextricably linked. They make the insightful comparison between Machiavelli and Sun Tzu as the sort of foundational policy texts of the rationalist management mindset. The desiccated pragmatist of The Prince versus the troubled idealist of the Discourses is used to describe the tension between stances of managerially driven change for example. The authors encapsulate the rational approach neatly by suggesting ‘It emphasises the manipulation of organisational parts by strategically aware leaders in response to environmental circumstances’.

Sun Tzu’s Art of War, with its pithy and seemingly timeless exhortations, is the preferred manual of many a management dominie, and I am sure many academic leaders consult it as a guilty pleasure for battles in the senate. The martial heritage of the rational approach is one line of descent; the machine-led bureaucracy of scientific management with its neat blueprints for change is another strand with its relentless focus on logic and pattern. All things considered, the rationalist philosophy endures because it satisfies the need for managers and owners to feel in control and to shape the destiny of organizations. ‘By presenting change as linear phenomenon, resolution seems no further away than vision, analysis, and implementation’ (p. 45).

At root, however useful and realizable at one level, the rational approach is one dimensional, ignoring the organization’s place within its environment and the reactions of varying actors to the change process. A theoretical approach which recognizes these missing dimensions should help to build a better model.

Biological metaphors have long been used in the management and organizational change literature as a theoretical framework. Life cycle models importing the stages of organizational growth and decline are commonplace. These put changes in the context of an adaptive process, the organization as organism. The writers helpfully expose the fact that in our hurry to use the insights of biology we often forget the level at which we are seeking to describe. Organizations do not adapt in any meaningful Darwinian sense for example, only industries can do that. It is the strength of this book that such nuances are set out to deepen the reader’s understanding, and that a simplistic approach to complex subject matter is avoided. Even whilst keeping with this tension inherent in the need to render the complex more explainable, the writing style is both economical and enlightening. The writers continue this struggle in the next phase of the ecological approach, that of institutionalism.

The Institutional philosophy recognizes the inherent tension between actors and between systems and process. The approach also highlights the tension between structure and agency in terms of how organizations manage change. The writers make a valiant attempt to discuss the currents and trends in the institutional model. Not wishing to tilt at intellectual windmills, but the nature of the debates is often mindful of those comically complex yet essentially razor-nuanced debates. For example, take Di Maggio and Powell’s term ‘isomorphism’ which: ‘Describes the process of homogenization that organizations undergo as they as they gain acceptance, legitimacy and power within an organizational Field’ (Di Maggio and Powell, 1983). The invention of related terms such as coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphism is meant to add to the explanatory power of the concept. Mimetic isomorphism, for example, seems to be the copying of best practice or mimicking the more successful organizations. That said, I recall enough from my days as an undergraduate of the excellent insights of the institutional economists such as Simon (1991) and Williamson (1987) and their theories of ‘bounded rationality’ and ‘satisfying’ to see value in these approaches. The authors do a useful job in outlining these nuanced debates without genuflecting before them. That is one of the key strengths in this short but excellently comprised text. The variety and range of theories and philosophies covered is impressive.

A particularly impressive chapter is provided on the Resource Based Philosophy of Barney (1991) with its focus on the bundles of competitive advantage and with its lineage in the competitive strategy models of Porter and Ansoff. The resource-based view (RBV) neatly encapsulates the financial, technological and human resources which constitute competitive change and agility, or which because of their pattern, inhibit that process. The RBV provides a highly structured and conceptualized philosophy of organizational development with its focus on key irreplaceable and immobile factors. It is a very useful approach when theorizing about how organizations empirically deal with change as we can see how they adjust and flex the various elements of competitive advantage in response to the actions of competitors and the environment.

Systems theories and systems thinking have become important recently especially in the work of Seddon (2008), working in the systems thinking model with its focus on the process of satisfying and satisficing demands, particularly in the UK public sector. Systems theories recognize the interconnectedness and interaction of systems. In that sense they are related to the biological models of change and adaptability but within a firm rather than an industry. The takeaway from this section is that any organizational philosophy which does not recognize the interconnectedness of systems is bound to fail. That could sound like a bromide but when we consider how complex and layered many organizations are its easy to see how it can be forgotten. It is often easier to solve our own piece of the puzzle than focus on other aspects of the organization which can lead to myopic change management.

Few authors could undertake as convincing and satisfying an account of the psychological approach as Smith and Graetz accomplish here. They provide a comprehensive account of everything from organizational psychology to organizational development (OD), taking in organizational learning, action learning and coaching and mentoring along the way. The authors explain the human-centred focus of the psychological approach and its tension with the performance focus of most change management programmes. They set out well the landscape between various schools and philosophies, outlining the central conviction that change takes place inside the heads of human beings not just through the designs of leaders.

Organizational culture is another critical factor in organizational change. Grounded in anthropology the culture focus sees organizations as a product of interactions between people set by behaviours and identities amongst groups. Anyone who doubts the power of culture as an explanation should see Gillian Tett the Financial Times City Editor’s magisterial account of the cultural roots of the financial crisis in Fool’s Gold (Tett, 2009). Tett, who holds a doctorate in Anthropology, outlines the destructive short-term culture and the pack mentality of many in the City, which fed and watered the crisis. Of course the seminal organizational culture authors such as Edgar Schein (1979), take as (the authors explain), a psychological approach to culture and weight the value of unconscious behaviours and hidden beliefs above those of the tribal interactions most highlighted by Tett. The culture approach is of course deeply rich and varied, as is this entire field.

The critical philosophies are explained in an excellent chapter which I wish had been available to me as an undergraduate. The description on the rise of postmodernism referencing Frederic James and David Harvey is first class. The rise of relativism and the critical approach of writers such as Baudrillard and Foucault, and the focus on power and discourse provides another critical dimension. The section on Foucault, long the favoured thinker of many on the post-Marxian left, is both contained and encapsulating. Yet one of the consistent qualities of this work is that the authors keep the curious practitioner in mind and they ground their approach not in Gradgrind practicality which would eschew all theory and philosophy, but in an open minded but level headed engagement with practice. That allows them to say ‘All very interesting but …’ more often that any other writer in the field.

Finally the authors synthesize and distil their own organizational philosophy in terms of dualism. I have always been a bit critical of dualism which could be satirized as being about ‘one thing or the other’, but the authors make a comprehensive case for this. They posit the positive and productive tension between change and continuity, that to borrow a term from the critical school these are dialectical, whilst acknowledging that in essence both change and continuity need to be captured into analysable categories. That they suggest amounts to a fusion of:

None of these remedies to the dilemma of organizational change is easy: all require a massive effort in thinking and action. However, as the authors demonstrate, if we are to tap the components which make up this compelling and heady mix of change approaches, this book is an excellent starting point. This primer on the very primacy of theory in organizational research is also, I would suggest, an excellent grounded introduction to social science methodology, and a helpful guide to many of the academic and theoretical debates within the field of organizational development. Reading it will repay students at Masters’ level as well as a range of academic specialists and curious practitioners.