For organizational change to be successful, what role s

The need for a cross-national comparison of organizational change

We aim at developing a general theory, applicable to all kinds of organizations in all types of environments. The precise nature of the role of organizational identity can only be seen if we can control for the impacts of other cultural differences, such as those deriving from nationality, geography, ethnicity or religion ([60] Pettigrew  et al. , 2001). More specifically, these local cultures, in combination with the history of these types of organizations in different countries or regions, establish interpretative frames that are used to disambiguate and complete the otherwise partial procedures and regulations of organizations – that is, so to speak, to fill the inevitable gaps in the organizational structure by imposing informal cultural codes.

Cultural difference can refer to something as "soft" as the tone in which an order is given. In some police forces, an order is understood to be something that does not allow for any kind of debate, interpretation, or disambiguity, whereas in other police forces an order can also be understood as a consensual decision after a cooperative and reciprocal process of deliberation and advice.

It is important to recognize that although the same organizational categories, forms or types (with respect to police appraisal and promotion systems, ranks, arms, uniforms, the right to search and arrest, etc.) may be available in all countries, which should provide a good basis for common organizational identities, daily organizational life comes with different interpretative schemata to make sense of codes, practices, procedures and values ([70] Sorge, 2005; [49] Magala, 2009). Thus, a seemingly universal template tends to be moulded into local practices, producing idiosyncrasies in the process.

A case in point is the way police officers approach citizens. It makes quite a difference whether a police officer acts in the role of a service provider or as the armed representative of the executive power. The setting may seem similar: A police officer stops a car and asks the driver for his or her driver's licence and registration. But depending on traditions, cultural norms, self-perceptions, legal requirements etc. the situation may in fact be very different, ranging from a friendly chat to a rather aggressive looking demonstration of dominance and submission ([51] Martin, 1999).

What holds true when comparing organizations from different cultural settings with each other also holds true when looking at the relationship between an organization and other actors from the same cultural setting. Each audience within the organization (i.e. different departments or specialized units), but also outside the organization (i.e. the public, the ministry, the prosecutor) has a different cultural interpretation of expectations or relationships. Ambiguous procedures and regulations are interpreted in numerous different ways and different parties develop different responses in relation to procedural ambiguities. In this sense, idiosyncrasies develop in each specific work relationship and (organizational, national) culture provides a general setting by providing a lens for sensemaking ([49] Magala, 2009; [81] Weick, 1995).

All European police forces have explicit anti-corruption rules, but when it comes to very specific situations in which officers interact with citizens, these rules are sometimes not as unambiguous as they might seem. Being helpful and friendly, exchanging information and returning favours might be part of a cultural tradition in one context and a case of corruption in another. What is acceptable and what is not, may not be entirely determined by formal rules or cultural traditions, but very often needs to be disambiguated with respect to individual audiences and specific situations ([61] Punch, 2000.)

Next to (organizational and national) culture, we explicitly integrate into our framework the more tangible aspects of the environment, which are often ignored in the literature on organizational change (see also Bayerl  et al. , in this issue), but are nevertheless of high importance. The direct environment of actors influences their sensemaking (i.e. ecological sensemaking; [82] Whiteman and Cooper, 2012) and frames the meaning they give to practices, technologies and forms. Hard facts such as budget cuts, legal constraints, or political instability co-determine organizational identities and are therefore included in our framework of organizational change. This implies that we have to integrate insights from "hard" contingency and strategy theories into our "soft" identity-based theory of organizational change. This is precisely what we do in our unified input-throughput-output framework of organizational change, to which we turn now.

Triggers of change: the input component

We start with the input component of our framework. As is known from a large contingency literature in the organization sciences ([47] Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; [58] Parker and van Witteloostuijn, 2010), fit is a key driver of organizational performance. Fit is defined as the alignment of an organization's internal features with that of its external environment, to enhance performance ([52] Miles and Snow, 1994). [30] Hannan (1998) suggested that, at their founding, organizations are typically aligned with their environment, but as they age, the alignment weakens, requiring serious effort to keep pace with a changing environment. If an organization experiences a misfit, which comes with inferior performance, organizational change is needed to restore fit.

However, to be able to do so, the organization has to develop deep insights into both the environment of the future to which it needs to adapt, as well as into the current internal weaknesses that have to be changed into future internal strengths. This implies that the external antecedents of organizational change are related to the external opportunities and threats in the broader environment. Similarly, internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization can also trigger organizational change. So, the starting point of our unified theory of organizational change is an evaluation of external opportunities (O) and threats (T) in combination with internal strengths (S) and weaknesses (W), which is known as a SWOT analysis in the classic strategic management literature.

When the predominantly stable environment of Western European police in the 1950s and 1960s changed from stable to dynamic (student rebellion, value changes, anti-war protests, terrorism, etc.), police were increasingly under pressure to change the bureaucratic, centralized and mechanistic structures that used to fit so well with the stable environment of the past, into a more flexible and technology-driven structure that seemed to promise a better alignment with the challenges of the 1970s and 1980s. Around the turn of the century, new challenges arose. The end of the cold war, globalization, open borders, and new technologies (internet, social media, et cetera) made existing structures and arrangements seem too slow and bureaucratic to effectively deal with several diverging challenges at the same time. In particular, the police faced a growing need to comply with citizens' concerns on a local basis, while at the same time dealing with the threats of terrorism, internet crime, organized and international crime on a national, supranational or even global level. Cross border cooperation between police forces, the implementation of new technologies as part of investigative work, international police missions in areas such as Kosovo or Afghanistan, and new surveillance technologies at airports, train stations and public locations may serve as an illustration of the attempts made to restore fit in response to such external changes and threats.

Performance and organizational legitimacy: the outcomes component

The ultimate question is how organizational change affects organizational performance. The effects of organizational change can be negative, neutral or positive. This relates to the output dimension of our unified theory of organizational change. In this context, our theory emphasises the critical role of two important mediating effects: the impact of organizational change on external legitimacy and internal identity. The argument is that if not executed carefully, organizational change is very likely to lead to external legitimacy erosion and internal identity conflict. These, in turn, will impact organizational performance negatively:

P13. A key external threat to the success of organizational change is legitimacy erosion, and a key internal threat is identity conflict, both generating a negative effect on organizational performance.

This closes the circle of our unified theory of organizational change, as these key mediation feedback effects will distort the organization's fit with the environment.

On the one hand, the external consequences are reflected in the organization's legitimacy in the broader environment. If the organizational change negatively affects the organization's accountability, reliability and performance in the eyes of external audiences, the organization's legitimacy may be severely harmed ([36] Hannan and Freeman, 1984). For instance, if the introduction of community policing comes with a 'soft' image of police officers, street crime might increase rather than decrease and media reports about police activities might become critical with the tendency to undermine the police authority even further. Still, when a "soft" policing image, translated as being trusted by the community and serving the public is aligned with the greater societal expectation, such an approach might effectively decrease street crime, since the police can rely on public and media support and co-operation. Such disruptive or constructive performance and legitimacy effects feed back into the external opportunities and threats.

Organizational change triggering internal organizational identity conflicts can lead to low work satisfaction and a lowered organizational identification. When police officers are led into directions that go against their identity, this might lead to a threat of their identity. When a traditionally community oriented police force is expected to produce a specific number of tickets for minor offences (i.e. speeding, biking without a light, walking over red traffic lights), this can undermine both, a core aspect of their identity, but also their legitimacy in the wider public.

Discussion

Organizational change is a major challenge; the literature is full of contributions outlining the multi-complexity of organizational change endeavours. It is widely acknowledged that planned organizational change is not fully possible, since "[o]rganisations are continually changing, routinely, easily and responsively, but change within them cannot be controlled arbitrarily. Organizations rarely do exactly what they are told to do" ([50] March, 1981, p. 563). We are aware that our model implies an ambitious programme for organizational change studies. Interdisciplinary discourse and cross-cultural research frameworks are challenging in themselves ([66] Sauquet and Jacobs, 1998; [72] Turati  et al. , 1998). We feel that it is worth the effort and that existing theories in organizational change need to be systematically tested and modified in an international arena.

At the heart of our model lie the three observations with which we started. First, organizational change can violate the organizational identity, which might have detrimental effects on the organization's legitimacy and performance. Second, to predict such effects, a contingency perspective enables us to analyse the specific external and internal conditions of organizations that facilitate both change success and change failure. Third, the general patterns and mechanics apply to all change processes. Nevertheless it is the very spirit of our contingency perspective that in an international context the meanings of patterns and mechanics that lie behind the input, throughput and output processes of organizational change can widely differ and therefore deserve not a cure-all approach, but a careful and respectful analysis of the specific contexts.

Reference

A theoretical framework of organizational change

Jacobs, Gabriele,

Arjen van Witteloostuijn

Christe-Zeyse, Jochen

Journal of Organizational Change Management

; Bradford  Vol. 26, Iss. 5,   (2013): 772-792.

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