Engineering Change: a case study research on how a formal change program was translated into practice by managers and non-managers through collective and individual processes of sensemaking

Abstract

The way managers should go about implementing organizational change is well documented, with plenty of opposing theoretical perspectives claiming the road to success. In practice, however, organizational change still is a difficult exercise. Emergent change theorists claim that between sixty and seventy per cent of planned change programs fail (Beer, 2000; Burnes, 2004). Does that mean organizations should stop planning change altogether? This research contributes to the field of organizational change by documenting the translation of a formal change program into practice within the business unit headquarter of an international information technology organization.