BA 4226Managing Organizational Change

Images of managing change

Instructor: Çağrı Topal1

Images of managing change

Dimension Images of Managing

Sub-dimension

Controlling activities

Shaping capabilities

Images of Change Outcomes

Intended Director Coach

Partially Intended

Navigator Interpreter

Unintended Caretaker Nurturer2

Images of managingControlling• Top-down hierarchical management• Directing and controlling organizational operations and activities•Organization as machine

Shaping• Participative style of management• Improving organizational capabilities•Organization as organism

3

Images of change outcomesIntended• Empirical rational strategies• Normative-re-educative strategies• Power-coercive strategies

Partially intendedUnintended• Internal factors• External factors

4

DirectorManagement as controllingIntended change outcomesManagers can direct and control the

change process to produce intended change outcomes

N-step models and contingency theory

5

NavigatorManagement as controllingPartially intended change outcomesA variety of external factors

undermine managers’ ability to achieve intended change outcomes although managers try to achieve them

Contextualist and processual theories

6

CaretakerManagement as controllingUnintended change outcomesManagers’ ability to control is

severely impeded by a variety of internal and external forces beyond the scope of managers who only shepherd the organization during the change process

Life-cycle, population-ecology, and institutional theories

7

CoachManagement as shapingIntended change outcomesManagers can intentionally build in

the right set of values and skills that organizational members will be able to draw on in order to achieve desired organizational outcomes

Organizational development approaches

8

InterpreterManagement as shapingPartially intended change outcomesManagers create meaning for other

organizational members, helping them to make sense of organizational events and actions that occur during and as a result of the change process

Sense-making theory

9

NurturerManagement as shapingUnintended change outcomesEven small changes may have a

large impact on organizations and managers are not able to control the outcome of these changes but may only nurture the organizations by helping organizational members self-develop and self-organize

Chaos and Confucian/Taoist theories10

Key uses of the six-image frameworkSurfacing our assumptions about changeAssessing dominant images of changeUsing multiple images and perspectives

of change• Image-in-use depends on the type of change• Image-in-use depends on the context of the change• Image-in-use depends on the phase of change• Image-in-use depends on simultaneous involvement in multiple changes 11