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We explore how scholarly understandings of and the practice of organizational transformation have evolved since Bartunek and Louis’s (1988) Research in Organizational Change and Development chapter. While Bartunek and Louis hoped to see strategy scholarship and OD approaches to transformation inform each other, strategy literature has drifted away from transformation toward more continuous change. OD practice has focused on the implementation of its own versions of transformation through Large Group Interventions, Appreciative Inquiry, the new dialogic OD, and Theory U. Based on a discussion of Theory U, we call attention to the importance of individuals as an important source of new ideas in understanding and practicing large-scale change.

Individual change agents for corporate sustainability can drive the transformation of organizations and foster sustainable development. Current research literature is growing and is published in a wide variety of journals. This systematic literature review provides an overview and synthesis of different understandings of individual change agents for corporate sustainability transformation. It identifies gaps and puts forward propositions to contribute to theoretical development in the field.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review and thematic content analysis of individual agency in light of corporate sustainability transformation.

The analysis identifies five research streams, three key dimensions of individual change agency for sustainability (beliefs, actions and competencies) and presents levels of individual agency for transformation. An integrated definition of change agents for sustainability is proposed.

The review concludes with implications to support individuals in fostering sustainability transformations of organizations, markets and societies. The synthesis and propositions help in identifying which dimensions are already and could in future be addressed by individual change agents. While acknowledging the usual limitations of literature reviews, this paper can inspire future empirical research on the effectiveness of individual change agents for sustainability.

By synthesizing different understandings in the literature of individual change agents for sustainability, this article contributes to the theoretical development of individual agency in the areas of understandings, research streams, dimensions and perspectives. It also develops propositions on how individual change agency can effectively contribute to sustainability transformations at individual, organizational and systems levels.

The purpose of this case study is to gain insight into how a cultural change process develops as a result of organizational transformation.

This case study employs an ethnographic and longitudinal research design. The transformation period of the organization is described by means of desk research and interviews with the management. Simultaneously, the cultural change process is described following four organizational mindset analyses.

This paper supports the theoretical assumption that culture changes as a reaction to transformation. However, in this case study, culture is also proven to be proactive, in that it emerged a year before the actual transformation was carried out. It is believed that the announcement of the new transformation caused a shift in the organizational mindset, enabling its members to deal with a situation of high uncertainty and stress. Whether the cultural change process in reaction to the transformation will evolve into a new sustainable cultural equilibrium could not yet be determined.

This study has contributed to comprehending the relationship between transformation and the process of cultural change. Cultural change is not solely a reaction to transformation. It can also be proactive in that it emerges before the transformation is carried out. That makes cultural change both proactive and reactive in relation to transformation, an insight that, as such, has not yet been discussed in the cultural theory.

The term “transformation” is much used in the practice and literature of management and organizations. We are curious as to why there has been little challenge to or questioning of usage of the term. In this paper we identify a number of dimensions on which usage of ‘transformation’ appears to vary. This results in a tentative classification into a matrix of four types. While these clusters overlap they imply a variety of agendas, expectations and modes of working, with widely differing implications for those involved in associated change processes. The aim of the article is to stimulate debate about the idea of transformation, not to attempt to define what transformation “is”. Thus we treat this variety of usage as interesting and potentially significant, not as a problem or as an inadequacy of terminology that has to be resolved.

While the theoretical interaction of the creative and cultural industries and entrepreneurship in business is gaining attention in the literature, such entrepreneurial practices are extending their role and position in the economy and in urban areas undergoing transformation. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to that literature by generating a model that links creative entrepreneurship with urban transformation as places see and expect continuous change and development.

The authors adopt a conceptual approach, embedded in a triple helix model, of creative entrepreneurship and urban transformation of the Baltic Triangle area of Liverpool, England. The authors inform this through a case study analysis, including qualitative interview data relating to the Baltic Creative.

The authors demonstrate the need for interdisciplinary research to assess value creation, value delivery and innovation as contributors to urban transformation based on creative entrepreneurship, while at the same time resulting in creative placemaking.

This is a conceptual paper that will be used to frame future empirical research on generating additional insight by interviewing key actors to heighten understanding of innovation, value creation and value delivery process of placemaking, creative change and urban transformation.

This work can help inform creative policymaking, planning and development to achieve both social and economic impacts for a place and the wider region.

The authors both contextualize and show the transferability of the model, using the example of Liverpool’s Baltic Creative in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle area of the city, highlighting the impact of creative change.

This paper aims to develop a comprehensive typology of organizational transformations that is based on both content and process characteristics of transformations, and it is relevant to organizations in India.

Through a review of literature, 17 different features/elements of organizational transformations were identified and organized into three dimensions – object, magnitude and speed of transformation – to develop a foundational framework of transformations. Through a comprehensive search of publicly available information, 52 cases of organizational transformations between 1991 and 2011 were identified. A case report for each transformation was then prepared and examined to identify elements of each transformation by referring to the foundational framework. Transformations were then classified into different types using cluster analysis, with elements as variables and cases as objects to be clustered.

Nine distinct types of transformations were found. They were named quickfixer, extender, healer, evolver, peripheral, recurrent, methodical, internal and cultivator based on each case’s characteristics as captured in case reports.

This study brings together transformation characteristics that have been largely considered distinct in literature to develop a comprehensive typology that depicts the complexity of organizational transformations. This is also one of the first studies to develop a typology of transformations that is based on and thus relevant to organizations in India.

This paper examines the framing of digital transformation. The research questions are specified as follows: what are the different types of framing strategies in response to digital transformation? How do the strategies differ across organizations? Theoretically, the authors draw on the framing perspective to emphasize the use of linguistic frames in shaping innovation and change processes. Empirically, the authors choose to study the Taiwanese sectors, including publicly governed entities, traditional private business or technology-based ventures.

The authors’ approach combines topic modeling and qualitative analysis. Using data collected from newspaper and magazine articles, the authors employ topic modeling to generate a set of distinctive framings that Taiwanese actors typically adopt to motivate and justify their digital move. The authors also conduct personal interviews to qualitatively complement the authors’ topic modeling analysis and to identify the rationale behind the linguistic framings and the strategic differences brought about by the various organizations.

The authors identify five topics that the Taiwanese actors commonly used in the framing of digital transformation. These topics or frames are labeled as cross-domain coordination, market demand, intelligent technology, global trend and competition and digital innovation. The practical use of the framings is contingent on organizational characteristics. Furthermore, the authors show how the framings can be classified as either positive framing (e.g. winning the next war) or negative framing (e.g. innovate or die), generally applicable to organizations around the world struggling to cope with digital disruption.

The authors’ study has two research implications. First, the authors extend the appreciation of the digital transformation from the usual concern with technological and business model innovations to linguistic or framing practices. Second, the authors enrich the framing analysis by emphasizing a practice or contingency perspective based on sector difference. The findings are subject to the limitations of the choice of only established and reputable media outlets, the diatextual reading and filtering of useful articles for topic modeling analysis and the use of world frequency to account for frame significance.

The authors shift actors' attention from improving technical efficiency to acquiring linguistic resources in the pursuit of digitalization. For example, framing the digital transformation in terms of creating a market orientation calls for not only real consumer power but also strategic discursive competence that enables the move to change. The findings also point out that practitioners can enlarge the scope of their agency rather than being trapped in the habituated routine of practices. Despite social embeddedness, organizations are more often widely connected and built enough to call for more of the cognitive frames to appeal to heterogeneous stakeholders.

The authors study contributes to the literature by developing a linguistic or socio-cognitive view of digital transformation strategy that is capable of expanding organizational attention toward change and innovation. The authors explore menus of strategic frames employed by actors in response to digital transformation. We also address the application of a machine-learning tool such as topic modeling to explore the socio-cognitive dimensions of digital transformation. Furthermore, the analysis leads us to identify the outcomes or effects – either positive or negative – that move beyond the particular Taiwanese case to explain the framing of digital transformation in general.

This paper aims to comprehend organizational transformation (OT) as a permanent, continuous and iterative system, which integrates large transformations that, in turn, require smaller, additional transformations. For OT implementation, a conceptual model is proposed, called the four orders of OT.

Case study with a qualitative approach, used critical incident interviews, which were applied to describe both successful and unsuccessful events. Participants were chosen by convenience, and information was processed with Nvivo software.

The Colombian family holding studied was founded in 1974, and in its 47 years of existence, has implemented important transformations in its three companies. These showcase the four types of OT proposed, although third order support has been applied most often. The events that triggered said transformations are mainly of exogenous character, and broad responsibility was found on both the upper management and work team levels for implementation processes. This was also found for the indicator use and the various planning approaches used, depending upon the transformation type.

Future research is required, so as to refine and validate the conceptual OT model proposed in other types of companies and development contexts. The proposed construct permits company managers to design and more efficiently manage transformations, while satisfying the diverse orders proposed in the theoretical model.

An integrative conceptual model called “the four orders of OT” is proposed and validated in a Colombian family businesses group, which is composed of three companies.

Increasing market pressures require organizations to rethink the development of change capability. Building a sustainable and flexible organization capable of responding in a timely manner to quickly changing customer demands without compromising technological excellence and quality is a complex task. This chapter builds on a five-year study of transformation efforts at a product development unit of Ericsson. The complexity of designing and managing learning mechanisms as both a transformation engine and a way to improve new product development is captured. The chapter points toward the challenges of designing and managing learning mechanisms that enhance organizational agility.

This paper aims to investigate the characteristics and dynamics of the organizational changes needed to facilitate the management of an Industry 4.0 transformation in manufacturing SMEs and propose an approach to manage them.

This research focuses on a single manufacturing SME in North America, and data were collected using a research intervention method. Data were collected through observation and intervention within the SME over 27 months.

The research has shown that organizational changes are required in manufacturing SMEs to better manage their Industry 4.0 transformation projects.

Using the case study method limits the generalization of the results. The organizational changes observed, and their characteristics might be specific to the studied manufacturing. Although results could vary in different contexts, many manufacturing SMEs have similar characteristics to those observed in this study.

This research provides preliminary evidence of an iterative organizational change management approach that manufacturing SMEs must adopt to facilitate the management of their digital transformation.

This research provides a better understanding of how a manufacturing SME can improve its capabilities to manage its digital transformation by introducing iterative organizational changes. From these results, a link to the organizational learning literature can be drawn and developed upon.