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The flexibility of corporations to adapt their strategy to a fast-changing environment can be a major source for competitive advantage and survival. While research mainly focuses on outcomes of this ability, little is known of how to foster it in organizations. Thus, by building on the upper echelons theory, the authors assume that the strategic flexibility of the company depends on the willingness and permission to change of the chief executive officer (CEO). To support the hypotheses, the authors apply the dimensions of commitment to change and work autonomy to the CEO and test for moderation under conditions of technological turbulence. The authors’ results based on medium-sized organizations in Germany show significant effects of both dimensions on strategic flexibility. In particular, under conditions of high technological turbulence, commitment based on loyalty and not on pressure together with autonomy on control and evaluation criteria is best suited to increase strategic flexibility. These insights extend the research literature and provide guidelines for CEOs and their supervisors alike.

This chapter presents a theory for developing an adaptive high commitment, high performance system of organizing, managing, and leading. It is a synthesis of my 50 years of action and field research presented in my books and articles. It operationalized and makes actionable the ideas of Lewin and systems theorists. Its features are three organizational outcomes that must be achieved simultaneously, features of the system that must be targeted for change, six silent barriers to change, a governance system for continuous learning, change in large complex systems, and elements of a system that needed to immunize it against ultimate destruction.

This chapter provides a review and extension of research pertaining to the respective roles of leaders, managers, and human resource management (HRM) practices on employee reactions to organizational change. Particular focus is given to the differential effects of these factors on employee commitment and resistance to change. A review of organizational change research between 2001 and 2011 revealed these outcomes to be two of the most commonly studied and consequential employee reactions to change. The review also demonstrates that research lacks precision in the treatment (conceptualization and measurement) of these constructs. For instance, sometimes the leadership and management of change are clearly differentiated, other times equated, and yet other times blurred. Arguments are presented that encourage researchers to refine theory and tests of leading and managing change, as well as their respective implications for change-related HRM. A specific case is made for the academic and practical utility of theory and practice that explicitly integrates leadership and management roles and responsibilities. Doing so will more closely align with and capture the inherent complexity of organizational change and employees’ experience. The intent is to urge both scholars and practitioners of change to adopt broader, yet more precise and practical, perspectives on how to influence employee reactions and change outcomes. To this end, special attention is paid to roles of leaders, managers, and HRM practices.

Cross-cultural mergers and acquisitions (M&As) can generate the number of negative feelings and emotions among the survivors of the deal. These negative outcomes can range from lowered commitment, lack of productivity, and talent loss to the more serious work alienation. Hence, this chapter is an attempt to identify the employees’ level of commitment and their feelings of alienation in the post-M&A integration phase. Also, provided training has proven to be important in building employee commitment and mitigating the feelings of alienation, this studies the relationship of these psychological outcomes with the different kinds of training provided to them during post-M&A situations. The vast literature review studied revealed a significant relationship between employees’ perceived effectiveness of training and their level of commitment with the newly merged firm, while an inverse relationship was found with employees’ feelings of alienation. This chapter has crucial implications for researchers and practitioners.

In the context of the conflicting results of earlier studies, this chapter proposes a model of pre-merger identification and commitment to merger (in a pre-merger setting) by taking into account the multi-dimensional nature of commitment. First it argues that commitment to merger, rather than commitment to organization, drives behaviour in a merger. Then pre-merger identification is hypothesized to be positively related to normative and continuance commitment and either negatively or not significantly related to affective commitment.

This paper presents a framework to study organizational change using the metaphor of ritual. Concepts of myth and ritual facilitate understanding of change interventions. A qualitative study of Appreciative Inquiry helped answer the question: what mechanisms or processes explain the effect of the Appreciative Inquiry Summit? Four mechanisms, based on qualitative interviews and anthropological and sociological theory, explain why the AI Summit produces organizational change: (1) internal dialogue: recognizing a positive dimension and new vocabulary at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels of analysis; (2) communitas: the mechanism whereby new relationships form due to relational anti-structure; (3) commitment: how organization members cognitively and cathectically commit to the organization; and (4) longitudinal repetition: how sustained and continuous change involves repetition of ritual practices and the recognition.

The field of organization development is fragmented and lacks a coherent and integrated theory and method for developing an effective organization. A 20-year action research program led to the development and evaluation of the Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) – a platform by which senior leaders, with the help of consultants, can have an honest, collective, and public conversation about their organization's alignment with espoused strategy and values. The research has identified a syndrome of six silent barriers to effectiveness and a dynamic theory of organizational effectiveness. Empirical evidence from the 20-year study demonstrates that SFP always enables truth to speak to power safely, and in a majority of cases enables senior teams to transform silent barriers into strengths, realign their organization's design and strategic management process with strategy and values, and in a few cases employ SFP as an ongoing learning and governance process. Implications for organization and leadership development and corporate governance are discussed.

Relationships are socially constructed by companies in interaction. This study explains the dynamic character of business-to-business relationships with the aid of rules theory, a theory borrowed from the communications field. Two forms of rules are identified: constitutive rules guide the interpretation of the other's acts, and regulative rules guide the appropriate response to the interpreted act. Rules theory asserts that companies act as if applying these rules. Relationships provide not only the context in which the parties’ acts are performed but are also the result of such acts. Thus, relationships are potentially reshaped each time one party performs an act and the other party gives meaning to that act and reacts.

This chapter explores the evolution of a network, initially based on providing sustainable seafood through Loblaw’s supply chain, to a network that is collectively working to improve ocean health. It describes the role of the CEO and key managers, the internal changes taken by Loblaw to become a more sustainable organization, and the external partnering that resulted in a more coherent network with shared goals.

The chapter describes models and theories of sustainable organizations, issue nets, and collaboration and then applies the concepts to understand Loblaw’s sustainability journey and the creation of a network.

The model of the evolution to a sustainable organization is extended to include the journey to sustainable issue or domain networks. What Loblaw and the partnering organizations were able to create suggests that there are increasing levels of collaboration around changing a domain, if there is the courage to take a leap of faith and increase an organization’s time horizon beyond immediate financial demands.

The findings of this chapter will help senior executives with responsibility for shifting supply chains to become more sustainable. In addition, this case provides a new level of detail in describing the journey to sustainability, shifting from a company focus to an issue focus.