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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.

Despite much research on information technology (IT)-enabled organizational transformation (OT), there are still many issues to be addressed. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by proposing an integrative model that includes specific transformation resources, capabilities, and outcomes pertaining to the success of IT-enabled OT.

Using the resource-based view, organizational learning theory, and business process reengineering, the authors developed an integrative model of IT-enabled OT. To validate this model, the authors conducted in-depth case studies of five firms that reported successful IT-enabled OT and five others that reported less successful.

This study offers three important findings. First, flexible IT and policies were found to be key transformation resources. Second, training, teamwork, leadership, and project ownership were identified as key transformation capabilities. Third, strategic outcomes such as responsiveness, customer satisfaction, and business scope were suggested as key transformation outcomes. The benefits realized by the less successful group tended to be limited to the operational level. Overall, the findings provide evidence that strategic benefits from the success of IT-enabled OT can be obtained by combining specific transformation resources and capabilities.

The results of this study make three contributions to the literature on IT-enabled OT. First, the authors shed light on the underlying mechanism by which specific transformation resources and capabilities lead to the improvement of specific outcomes. Second, IT-enabled OT has been conceptualized from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Third, the authors brought together the diverse literature on IT-enabled OT, presenting an empirically validated integrative model of IT-enabled OT.

Complex crises affect tightly coupled systems making them highly unpredictable. This paper aims to determine how organizations learn from their crisis experience shaping their knowledge and transformation trajectory toward and beyond survival. A theoretical framework integrating organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management in organizational transformation (OT) in complex crises is presented.

This conceptual paper presents a systematic literature review on OT in crisis from 2000 to 2021. To achieve integration, the authors searched for studies on OT, knowledge management and OL, each paired with a crisis.

Crises highlight the emergent and decentered nature of knowing and organizing. This study suggests that OT is achieved through various changes in organizational knowledge. Different learning modes enable the transformation of knowledge in a crisis: contextual or situated learning, strategic and collective integration.

The authors' pandemic experience may have influenced the analysis. This paper does not account for new types of learning emerging due to the influence of digital technologies.

Organizations may hasten renewal through distributed crisis management facilitated by contextual and strategic learning and collective integration.

This study categorizes learning, based on its function in crisis management, into three types: contextual learning for creative problem-solving, strategic learning for leadership and direction and collective integration to evaluate their crisis journey. Through this classification, this study sheds light on the types of knowledge needed to manage crises effectively, showing that organizations can leverage their crises by transforming and innovating themselves in this turbulent period.

Two major approaches to organizational transformation (OT) are identified as “Drive” and “Grow” theories. Each has a serious flaw but they can be combined to form a stronger approach. However, managing the hybrid presents special challenges, including an acceptance of paradox. Five case studies are used to gain insight into OT at a process level, into the cross-conflicts and environmental reactions, including “the organizational immune reaction”. Two propositions are formulated: the bi-focal formula (regarding the agreement between an OT initiative and its host organizational unit) and the partnership proposition (regarding shared leadership of OT initiatives).

The purpose of this study is to develop a more comprehensive framework that would provide better insight into the characteristics of organisational transformation (OT) of the public sector organisations in the e-government era. Despite the widespread opinion that successful implementation of information communication technology (ICT) is strongly correlated with the appropriate OT of the public sector, a critical analysis of the available literature within the field indicates that this important dimension of e-government development has been dealt with only partially. Accordingly, the paper attempts the following: to develop a more comprehensive framework for observing OT, to empirically explain the framework through analysis of three Slovenian e-government projects and to develop some general characteristics of ICT-induced OT in the public sector.

The development of the framework is based on an analysis of the available literature, whereas the explanation of such is based on a multiple-case study approach.

The paper contributes to a clearer understanding of what the main characteristics of OT in the e-government era are and how they should be observed.

The findings can help researchers to more accurately focus their attention on the most critical aspects of OT. The identified attributes can provide an important basis for future research, particularly from the methodological perspective.

The framework can help public managers to focus their attention on the most important attributes of ICT-induced OT to exploit ICT potentials more efficiently.

The paper attempts to demystify the concept of OT in the e-government field and place it in a more solid theoretical and empirically explained framework.

OD refers to cell 3 of the adoption-diffusion innovation typology defined in Table 1. It has an administrative extent and an autonomous scope. OD has been used pre-dominantly in organizational change and sociology literature to describe cultural innovation programs that are directed toward a change in individual employee behavior. In accounting, the OD approach is important because accounting innovations, such as ABC, are directed toward a change in managers' behavior and the use of accounting data to evaluate performance. The OD approach is applicable in the use of ABC data at the divisional or unit level. Before explaining the application and use of OD in accounting innovations, we will define OD and summarize its innovation approaches as described in organizational sociology and behavior literature.

A slew of conventional change models and theories appear in the extant change literature. Despite being theoretically sound, these a priori structured approaches to organizational change management have questionable application given the rapidly changing business environments. Novel approaches, offering greater flexibility to fast changing external conditions, may offer superior models to organizational change and organizational transformation (OT) in particular. In this paper, the application of a complex adaptive system (CAS) framework, from complexity theory (CT), for managing OT is assessed theoretically.

A conceptual paper.

A review of the extant change literature suggests that current approaches and models for organizational change are limited in their ability to reflect OT responses to today's highly dynamic external environments. New models are required to inform and guide organizations. A new model, i.e. CAS framework, is deemed suitable to guide the OT implementation.

This paper critically analyses different approaches to change management, consolidates CAS framework, reviews its applications in the field of management and presents a case for CAS's application for the management of OT.

Accounting for quality and improved organizational performance has recently received attention in management control research. However, the extent to which process innovation changes have been integrated into management control research is limited. This paper contributes to that integration by drawing from institutional adaptive theory of organizational change and process innovation strategies. The paper utilizes a 2 by 2 contingency table that uses two factors: environmental conditions and organizational change/learning strategies, to build a process innovation framework. A combination of these two factors yields four process innovation strategies: mechanistic, organic, organizational development (OD) and organizational transformation (OT).

The four process innovation typologies are applied to characterize innovations in accounting such as activity based costing (ABC). ABC has been discussed as a multi-phased innovation process that provides an environment where both the initiation and the implementation of accounting change can occur. Technical innovation can be successfully initiated as organic innovation that unfolds in a decentralized organization and requires radical change and double loop learning. Implementation occurs best as a mechanistic innovation in a hierarchical organization and involving incremental change and single loop learning. The paper concludes that if ABC is integrated into an OD or OT intervention strategy, the technical and administrative innovation aspects of ABC can be utilized to manage the organization’s operating activities.

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.

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.