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The purpose of this study is to develop a meta-model for organisational change based on a literature review across organisational theories, specific theories about organisational change and systems theories related to theories of organisational change.

The research is based on an extensive literature review for the period 1972–2012 which covers organisational theories, systems theories relating to organisational change theories, and specific theories of organisational change. It used the Social Sciences Citation Index using as search items change, transformation, organization[al] model, theory, systems, and combinations of these terms. The research is based on an extensive literature review for the period 1972–2012 which covers organisational theories, systems theories relating to organisational change theories, and specific theories of organisational change. It used the Social Sciences Citation Index using as search items change, transformation, organization[al] model, theory, systems, and combinations of these terms.

The meta-model is constructed as a complex systems model including the four discourses and their process elements. As each discourse provides specific and different insights into how organisational change occurs, we can widen our field of view on change by switching between different discourses. This also allows a holistic rather than the reductionist methods of other approaches.

The meta-model makes it possible to look at organisational change from a variety of angles. Structural, cultural, behavioral and strategic change can be looked at from four different dimensions. It allows for insights from the different discourses to be drawn upon, as each of which have their merits but also their own limitations. By going beyond the normative discourse, it provides for a model of organisational change that better reflects the complexity of change in real life settings and captures the complexity of the research literature.

The paper seeks to demonstrate that a systems model of change is better able to capture the complex nature of change than are linear models. Synthesizing this literature has been undertaken previously but this has usually been done with linear models of change which have produced limited results.

The impact of the e-globalization combined with staggering costs for R & D across industries has resulted in the call for new approach to innovation where openness and interconnectivity is the role. This new approach is designated as “open innovation”. The new paradigm calls for the sharing of knowledge and resources in conducting innovation activities within and among organizations. As such, one needs to re-orient the structure of the organization to meet these new requirements. On the conceptual level, it becomes a significant undertake to try to grasp how our traditional understanding of the organization can be fitted within the requirements of the open innovation when the environment of the e-globalization is taken in consideration. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the question of how organization structure theories can be coupled to the open innovation paradigm. Out of that analysis the authors propose a new theoretical framework of organizational analysis that takes both the classical knowledge and the new economic context of e-globalization.

The contemporary period is recognized by the term “new economy”, as a replacement for the “old economy”. Another term of importance is “globalization”, which is coupled to the issue of economy categorization. Humanity launched the modern age of globalization some decades ago, but we are going through a new type of globalization, e-globalization. In the e-globalization, processes are induced basically by the impact of the new tools of communication and information technologies. These dynamic processes have forced a re-thinking of the traditional innovation practices. In the paper, the authors reflect on the changes in relation to the traditional knowledge about organization structure, using a deductive approach and textual analysis and relate that to the requirements of an open innovation paradigm. In the process, the authors introduce the basics of the “theory of internetisation dynamics” as a new potential organizational theoretical framework.

From the analysis, it was found that some traditional concepts about organization structure and organizing mechanism theories are responsive to the needs of the open paradigm settings while other theories are not. However, each of these is able to contribute to one of the five components of the theory of internetisation dynamics.

The authors argue that by using the correct framework for the analysis of the organizational structure, one can propose a set of strategic steps which would help the companies to re-structure. That would save time and effort for policy-makers and managers of firms, as well as researchers active in this field of organization and organizing processes, who are focused on the open innovation transformation requirements of the firms. Running this analysis would add some input into organizational re-orientation in troubled sectors such as in pharmaceutical industries.

This essay raises a concern about the trajectory that new institutionalism has been following during the last decades, namely an emphasis on heterogeneity, change and agentic behavior instead of isomorphism and conformist behavior. This is a crucial issue from the perspective of the philosophy and methodology of science since a theory that admits both change and stability as a norm has less scientific weight then a theory that predicts a prevalence of passivity and isomorphism over change and strategic behavior. The former provides explanations and predictions while the latter does not.

The paper offers an analysis of the nature, characteristics, functions and boundaries of institutional theories in the spirit of philosophy and methodology of science literature.

The power of the former institutional theory developed by Meyer, Rowan, DiMaggio and Powell lies in its generalization, explanation and prediction of observable and unobservable phenomena: as a typical organizational theory that puts forward directional predictions, it explains and predicts the tendency for organizations to become more similar to each other over time and express less strategic and interest-driven behavior, conforming to ever-increasing institutional pressures. A theory of isomorphism makes scientific predictions while its modern advancements do not. Drawing on Popper's idea of the limit of domains of explanation and limited domains of theories we present two propositions that may direct our attention towards the strength or weakness of institutional theories with regard to their explanations of organizational processes and behavior.

The paper draws implications for further theory building in institutional analysis by suggesting the nature of institutional explanations and the place of institutional change in the theoretical apparatus. Once institutional theory explains the tendency of the system towards equilibrium, there is no need to explain the origins and causes of radical change per se. Institutional isomorphism theory explains and predicts how even after radical changes organizational fields will move towards isomorphism, that is, institutional equilibrium. The task is, therefore, not to explain agency and change but to show that it is natural and inevitable processes that organizational field will return to isomorphic dynamics and move towards homogenization no matter how much radical change occurred in this field.

The paper discusses the practical problems with instrumental utility of institutional theories. In order to be useful any theory must clearly delineate its boundaries and offer explanations and predictions and it is only the former 1977/1983 institutional theory that satisfies these requirements while modern advancements merely offer ambiguous theoretical umbrellas that escape empirical tests. For researchers therefore it is important to recognize which theory can be applied in a given limited domain of research and which one has little or no value.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

This paper aims to demonstrating that the former new institutional theory of isomorphism and decoupling cannot be extended, modified or refuted as it is a closed theory. By analyzing the structure of this former version of institutional theory and its numerous modern competitors (institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work and institutional logics theories) it is argued that these alternative theories demonstrate even less explanatory and predictive power and do not refute or extend their predecessor. The rise of new organizational theories can have no other effect on classic institutional theory than to limit the domain of its applicability. In turn, there are a number of principles and conditions that future theories should meet to be accepted as progressive advancements.

The paper provides a review of relevant organizational and philosophical literature on theory construction and scientific progress in organizational research and offers a set of principles and demands for those new theories that seek to challenge new institutionalism.

The authors show that the former institutional theory satisfies two main criteria that any scientific theory should conform with following it is useful and falsifiable in term of giving explanations and predictions while, at the same time, clearly specifying what can be observed and what cannot; what can happen and what is not likely to occur. Modern institutional theories cannot demonstrate this quality and they do not satisfy these criteria. Moreover, institutional isomorphism theory is a closed theory, which means it cannot be intervened with changes and modifications and all future theories should develop their theoretical propositions for other domains of applications while they should account for all empirical phenomena that institutional theory successfully explains.

Adopting instrumental view on organizational theories allowed reconstructing the logic and trajectory of organizational research evolution and defends its rationality and progressive nature. It is also outlined how existing dominant theory should be treated and how new theories should challenge its limitations and blind spots and which philosophical and methodological criteria should be met.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, how organization theoretically diverse research on OCR is actually grounded, since insights into the organization theoretical foundations of OCR are completely lacking.

A selection of 85 articles on organizational change was made, published in top tier journals in 2010. The authors conducted a reference analysis based on 18 prominent organization theories and their main contributing authors.

The findings show firstly a very strong theoretical selectivity, focusing on cognitive, learning, and neo-institutional theories. Other theories are almost fully neglected. Secondly, this analysis suggests that current OCR struggles hard with transforming the cognitive frames of topical OT into fruitful accesses to the own object. The resulting theory application appears as a dissatisfying escape strategy, performed to cover theoretical antagonisms and to avoid a deeper confrontation with the underlying assumptions of OCR.

The authors are fully aware that the depth of their analysis is worth broadening. A more comparable scope in the amount of the theories, journals, articles, and of the covered time span would help to substantiate their results.

Pragmatic change approaches rely strongly on organizational change research. If OCR itself is not topical in terms of using available theoretical knowledge, pragmatic approaches fail to stand on solid ground. The paper therefore provides a background for the link between failing empirical change projects and the usage of available scientific knowledge.

An analysis of the organization theoretical topicality of organizational change research is completely missing. The paper therefore not only contributes to the discovery of a blind spot in organizational studies, it possibly helps to explore the reasons for the high percentage of failing change projects.

This paper aims to examine the usefulness of organizational change theory for management practice.

The authors present an exploratory, empirical study of managers who were taught organizational change theory as part of a postgraduate degree. Building on the study findings, they analyse managers' subsequent experiences of organizational change; of how they use change theory in practice and the impact on their practice of their earlier formal study.

The paper finds that the complexities of managing change in practice reflect distinctive organizational environments and cultures. The skills and knowledge which managers found most useful were those that enabled them to “make sense” of the organizational change they subsequently experienced. The main impact of their earlier studies was to prompt informative, discursive and reflective approaches to change management.

The paper discusses the implications for future teaching of organizational change and the development of organizational change theory.

The qualitative findings of the study add to, and help to explain, earlier research findings on the questions of how managers' experience change, how they use organizational change theory and its impact on their practice.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new analysis and understanding of the notion of deinstitutionalization. Deinstitutionalization of taken-for-granted practices as a natural consequence of ever-increasing entropy seems to directly contradict the major institutional thesis, namely, that over time isomorphic forces increase and, as a result, possibilities for deinstitutionalization decrease culminating in the impossibility of abandoning in highly institutionalized fields.

This paper is conceptual in nature. Oliver’s 1992 paper on deinstitutionalization is taken as a key text on the subject and as a starting point for building an alternative theory of deinstitutionalization. More broadly, institutional theory and organizational literature on diffusion/adoption are reviewed and synthesized.

The authors argue that possibilities for deinstitutionalization have been overestimated in institutional literature and offer a revisited account of deinstitutionalization vs institutional isomorphism and institutionalized vs highly diffusing-but-not-institutionalized practices. A freedom for choice between alternative practices exists during the pre-institutional stage but not when the field is already institutionalized. In contrast, institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices are immutable to any sort of functional and political pressures and they use to persist even when no technical value remains, thus deinstitutionalization on the basis of a functional dissatisfaction seems to be a paradox.

By revisiting the nature and patterns of deinstitutionalization, the paper offers a better conceptual classification and understanding of how organizations adopt, maintain and abandon organizational ideas and practices. An important task of this paper is to reduce the scope of application of deinstitutionalization theory to make it more focused and self-consistent. There is, however, still not enough volume of studies on institutional factors of practices’ abandonment in institutional literature. The authors, therefore, acknowledge that more studies are needed to further improve both the former deinstitutionalization theory and the framework.

The authors offer a solution to this theoretical inconsistency by distinguishing between truly institutionalized practices and currently popular practices (highly diffused but non-institutionalized). It is only the latter that are subject to the norms of progress that allow abandoning and replacing existing organizational activities. Deinstitutionalization theory is, thus can be applied to popular practices that are subject to reevaluation, abandonment and replacement with new optimal practices while institutions are immutable to these norms of progress. Institutions are immutable to deinstitutionalization and the deinstitutionalization of optimal practices is subject to the logic of isomorphic convergence in organizational fields. Finally, the authors revisit a traditional two-stage institutional diffusion model to explain the possibility and likelihood of abandonment during different stages of institutionalization.

This conceptual paper aims to develop a multi-level mental health management framework for project management practitioners (PMPs) in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) project organizations through organizational design theories to extend current knowledge on mental health by revealing organizational, project and external environmental factors contributing to mental health management in AEC project organizations.

A systematic literature review was adopted to propose a theoretical model that integrated five organizational design theories: institutional theory, agency theory, resources-based theory (RBT), contingency theory and complexity theory.

The model reveals permanent organization, project organization and external environment factors for mental health management in AEC project organizations. It further proposed hypothetical interrelationships between elements of permanent organization, project organization, external environment and mental health management indicators to unravel the resultant effects of the interactions on mental health of PMPs.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a multi-level mental health management framework that identify and shows how combination permanent organization, project organization and external environment elements impact mental health of PMPs in AEC project organizations. It offers a model that offers guidance to practitioners on permanent organization and project organization management practices that can be implemented to improve mental health.

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.