The Social Approach to Organizational Change

Over the last two decades, the issue of organizational change has assumed central importance within the study of business and management. Indeed, sometimes one might imagine that radical change is a new experience or observation in the history of work and employment. Particular attention has been given to broad changes – the pace of technological ‘development’, the internationalization of markets and the emergence of new competitors – as well as the ways in which organizations are (re-)building their structures, strategies and cultures in order to adapt to and shape the new circumstances. How such organizational changes are achieved and the conditions of their emergence and, for many, ‘success’ have become central questions for organization and management theory. In this introduction, we present a critical examination of some of the main approaches to these issues. We then go on to outline a largely separate literature which has informed our own approach and introduce how it has been developed in the analysis of change in the UK financial services sector.