One way to understand change is to consider it in terms of the motors, or general theories, that bring about change. Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) paper presents four ideal types of theory drawn from a wide range of disciplines which address the question of why organizations change:
- Life-cycle: immanent within any organization are the logics or processes that lead it to change from the present state to more advanced ones in a series of evolutionary stages.
- Teleological: the organization develops purposefully towards an envisioned goal or end-state; there is not a pre-ordained sequence of events as in life-cycle theories because the desired goal can be defined and socially constructed.
- Dialectical: conflicts between opposing forces (representing thesis and antithesis) may create a synthesis which represents a new state.
- Evolutionary: at the level of organizational populations, change occurs through variation, selection, retention or random chance.
The motors of change identified by Van de Ven and Poole have a relationship to the pace and scale of change. Life-cycle and evolutionary motors tend to lead to continuous and incremental change, while dialectical and teleological motors lead to episodic and radical change.
What does this mean for people who deal with change in organizations? Successful change management demands an understanding of the concept ‘change’, so a bit of theory is always appropriate. I’ll discuss this more in future notes.
Van de Ven, A. H. & Poole, M. S. 1995. Explaining Development and Change in Organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20(3): 510-540.
