Van de Ven & Poole (2005): Alternative approaches for studying organizational change

Question 1

Ontology: Organizations as a thing or as a process

Answer 1

• The organizations is an identity and does not change (river as a thing)
• The organizations is a process of things and changes constantly (flowing river)

Question 2

Variance and Process Epistemologies

Answer 2

Two definitions of change are often used in organization studies:
1) An observed difference over time in an organizational entity on selected dimensions
2) a narrative describing a sequence of events on how development and change unfold

Question 3

• Variance method:

Answer 3

This method focuses on variables that represent the important aspects or attributes of the subject under study. Explanations take the form of causal statements or models that incorporate these variables (e.g. X causes Y, which causes Z). An implicit goal of variance research is to establish the conditions necessary to bring about an outcome.

The most common type of variance study treats change as a variable, such as rate of innovation or depth of change. The goal of these studies is to explain and/or predict the occurrence and magnitude of change, or the effects of change, on other variables.

Question 4

• Process method:

Answer 4

Process methods tend to be more complex than variance explanations due to the complexity of events, the need to account for temporal connections among events, different time scales in the same process, and the dynamic nature of processes.

Process theories may incorporate several different types of effects into their explanations, including critical events and turning points, contextual influence, formative patterns that give overall direction to the change, and causal factors that influence the sequencing of events.
Process research employs eclectic designs that identify or reconstruct the process through direct observation, archival analysis, or multiple case studies.

A process theory should include the following features in the story:
1) Sequence in time: a clear beginning, middle, and end.
2) Focal actor: there is a protagonist and, frequently, an antagonist as well.
3) Identifiable narrative voice: there should always be an identifiable voice doing the narrating.
4) Canonical’ or evaluative frame of reference: narratives carry meaning and cultural value because they encode, implicitly or explicitly, standards against which actions of the characters can be judged.
5) Other indicators of content or context: Narrative texts typically contain more than just the bare events. In particular, they contain a variety of textual devices that are used to indicate time, place, attributes of the characters, attributes of the context, and so on. These indicators do not advance the plot, but they provide information that may be essential to the interpretation of the events.

Question 5

1. Approach I: Variance study of change in organizations

Answer 5

Well suited for examining research questions such as: what are the causes or correlates of change in organizations? It treats change in an organizational entity as a dependent variable and explains it as a function of independent variables.

Assumptions of this model:
- Causality is well behaved
- Causes flow from larger to smaller ones (organization influences individuals)
- Casual factors operate homogeneously across cases and on the same time scale

Limitations:
- Difficult to study the activities or steps in which change and innovation unfold
- Difficult to study the causal reasons of change

Question 6

2. Approach II: Process Study of Change in Organizations

Answer 6

Conceptualizes change as a succession of events, stages, cycles, or states in the development or growth of an organization.

Nutt’s (2002) transactional model of strategic decision making defines six stages of decision making — signals, intentions, concept development, detailing, evaluation, and installation. The decision maker takes various actions to enact each stage, from stating needs and opportunities to defining intentions or taking a set of options to evaluation. Nutt derived a typology of strategic decision processes that represented different patterns of movement through the six phases, and these types were used as independent variables to explain effectiveness of strategic decision making.

Question 7

3. Approach III: Process Study of Organizing

Answer 7

Presumes the world is composed of processes, and applies the process research approach. It examines questions like: how do processes of sense-making, conflict resolution, protests, or making a living unfold over time?

Research in Approach III faces an irony, in that its representation, interpretation, and explanation of processes must always reify the processes — which are evanescent and in flux — in words and diagrams fixed statically to the page.

Question 8

4. Approach IV: Variance Study of Organizing

Answer 8

Investigates processes through quantitative analysis of an event series. This strategy: (a) specifies indicators or variables that characterize attributes of events; (b) codes events to assign values to these variables; (c) analyzes the resulting time series to examine questions about the sequence, pattern, or structure of an unfolding process.
At least two different varieties of Approach IV can be delineated. The first entails an empirical investigation into the structure of an evolving process, while the second adopts mathematical modeling and simulation techniques to unravel the process.
Empirical investigations involve defining variables that capture characteristics of processes themselves, such as their rate of change, their complexity, or modes of structuration or appropriation style. These variables then become dependent and independent variables that are related to other variables.