HOW PRACTITIONERS PROMOTE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE: CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

This study identifies how change management practitioners promote organizational change. It expands upon current research to describe contemporary approaches that practitioners use in the field. We interviewed 20 participants from change management organizations and academic departments to identify how they used different strategies to promote organizational change. We developed 14 themes consisting of actionable strategies. The themes focus on how organizational culture affects change in terms of communicating with employees about change, promoting change through leadership, using change management strategies contextually, measuring change through milestones, and implementing informal assessments. The results of this study suggest that (a) there are common strategies that practitioners often use, (b) practitioners use different strategies based on the context of the change, and (c) change managers use informal assessments to determine whether a change transitioned into organizational culture.