Strategically Balanced Change: A Key Factor in Modern Management

Abstract

Organizational change is a much discussed topic in the management literature. It is an important issue because proper change management significantly increases the survival of an organization in today’s hypercompetitive global business environment. Yet, all too often transformational change programs fail due to a variety of reasons. The purpose of this paper is to describe change from different angles (e.g., themes and types of change, importance of change, resistance to change, and change lessons) and to utilize the literature information to identify key components of organizational change in order to develop a “Model of Strategically Balanced Change”. I argue that transformational change is a balancing act and should involve the entire workforce (i.e., leaders, managers, and workers). This review article is essentially an information guide about organizational change that can be used by decision makers in industry and nonprofit organizations, by business consultants, and by business educators and students in academia.