Towards an understanding of the link between environment, discontinuity and volitional strategic change
by George Burt
International Journal of Business Environment (IJBE), Vol. 1, No. 3, 2006

Abstract: Whilst organisations have been confronted with uncertainty in the environment and the need to change, resulting in incremental or radical change, we know very little about volitional strategic change. Volitional strategic change arises when management engage in changing before the need to change is imposed on their organisation. We know very little about how organisations perceive early warning signals of impending change and using the insights from these perceptions to bring about volitional strategic change, with the resulting impact on the operations of the organisation. This paper explores the link between environment, discontinuity and volitional strategic change, using recent empirical evidence, to identity the bases of change – psychological and operational. This paper identifies the role of a 'transitional object' as being the key that links the old (existing) world of management to the new (proposed) world of management and therefore facilitating volitional strategic change. The transitional object enables a re-conceptualisation of the organisation's basis of success to incorporate and integrate wider change proposals.

Online publication date: Mon, 18-Sep-2006

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Business Environment (IJBE):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com