Boundary activities and readiness for ... - Projekti-Instituutti

Theoretical background
Although many authors appear to assume that change is implemented in
the form of a project or a program (e.g. Bamford & Daniel, 2005; Beer et al.,
1990; Dunphy & Stace, 1993; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008; McNulty & Ferlie,
2004; Woodward & Hendry, 2004), the project or program organization
assigned for planning and managing a change effort has received little
attention in the mainstream change management literature. Within project
management research, a stream of studies has emerged that focuses on
change projects, also called internal development projects (Elonen & Artto,
2003), internal projects (Mikkelsen et al., 1991), renewal projects
(Andersen, 2006; Blomquist & Packendorff, 1998) and soft projects in
contrast to hard projects (Crawford & Pollack, 2004; McElroy, 1996). These
studies propose that the management of change projects and programs
requires approaches and practices that differ from the traditional project
management methodologies, including sensemaking, improvisation, and
experimenting (Leyborne, 2006; Sankaran, Tay, & Orr, 2009).
Recent streams of organizational change research also include microlevel,
interpretative studies that examine change from the individuals’
perspective, focusing on cognitive processes and behavior that shape the
change (e.g. Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991).
Furthermore, the recent years have witnessed a growing number of
researchers adopting a critical view of organizational change. These
researchers accuse the traditional change management research of
managerialism, universalism and pro-change bias and they aim to give
voice to the silenced issues, alternative perspectives and marginal groups
involved in organizational change (Sturdy & Grey, 2003).
Table 4 presents a summary of the above described perspectives on
planned organizational change. The table lists authors representing each
stream of literature and describes the contribution of each perspective from
the viewpoint of this dissertation research.
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