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

Theoretical background
Milestones and deadlines (Gersick, 1991; Stoddard & Jarvenpaa, 1995) give
rhythm to a change effort and may help sustain the sense of urgency.
When reviewing the list of success factors presented in Table 6 and
described above, one may easily observe that the factors are interrelated.
For example, communication can be used to share the vision and prepare
plans. Similarly, top management support may be demonstrated to create a
favorable atmosphere. The concept of momentum seems related to many of
the other factors. For instance, a shared vision, a sense of urgency and a
participative approach may add to the momentum. The next section
summarizes the discussion on the success factors by introducing the
concept of readiness for change program implementation.
2.2.4 Readiness for change program implementation
The previous section discussed factors that contribute to the successful
initiation of a change program. The success factors can be summarized with
the help of the concept of readiness for change program implementation.
The concept was developed by Armenakis et al. (1993), who argued that
readiness for change is central to the success of change efforts and thus
should be actively promoted. During the past decade the concept has
received increasing attention (e.g. Armenakis & Harris, 2002; By, 2007;
Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris, 2007; Jones et al., 2005; Neves, 2009;
Walinga, 2008; Weiner et al., 2008). As a related concept, change
receptivity (e.g. Frahm & Brown, 2007) has been proposed as a measure for
how receptive a person, group, or organization is to change. Readiness for
change is typically defined as the extent to which employees have positive
attitudes towards the need for change, accept the change, and believe that
the change would have positive implications for themselves and the entire
organization (Armenakis et al., 1993; Jones et al. 2005; Weiner et al.,
2008). The term openness to change has been used in a similar manner
(Allen et al., 2007). While these notions of readiness and openness center
on the employees’ perceptions and attitudes towards change, the employee
perceptions may be viewed to reflect the organization’s overall ability to
make the desired changes in a successful manner (Jansen, 2000). In the
current study, the focus is not on the individuals’ attitudes and perceptions,
but rather on the organization’s ability to conduct the desired change
efforts.
Many authors have used concepts similar to change readiness in
describing how an organization must be prepared for change. Beer and
Walton (1987) note how change should not be imposed on a resistant,
unready system. Beer and Eisenstat (1996) propose that failure in
organizational change often results from the inability to create an
organization capable of implementing it. Correspondingly, organizational
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