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Alternative Approaches for Studying Organizational Change

University of Minnesota, USA, avandeven{at}csom.umn.edu

Marshall Scott Poole

Texas A&M University, USA, mspoole{at}tamu.edu

Scholars hold different views about whether organizations consist of things or processes and about variance or process methods for conducting research. By combining these two dimensions, we develop a typology of four approaches for studying organizational change. Although the four approaches may be viewed as opposing or competing views, we see them as being complementary. Each approach focuses on different questions and provides a different — but partial — understanding of organizational change. We argue that coordinating the pluralistic insights from the four approaches provides a richer understanding of organization change than any one approach provides by itself.

Key Words: organization change • variance theory • process theory • organization ontology • research methods • time

Organization Studies, Vol. 26, No. 9, 1377-1404 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840605056907


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