Organizational Receptivity to Change and Success in Process Reengineering

Although business process reengineering is a major corporate initiative today, the success rate of reengineering projects has been less than ideal. In an attempt to better understand the dynamics underlying this phenomenon, process reengineering is viewed as an organizational innovation. Based upon existing taxonomies of innovations, it is characterized as a radical, administrative, process innovation. Drawing upon prior research in the management of such innovations, we postulate that a lack of success in process reengineering may be attributed to inadequate attention being paid to the environment into which it is introduced; we hypothesize that it is necessary to manipulate organizational receptivity to change prior to initiating process reengineering. A model that conceptualizes the determinants of such organizational receptivity to change is constructed. Using a case-study approach, the model is utilized to explain the apparent lack of success of a major business process reengineering effort. The model can potentially serve two purposes: as an a priori conceptualization of the types of organizational climates where process reengineering is likely to be successful, and as a guide to management action — to diagnose what the obstacles to process reengineering are and what changes in the organization might be appropriate.