For many people, planning is related to goal setting and finding means to achieve these goals. The goals have to be formulated as clearly as possible. The means have to be selected in such an accountable way that an outsider-expert will be able to trace and accept the strategic arguments, and that the planning can be evaluated afterwards. Such a perspective on planning is restricted and contest...

This article develops a formal theory of the structural aspects of organizational change. It concentrates on changes in an organization’s architecture, depicted as a code system. It models the common process whereby an initial architectural change prompts other changes in the organization, generating a cascade of changes that represents the full reorganization. The main argument ties centrality...

This paper discusses a model of organizational change as described in the punctuated equilibrium model. The model builds on two previous models in this area, i.e. the one by Frechette and Spital and the one by Sastry. After discussing shortcomings in both these models a new model is presented which is believed to be (a) a more valid representation of Tushman and Romanelli’s theory of punctuated...

The current condition of global economy is evolving out of the ascendance of information technologies and the associated increase in the mobility and liquidity of capital. These phenomena have further propelled a corresponding change of previously national economic actors participating more actively in a complex global market. The complexities involved at different scales entail a new type of o...

Recent analyses of organizational change suggest a growing concern with the tempo of change, understood as the characteristic rate, rhythm, or pattern of work or activity. Episodic change is contrasted with continuous change on the basis of implied metaphors of organizing, analytic frameworks, ideal organizations, intervention theories, and roles for change agents. Episodic change follows the s...

In this paper we analyze the process of technical and organizational innovation through which Aranzadi (the leading firm in the Spanish legal information sector) adapted to the changes in its environment in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After a theoretical introduction, we introduce the firm analyzed (Aranzadi) and study some of the factors that provoked the beginning of the innovation proces...

July 2006 Volume 32 Number 7 As documented in the Institute of Medicine’s two widely cited reports, health care has serious patient safety and quality problems. Care processes are poorly designed and characterized by unnecessary duplication of services and long waiting times and delays. As a result, health care is not meeting patients’ needs—and needs to be redesigned. In this article we descri...