Organisational change with broader involvement is suggested to be key for successful change in an increasingly complex and fast paced change context. In her doctoral thesis, Rita Berggren investigates how change agency can be supported and distributed past the typical change driver. She suggests that distributed change agency is a crucial part of managing change when more and more organisational members need to be involved. The focus is on the role trust and organisational control play for enabling distributed change agency.
What challenges do you focus on in your research?
"Change is continuous and increasingly fast paced. Many change endeavours fail, other researchers suggest that up to 70% fail to reach their goal. In this challenging context we need to find new ways to manage change and support organisations to be successful."
How do you address the problem?
"I focus on how distributed change agency can be supported to manage change with more organisational members involved. Distributed change agency supports organisational members to act and take part in change and thus, help to realise change."
What are the main findings?
"As part of managing change, organisations need to consider how they can enable distributed change agency to support people's actions and involvement in change. Trust and control are important catalysts in this work and support people by for example creating an environment where new ideas are welcome and people dare to voice them. Practices of involvement is an invitation to the organization and a way to distribute and manage change agency."
What do you hope your research will lead to?
"I hope that my research can inspire organisations to look into how they manage change with broader involvement and consider distribute change agency. I also hope that more scholars look into distributed change agency as we still have a lot to learn about the topic."
Read the thesis: Getting involved in change: Enabling distributed change agency through organizational control and trust
The author defends the thesis on 8 September 2023, see link above.
- Professor, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, Technology Management and Economics