Understanding Organization Change and Innovation: A Conversation with Mike Tushman

ABSTRACT

Professor Michael Tushman was selected as the 2016 Organization Development and Change Division’s Distinguished Scholar. Following his address, he sat down with John Amis to discuss his ideas on organizational change and innovation. Inspired by an early practical experience at a work placement while an undergraduate student, Mike has engaged in a career-long pursuit of seeking to understand how and why some organizations are able to successfully engage in programmes of change and innovation while others are not. Here he recounts his formative industry involvement that led to this fascination, the academic experiences that have helped him to develop into one of the field’s most productive scholars, and what he perceives to be the most interesting, and potentially important, questions that researchers of change could profitably investigate in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Organization change
• innovation
• punctuated equilibrium
• ambidexterity
• paradox

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

John Amis is Professor of Strategic Management and Organisation at the University of Edinburgh Business School. His research interests predominantly centre on issues of organizational and institutional change. His work has been published in journals that include Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, American Journal of Public Health, Human Relations, and Organizational Research Methods. He is co-editor of an upcoming Special Issue of Organization Studies titled, ‘Inequality, institutions and organizations’. John sits on a number of editorial boards including Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Inquiry, Organization Studies, Strategic Organization, and Journal of Change Management, at which he is an Associate Editor. Email: [email protected]