Why Don’t They Just Keep on Doing It? Understanding the Challenges of the Sustainability of Change

ABSTRACT

Existing organizational structures may prevent proper anchoring of change in the organization. This paper addresses the nature of the deep organizational structures that impact the sustainability of change. Deep structures are endurable organizational orders that may limit or enforce change and they are often implicit. Based on a case study of a change initiative in the hospital sector, we identify twelve deep structures, which we group into four meta-structures: networking structures, narrative structures, psychodynamic structures and leadership structures. Uncovering the deep structures socially constructed by organizational members over time and exploring how these structures enable or hinder change presents an alternative perspective on sustainability of change. We discuss the implications of this perspective for theory on the sustainability of change as well as for change management practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustaining change
• sustained change
• deep structures
• change management
• hospitals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Birgitte Clausen holds an Executive MBA and as a leader and consultant she has designed and headed multiple, large change projects across a series of complex organizations. Email: [email protected].

Hanne Kragh is an Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research focuses on the organization and management of buyer-supplier relationships including managing change in such relationships. She has published in journals such as Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management. Email: [email protected].