Mantere et al. (2018) Reversal of strategic change

Question 1

Many planned change initiatives are cancelled thus»

Answer 1

• Cancellation of a radical change (an “aborted excursion”) would lead an organization to revert back to its previous interpretive scheme in a fairly nonproblematic fashion.
• This relies on the assumption that top management can reverse an organization’s direction.

However: as “sensebreaking” or symbolic destruction of previous strategies to make room for new ones, reverting back was not accepted. Understanding of the sensemaking history in an organization is needed to fully explain the success and failure of strategic change efforts

Question 2

Four factors predict the strength of sensegiving and sensebreaking residuals:

Answer 2

1. Elapsed time between periods, more time allows for more forgetting
2. Extent of organizational sensebreaking, the less the better to turn back
3. Extent of realized change, demotivation in changing back when more
4. Success of previous cognitive change episode, the stronger the less successful reverse