Dominant Ideologies, Strategic Change, and Sustained Performance

Abstract

Strategies for organizational change which are successful in one business era, and in one culture, may not necessarily be successful in another. Yet the evidence is that powerful espoused ideologies about how best to effect change often live on within organizations, well beyond their capacity to help sustain positive performance. The espoused ideal approach to change becomes a myth which clouds the ability of managers to analyze their environment incisively and to move against the prevailing logic of change in the organization. It is suggested in this paper that often the best moves in organizational change may be countercyclical-against the preferred ideologies of change in the organization. Managers therefore need good contingency maps and models of change, rather than fixed ideologies and recipes, and the courage to move against the trend. This is made all the more difficult by researchers and management writers, who describe, espouse, and normalize dominant, preferred "best practice" ideas of change without adequate reference to the changing business environment of the organization, or to the cultural specificity of their theories. It is a case of when "best espoused practice" may be worst practice.