How does failure emerge and develop during organizational change? As organizations are pushed for change, the notion of failure that relates to change becomes gradually ingrained in contemporary research. However, with studies having primarily added to the conversation from a static outset, extant scholarly work might not fully capture the transience that marks change in essence. This article contributes to the literature on failure in change by advancing a dialectical perspective, offering the scholarly community insight in the emergence and development of failure as happening in three processes. In a retentive process, change agents adhere to a change approach deemed successful in spite of alternatives emerging, causing tensions to gradually build within the organization’s social atmosphere. In a reactive process, looming tensions find themselves affirmed and flare up, instigating the display of a new change approach that is antithetical to the one initially adhered to. Finally, in a recursive process, organizational members collectively recall the positive aspects of prior failure, smoothening organizational change towards re-combinatory synthesis. Marking failure’s emergence and development as a dialectic, this article notes failure in organizational change to be as generative as it is deteriorating, paving the way for both success and failure to continuously remit.
AmasonACMooneyAC (2008) The Icarus paradox revisited: How strong performance sows the seeds of dysfunction in future strategic decision-making. Strategic Organization6(4): 407–434.
2.
AmburgeyTLKellyDBarnettWP (1993) Resetting the clock: The dynamics of organizational change and failure. Administrative Science Quarterly38(1): 51–73.
3.
AnheierHK (1999) When Things Go Wrong: Organizational Failures and Breakdowns. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
4.
AudiaPGLockeEASmithKG (2000) The paradox of success: An archival and a laboratory study of strategic persistence following radical environmental change. Academy of Management Journal43(5): 837–853.
5.
BaumardPStarbuckWH (2005) Learning from failures: Why it may not happen. Long Range Planning38(3): 281–298.
6.
BennettVMSnyderJ (2017) The empirics of learning from failure. Strategy Science2(1): 1–12.
7.
BensonJK (1977) Organizations: A dialectical view. Administrative Science Quarterly22(1): 1–21.
8.
BirkinshawJRidderstråleJ (2017) Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
9.
BrocknerJ (1992) The escalation of commitment to a failing course of action: Toward theoretical progress. Academy of Management Review17(1): 39–61.
BurgelmanRA (2002) Strategy as vector and the inertia of coevolutionary lock-in. Administrative Science Quarterly47(2): 325–357.
12.
BurkeWW (2017) Organization Change: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
13.
BusseCKachAPWagnerSM (2017) Boundary conditions. Organizational Research Methods20(4): 574–609.
14.
CaloriR (2002) Organizational development and the ontology of creative dialectical evolution. Organization9(1): 127–150.
15.
CannonMDEdmondsonAC (2005) Failing to learn and learning to fail: How great organizations put failure to work. Long Range Planning38(3): 299–319.
16.
CobbCG (2015) The Project Manager’s Guide to Managing Agile. Hoboken, NY: Wiley.
17.
CollinsonD (2005) Dialectics of leadership. Human Relations58(11): 1419–1442.
18.
CollinsonSWilsonDC (2006) Inertia in Japanese organizations: Knowledge management routines and failure to innovate. Organization Studies27(9): 1359–1387.
19.
CooperDRSchindlerPSSunJ (2006) Business Research Methods. New York: McGraw.
20.
D’AveniRA (1989) The aftermath of organizational decline: A longitudinal study of the strategic and managerial characteristics of declining firms. Academy of Management Journal32(3): 577–605.
21.
DahlinKBChuangY-TRouletTJ (2018) Opportunity, motivation, and ability to learn from failures and errors. Academy of Management Annals12(1): 252–277.
22.
DenisJ-LLangleyARouleauL (2007) Strategizing in pluralistic contexts: Rethinking theoretical frames. Human Relations60(1): 179–215.
23.
DuboisAGaddeL-E (2002) Systematic combining: An abductive approach to case research. Journal of Business Research55(7): 553–560.
24.
EdmondsonAC (2011) Strategies for learning from failure. Harvard Business Review89(4): 48–55.
25.
EdwardsJR (2010) Reconsidering theoretical progress in organizational and management research. Organizational Research Methods13(4): 615–619.
26.
EggersJSongL (2015) Dealing with failure: Serial entrepreneurs and the costs of changing industries. Academy of Management Journal58(6): 1785–1803.
27.
EisenhardtKM (1989) Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review14(4): 532–550.
28.
EisenhardtKMBrownSL (1998) Competing on the edge: Strategy as structured chaos. Long Range Planning31(5): 786–789.
29.
FarjounM (2019) Strategy and dialectics: Rejuvenating a long-standing relationship. Strategic Organization17(1): 133–144.
30.
GergenKJThatchenkeryTJ (2004) Organization science as social construction: Postmodern potentials. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science40(2): 228–249.
31.
GioiaDACorleyKGHamiltonAL (2013) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research. Organizational Research Methods16(1): 15–31.
32.
GoranzonBEnnalsRHammeronM (2006) Dialogue, Skill and Tacit Knowledge. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
33.
GrimesAJCornwallJR (1987) The disintegration of an organization: A dialectical analysis. Journal of Management13(1): 69–86.
34.
HambrickDCD’AveniRA (1988) Large corporate failures as downward spirals. Administrative Science Quarterly33(1): 1–23.
35.
HaunschildPRPolidoroFChandlerD (2015) Organizational oscillation between learning and forgetting. Organization Science26(6): 1682–1701.
36.
HegelGWFSibreeJ (2004) The Philosophy of History. North Chelmsford, MA: Courier Corporation.
37.
HeracleousLWerresK (2016) On the road to disaster: Strategic misalignments and corporate failure. Long Range Planning49(4): 491–506.
KhannaRGulerINerkarA (2016) Fail often, fail big, and fail fast? Learning from small failures and R&D performance in the pharmaceutical industry. Academy of Management Journal59(2): 436–459.
40.
KochJ (2011) Inscribed strategies: Exploring the organizational nature of strategic lock-in. Organization Studies32(3): 337–363.
41.
KotterJP (2014) Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
42.
LangleyA (1999) Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review24(4): 691–710.
43.
LangleyA (2009) Studying processes in and around organizations. In: BuchananDBrymanA (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE, 409–429.
44.
LangleyASloanP (2011) Organizational change and dialectic processes. In: BojeDBurnesBBernardH (eds) The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change. London: Routledge, 261–275.
45.
MellahiKWilkinsonA (2004) Organizational failure: A critique of recent research and a proposed framework. International Journal of Management Reviews5(1): 21–41.
46.
MellahiKWilkinsonA (2010) Managing and coping with organizational failure. Group & Organization Management35(5): 531–541.
47.
Merleau-PontyM (1964) The Visible and the Invisible. Evanston, IL: NU Press.
48.
MillerD (1990) The Icarus Paradox: How Excellent Organizations Can Bring about Their Own Downfall. New York: Harper Business.
49.
MillerDChenM-J (1994) Sources and consequences of competitive inertia: A study of the US airline industry. Administrative Science Quarterly39(1): 1–23.
MuehlfeldKRao SahibPVan WitteloostuijnA (2012) A contextual theory of organizational learning from failures and successes. Strategic Management Journal33(8): 938–964.
52.
MumbyDK (2005) Theorizing resistance in organization studies: A dialectical approach. Management Communication Quarterly19(1): 19–44.
53.
NeimarkMTinkerT (1987) Identity and non-identity thinking: A dialectical critique of the transaction cost theory. Journal of Management13(4): 661–673.
54.
NonakaIToyamaR (2002) A firm as a dialectical being: Towards a dynamic theory of a firm. Industrial and Corporate Change11(5): 995–1009.
55.
PalmerIDunfordRAkinG (2016) Managing Organizational Change. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
56.
PutnamLLFairhurstGTBanghartS (2016) Contradictions, dialectics, and paradoxes in organizations. Academy of Management Annals10(1): 65–171.
57.
SchneiderL (1971) Dialectic in sociology. American Sociological Review36(4): 667–678.
58.
SchreyöggGSydowJ (2009) The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence: Institutions and Organizations. New York: Springer.
59.
SeoM-GCreedWED (2002) Institutional contradictions, praxis, and institutional change: A dialectical perspective. Academy of Management Review27(2): 222–247.
60.
SeoM-GPutnamLLBartunekJM (2004) Dualities and tensions of planned organizational change. In: PooleMSVan de VenAH (eds) Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 73–107.
61.
ShepherdDACardonMS (2009) Negative emotional reactions to project failure and the self-compassion to learn from the experience. Journal of Management studies46(6): 923–949.
62.
ShepherdDAPatzeltHWolfeM (2011) Moving forward from project failure. Academy of Management Journal54(6): 1229–1259.
63.
SheppardJPChowdhurySD (2005) Riding the wrong wave: Organizational failure as a failed turnaround. Long Range Planning38(3): 239–260.
64.
SmithWKTushmanML (2005) Managing strategic contradictions: A top management model for managing innovation streams. Organization Science16(5): 522–536.
65.
StarbuckWH (1983) Organizations as action generators. American Sociological Review48(1): 91–102.
66.
TimmermansSTavoryI (2012) Theory construction in qualitative research: From grounded theory to abductive analysis. Sociological Theory30(3): 167–186.
67.
TsoukasH (2000) False dilemmas in organization theory: Realism or social constructivism?Organization7(3): 531–535.
Van de VenAH (2007) Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
70.
Van de VenAHPooleMS (1995) Explaining development and change in organizations. Academy of Management Review20(3): 510–540.
71.
WestphalJDBednarMK (2005) Pluralistic ignorance in corporate boards and firms’ strategic persistence in response to low firm performance. Administrative Science Quarterly50(2): 262–298.
72.
WholeyDRChristiansonJBSanchezSM (1992) Organization size and failure among health maintenance organizations. American Sociological Review57(6): 829–842.
73.
WilkinsonAMellahiK (2005) Organizational failure: Introduction to the special issue. Long Range Planning38(3): 233–238.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
