Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

8-2020

Abstract

Existing research has highlighted the importance of involving a wide representation of organizational members in the strategic change process to manage it effectively. We conducted a real-time inductive study of a strategic change at an organization in the hotel industry. Our findings suggest that the equality-based involvement – designed to promote equal opportunities for voice among employees – unintendedly undermined the implementation of strategic change. Although wide organizational involvement provided frontline employees with greater voice and autonomy, it also instilled greater fear in middle managers due to more escalating complaints to top management and newly created constraints in middle managers’ supervisory tasks. Consequently, top management had to devote unexpected significant efforts to address escalated issues rather than improving the organization’s productivity. Our study contributes to the literature on strategic change by highlighting the limits of equality-based involvement practices when organizational members have asymmetric motivations and covert emotional reactions.

Keywords

Data collection, Data analysis, Strategic change

Discipline

Organizational Behavior and Theory | Strategic Management Policy

Research Areas

Strategy and Organisation

Publication

Academy of Management Proceedings: 80th AoM 2020, August 7-11, Virtual

Volume

2020

First Page

310

Last Page

314

Identifier

10.5465/AMBPP.2020.55

Publisher

Academy of Management

City or Country

Briarcliff Manor, NY

Embargo Period

3-24-2021

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2020.55

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