Continuous and Routinized Change

Fundamentals

In the domains of strategy and organization theory, change is traditionally modeled as a punctuated equilibrium process in which long periods of incremental movement are interrupted by brief periods of cataclysmic adjustment. However, most change in organizations results neither from extraordinary organizational processes, or forces, nor from uncommon imagination, persistence, or skill, but from relatively stable, routine processes that relate organizations to their environments.

The term continuous change is used to group together organizational changes that tend to be ongoing, evolving, and cumulative. Such change is often viewed as consisting of small adaptations that, having emerged from improvisation and learning, may or may not accumulate and that occur because systems cannot maintain stability. These small adaptations are often viewed as part of ongoing modifications in organizational processes and practices, but this does not mean that the small changes are necessarily trivial or that they always remain small.

The view of organization associated with continuous change is built around recurrent interactions as shifts in authority—as tasks shift, continuing development of response repertoires, systems that are self-organizing rather than fixed, and ongoing redefinition of job descriptions. Images of organization that are compatible with continuous change include those built around the ideas of improvisation and learning. Literature on improvisation leverages jazz as a metaphor to describe ongoing acts of adjustment that would permit the organization to be flexible while maintaining some degree of structural stability and routine. The image of organization built around the idea of learning is one of a setting where work and activity are defined by repertoires of actions and knowledge and where learning itself is defined as a variation in an organization’s response repertoire. Another important retention-learning mechanism is organizational routines defined as repeated patterns of behavior that are subject to change if conditions change.

One of the central issues regarding continuous change is that of continuity itself. Issues of continuity are associated with the concept of organizational culture. Culture is important in continuous change because it holds the multiple changes together, gives legitimacy to nonconforming actions that improve adaptability and adaptation, and embeds the knowhow of adaptation into norms and values.

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