Change management interventions: Taking stock and moving forward

Abstract

Change management interventions (CMIs) are intentional activities that managers employ to facilitate planned organizational change by influencing employee receptivity to and adoption of that change. CMIs have been unclearly conceptualized and empirical insights on CMIs have become disjointed across research communities, limiting our understanding of the nature and effects CMIs can have. To address this shortcoming, we integrate and build on existing frameworks to provide an overview of the empirically studied CMI types, their mechanisms, and their outcomes. From our review of 119 empirical studies, we find that there are six overarching CMI types (and 14 sub-types): (1) communication (informing, framing, dialogic), (2) support (training, coaching, organizational change support), (3) involvement (consulting, co-creating, co-deciding), (4) reinforcement (rewards and goal-setting), (5) social influence (role modeling and peer exchange), and (6) coercion. Furthermore, based on our results, we encourage researchers to continue to strengthen an intervention-focused and context-sensitive approach to organizational change in the following underexplored areas: conceptualizing and measuring CMIs, bundles and interactions of CMIs, boundary conditions of CMIs, unintended consequences of CMIs, and the use of digital technology to enhance CMIs.