A Quantum Approach to Planned Organizational Change: Constraints, Resources, and Temporary Results

Why and how do organizational changes unfold and result in temporary outcomes that diverge from the original plan? To help managers better understand and prepare for the process of planned organizational change, this paper integrates the quantum approach to organizational change developed by Lord, Dinh, and Hoffman (2015) and the resource-based paradigm to develop a theory. We suggest that organizational change processes are quantum deterministic and can be illuminated by examining constraints and resource availability. Developing the necessary resources is a key part of the change process from setting a goal to achieving a desired outcome, and developing these resources can be anticipated and managed by examining properties of relevant constraints. With the constraint and its properties as our basic units of analysis, a strategy of three scenarios is recommended to plan and manage large-scale organizational change. Integrating the quantum perspective and the resource-based concern contributes to not only a deeper understanding of how organizational changes unfold but also an analytic tool to improve decisions about organizational change and development.