Revisiting Organizational Change Management (OCM): A Context-Sensitive and Dynamic Approach of Change

Responding to dramatic changes in the global external environment of an organization requires a thorough preparation to assure the competitive survival of the enterprise. This chapter informs about conceptualizing organizational change based on novel approaches avoiding the traps of applying well-known, off-the-shelf models of change resulting in usually unsatisfactory or disappointing outcomes. The transition to a new positive future state is a continuous process and calls for an integrated approach that reflects the insights provided by a new change paradigm and enables enterprises to cope with and ultimately seize opportunities arising from change. The novel approach presented in this chapter describes a context-sensitive and dynamic way of managing change based on the nature of the organization culture including its perceived emotions and its interdependencies to a change initiative. Investigating the power of emotion-based responses to change, the potential influence of digital technology in the change process as well as the impact of this approach on change communication will be discussed.