Integrating behavior and organizational change literatures to uncover crucial psychological mechanisms underlying the adoption and maintenance of organizational change

Abstract

Implementing successful organizational change is challenging, and to better understand it, researchers and practitioners have proposed a variety of models of change management. Paradoxically, while the behavior change of organizational members lies at the core of organizational change, theories and models of behavior change are rarely applied to organizational change management. Such knowledge could improve our understanding of underlying psychological mechanisms behind organizational change adoption and maintenance. Using self-determination theory as the framework, we developed a model of organizational change that integrates knowledge across the organizational and behavior change fields by (i) unifying change practices derived from organizational change models and from behavior change techniques, (ii) identifying and unifying underlying psychological mechanisms derived from theories that explain how organizational and behavior change occurs, and (iii) linking change practices to psychological mechanisms. The resulting model aims to provide theoretical and practical guidance for those involved in the planning and implementation of organizational change.