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Organizational Transformation: A Case Study of Two Aboriginal Organizations

Ian D. Chapman

Department of Native Studies, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario K9J 7B8, Canada.

This paper describes two Canadian aboriginal organizations which have attempted a second-order change, a transformation of their belief system, to make their organizations operate in a manner consistent with traditional aboriginal beliefs, values, and customs. One organization completed a successful change, the other organization's change process was abandoned after 2 years. The process of organizational change followed by the two organizations illustrates the link between interpretive schemes, organizational actions, and organizational structures. The process which focused primarily on the link between the aboriginally-based interpretive scheme and actions proved more effective than the process that linked the structure and the interpretative scheme. For the successful organization, the process of organizational transformation was shown to be incremental, iterative, multifaceted and required a lengthy period of time to complete. During the early stages of process of change, both old and new interpretative schemes were present within the organization. The process of organizational change then became a dialectic involving the old and the new. As a critical mass of people began to adopt the new interpretative scheme, the dialectic focused on different ways of implementing the new scheme. Leaders, critical to the process, had two essential tasks: enabling or permitting the presentation of new interpretative schemes and keeping the dialectic going for a sufficient period of time to ensure the emergence of a interpretative scheme shared by a critical mass of organizational members.

Key Words: organizational change • organizational transformation • second order change

Human Relations, Vol. 49, No. 7, 995-1011 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/001872679604900706


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