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Developing international organizational change theory using cases from China

Department of Management, City University of Hong Kong, mghempel{at}cityu.edu.hk

Maris G. Martinsons

City University of Hong Kong, Director of the Pacific Rim Institute for the Studies of Management, mgmaris{at}cityu.edu.hk

This article contributes to international theory development by examining organizational change (OC) in mainland China. Eight case studies of a single type of OC, business process re-engineering (BPR), reveal that Chinese organizations diverged consistently from initially planned changes. Change context is found to influence not only the process of change, but also the content and even the objectives of change. Since specific practices carry implicit values, the congruence with existing values influences OC implementation significantly. Multinational organizations must recognize that a specific practice or policy can represent very different changes in different contexts.

Key Words: case studies • Chinese management • comparative management • institutional theory • organizational change

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 4, 459-499 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726708101980


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