From change to the Management of Organizational Change Capacity : a conceptual approach

In an increasingly dynamic business environment, organizations have to constantly change in order to develop and survive. Organizational change capacity is considered a solution to the question: how can sufficient adaptation to internal and external changes be achieved and managed? However, while an upcoming literature stream deals with the characterization of change capacity, the understanding of the construct is still underdeveloped. This conceptual paper therefore tries to develop a conceptual model of change capacity. It thereby contributes to the literature in several ways: First, it presents a review and classification of existent approaches to change capacity. Second, a more holistic understanding of the construct is required, which is why this paper combines the existent perspectives within a definition. Third, a conceptual model of change capacity is presented that builds on a case study on change capacity's preliminary findings and enhances them with theoretical arguments. Understanding what change capacity is about will allow companies to better deal with its determinants and consequently increase the organizational level of adaptation and ultimate survival