Firms constantly make ‘fine-tuning’ alterations to remain efficient and effective: Existing procedures are upgraded, activities are improved and people are reassigned. According to De Wit & Meyer (2010) these kinds of changes are a form of:
Continuous change
Strategic renewal
Operational change
Strategic change.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), when a strategist is dealing with the question of how a series of strategic changes can be used to keep a good fit, between a firm and its environment, they would argue that (s)he is dealing with the issue of:
Strategic change
Strategic renewal
Continuous change
Continuous renewal.
Following Bartlett and Ghoshal (1995, in De Wit & Meyer, 2010), the organizational system of a firm can be divided into its ‘anatomy’, ‘physiology’ and ‘psychology’. These three metaphors refer to the components:
Culture, structure, and processes
Structure, systems, and culture
Systems, processes, and culture
People, processes, and politics.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), organizational structuring (or decomposition) criteria can be grouped into three key areas:
Structure, systems, and culture
Function, differentiation, and span of control
Resources, value chain, and value propositions
Input, throughput, and output.
Concerning strategic change, De Wit & Meyer (2010) refer to the size of the change steps as:
The magnitude of change
The scope of change
The amplitude of change
The dimension of change.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), strategic renewal processes take place over time, ranging from extended periods to short irregular bursts of change. They decompose the time variable into two parts:
Pace and timing of change
Speed and timing of change
Timing and recurrence of change
Pace and recurrence of change.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), a firm can become paralyzed by its inherited rigidities. In key sources of rigidity they include:
Psychological, organizational and cultural resistance, and structural, competence and political lock-in
Investment, competence, system and stakeholder resistance, and structural, competence and political lock-in
Structures, processes and cultural systems, and investment, competence, system and stakeholder lock-in
Psychological, political and cultural resistance, and investment, competence, system and stakeholder lock-in.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), some of the most common triggers for revolutionary strategic change are:
Competitive pressure, first mover advantage, regulatory pressure
First mover advantage, stakeholder pressure, competitive pressure
Psychological pressure, first mover advantage, regulatory pressure.
When strategic renewal hinges on widespread organizational learning, De Wit & Meyer (2010) would argue to rely upon:
Revolutionary change
Evolutionary change
Gradual renewal
Discontinuous renewal.
According to De Wit & Meyer (2010), when concerning strategic renewal some authors suggest that organizations should be ‘ambidextrous’. This means that organizations should:
Choose between either revolutionary or evolutionary change, contingent upon internal and external conditions
Start with revolutionary change and then continue with evolutionary change
Start with evolutionary change and then switch to revolutionary change
Start with evolutionary change and then switch to revolutionary change