ABSTRACT
The Velvet Revolution of 1989 brought unprecedented change to virtually all companies in the Czech Republic. Almost overnight, the central planning system of the communist regime was replaced with a market-based system and a massive privatization effort that would yield a market economy. The stimulus for discontinuous change normally comes from outside the firm. It is of such a great magnitude that existing systems, structures, strategies, and core values in the firm cannot adapt to it. The political, social, and economic changes that took place in the Czech Republic after late 1989 created the need for discontinuous change in firms. The Velvet Revolution occurred in late November and early December of 1989 in Czechoslovakia, within weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The political and economic changes brought on by the Velvet Revolution called for much more than incremental change within firms.
