ABSTRACT
There are people who apparently believe that the only way to accomplish systemic change is by totally destroying an existing system and constructing a new one. They are answered by defenders of gradual change, who see the dangers and costs of uprooting ongoing institutions as excessive. People may attach great importance to modifications of modest scope compared to the scale of the whole enterprise on which they are worked; they may develop passionate loyalties to symbols, including purely arbitrary symbols like the names of telephone exchanges. The death of any organization is usually accompanied by pain for at least some of the people associated with it. The compassionate desire to minimize such suffering induces some students to seek to reduce organizational mortality. The logic of the argument offered here also raises questions about another popular belief, the assumption that organizations grow less capable of change as they increase in size.
