ABSTRACT
Organizational transformation-substantially changing an organization’s structure and practices —has always been of interest to researchers and practitioners. For decades, however, questions of transformation remained largely backstage as organizational thinking and practice engaged in a discourse dominated by questions of stability. Oriented around the organizing principles of mass production and bureaucracy, such a discourse emphasized routinization, standardization, control, and automation. Today however, many organizations face an altered economic, political, and technological world, a world in which flexibility, customization, and learning are the watchwords, and visions of agile manufacturing, virtual corporations, and self-organizing teams are prominent. In such a world, stability is out, change is in.
