Business Start-Up for Sustainable Organizational Change
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Date
Spring 5-3-2025
Keywords
Organizational Change, Organizational Development, Systems Theory, Strategic Alignment
Abstract
In today’s business landscape, organizations often struggle to implement sustainable change. This professional doctoral project addresses these challenges through a systematic review and synthesis of academic and practitioner literature, mainly from Europe, North America, and Australia. Guided by the research question, “What are the limitations of existing organizational change (OC) models, and how can these be addressed to foster sustainable change?” the study critically evaluates prevailing OC methodologies. While its primary objective is to lay a research-grounded and pragmatic foundation for a business start-up, the findings are relevant to professionals and scholars seeking sustainable development and change strategies in various organizational settings. A review of OC models reveals key limitations: assumption of linearity, oversimplification of organizational realities, failure to account for emergent dynamics, underestimation of different contexts, human factors, and culture, lack of long-term perspective, and insufficient empirical validation in real-world settings. The literature review, explicitly focused on the limitations of current OC practices, highlighted systems theory’s potential to address these challenges and enhance organizational development and change (ODC) strategies. Accordingly, the second part of this doctoral project comprehensively explores systems theory and its application to ODC. Key findings suggest that systems-theory-driven approaches foster more dynamic and context-sensitive ODC, e.g., enhancing strategic alignment, leadership effectiveness, and organizational resilience. This project demonstrates that systems theory involves an entire ecosystem of methodologies, from hard to soft approaches, and establishes the rationale to leverage this diversity.
Recommended Citation
Decock, Ülle, "Business Start-Up for Sustainable Organizational Change" (2025). College of Arts and Cultural Studies Doctor of Strategic Leadership (DSL) Projects. 7.
https://digitalshowcase.oru.edu/coacs_dsl_projects/7
