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46 Types of Organizational Change (2024)

 , June 08, 2020 updated on March 02, 2023
Organizational change is major change to an organization that requires direction and leadership by executive management. Such changes are of strategic importance to an organization such that they may be visible to governance structures such as a board of directors and external stakeholders such as investors. The following are the basic types of organizational change.

Strategic Change

A major change in an organization's strategy. For example, an electric utility that shifts to energy production methods that are perceived as relatively clean and environmentally responsible.
Branding
Business Model
Corporate Identity
Customer Experience
Diversification
Mission & Vission
Operating Model
Pricing Model
Product Differentiation
Reputation
Resilience
Revenue Model

Structural Change

Changes to the way that an organization is structured. For example, an airline that acquires a competitor in order to reduce competitive pressure.
Acquisitions
Business Units
Capital Structure
Consolidation
Corporate Spin-off
Divestiture
Insourcing
Mergers
Outsourcing
Reporting Structure
Restructuring
Strategic Partners

Process Change

Changing how you do things.
Applications
Automation
Compliance
Cost Reduction
Integration
Measurement
Optimization
Process Rationalization
Process Re-engineering
Risk Management
Sourcing
Systems

People Change

Changes related to your employees.
Employee Satisfaction
Employer Branding
Layoffs
Norms
Organizational Chart
Organizational Culture
Performance Management
Recruiting
Rewards
Working Conditions

Approaches To Change


Organizational change can be approached in three ways:

Turnaround
A turnaround is change that is designed to save an organization or department that is failing. This may involve sudden and drastic changes such as closing entire departments to conserve capital.

Transformational Change
Large programs of change that are implemented in large packages. Any organizational change that takes many months to implement falls into this category. Transformational change tends to be expensive and failure prone but is unavoidable where there is no incremental path to achieving a change.

Adaptive Change
Small but frequent changes that take no more than 3 weeks to implement. This typically involves implementing your best ideas quickly and is extremely responsive. Adaptive change is far less failure prone than transformational change and gets change to market quickly.

Notes

The process of directing and leading organizational change is known as change management.
Overview: Organizational Change
Type
Definition
Major change to an organization that requires direction and leadership by executive management.
Related Concepts

Organizational Change

This is the complete list of articles we have written about organizational change.
Applications
Automation
Branding Guide
Business Model
Business Units
Capital Structure
Change
Compliance
Corporate Identity
Cost Reduction
Employer Branding
Improvement
Insourcing
Integration
Measurement
Mergers
Norms
Operating Model
Outsourcing
Recruiting
Resilience
Restructuring
Revenue Model
Risk Management
Strategic Partners
Strategy
Systems
Work Transition Plan
Working Conditions
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