Large companies’ change management practices: a multi-industry study

Purpose This study aims to address these shortcomings. Approaches leading to successful change management have been an enduring interest of study both for academics and practitioners. In a time of rapid change, organizations must strive to manage change efficiently. Organizations revert to various change management practices (CMPs) in managing and facilitating organizational change. In studying CMPs, prior empirical studies have mostly focused on individual organizations or industries. Moreover, by focusing on CMPs separately, prior studies omit CMPs as parts of larger settings (e.g. change management models). Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a multi-industry perspective to address gaps in extant knowledge, studying 11 large companies across 11 industries through a multiple case study research design. Thirty-three specialists, managers, directors and executive board members are interviewed. Findings This paper contributes to the CMP literature by disclosing how CMPs are used systematically as parts of change management models. Moreover, this paper suggests the grouping of the studied organizations into four categories, based on (a) the case companies’ frequency of using planned CMPs and (b) the change management models that companies identify using. This paper’s results are a call for more systematic empirical research on CMPs as part of change management models, and on organizations’ preferences regarding CMPs. Research limitations/implications As this paper studies CMPs via the lens of CMP studies, it must be noted that when considering, for example, literature on change management strategies (Phillips and Klein, 2023) or change management principles (Stouten et al., 2018), the theoretical framework would be broader. However, for this paper’s purpose and scope, the study focus is CMPs. This paper studies CMPs in large Finnish companies. Although generalizations might be made to similar types of economies (well-developed countries with relatively small economies), larger generalizations for “all large companies” cannot be made. Furthermore, each case represents a different industry, operating in a different environment. Thus, industry-specific generalizations cannot be made. Practical implications This paper provides organizations with practical learning and benchmarks on CMPs and change management models. Originality/value This paper adds to the current scarce research offering empirical multi-industry approaches on CMPs. The results differ from previous CMP studies, as this study suggests variation in the most used CMPs when compared to suggestions from extant studies. Furthermore, this paper shows that CMPs are parts of change management models. To begin with, although previous empirical CMP research has been focused on distinct CMPs, this study shows that in the studied organizations, CMPs are used jointly, sequenced and structured within change management models. Subsequently, this paper introduces a “CMP Matrix” where the studied organizations are grouped into four categories, based on (a) companies’ frequency of CMPs and (b) the change management models that companies identify using. This paper suggests that companies that identify using change management models also identify more CMPs being used in planned change management. Last, this paper suggests that implementation phase CMPs are favored over preparation phase practices.