Empirical Development Of A Model Of Performance Drivers In Organizational Change Projects

In order to investigate the drivers that impact on the success of change projects, a major research project was commenced in 1998. Extensive quantitative studies of organizational change processes were conducted across industries, countries and companies, in order to establish the determinants of successful change projects. This article presents the initial step in this project, the development of a descriptive model that provides the basis for the assessment of change projects and the analysis of interactions between key success factors and performance outcomes. Forty-four survey questions were put to 117,355 employees involved in or affected by organizational change. The results of factor analyses were used to guide the development of a descriptive model of the drivers of performance in organizational change projects. This article presents the results of the factor analyses, and the ChangeTracking model that has been developed. The ChangeTracking model consists of: two outcome variables, realizing business benefits and business performance; and six key drivers, the amount of change and turbulence, available resources, alignment with the company's vision and direction, quality of change management, work roles and emotional energy. The ChangeTracking model provides an empirically derived model of change management to guide future research and practice.