Ponderings on the alluring but illusive quest for progress

Citation

Pate, L.E. (2006), "Ponderings on the alluring but illusive quest for progress", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 14 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoa.2006.34514daa.001

Ponderings on the alluring but illusive quest for progress

I have always been struck by renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell’s observation on the difference between change and progress. According to Russell, “Change is one thing, progress is another. ‘Change’ is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy” (Russell, 1950, p. 247). Perhaps my fascination with those words stems from the many events that have occurred on a world scale during my lifetime, from the launch of the US and Soviet space programs and the end of the Vietnam War to the reunification of Germany and the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa – each event the culmination of many smaller events that changed the course of history. Or perhaps my fascination has more to do with the research and writing I have done over the past 20 years, from founding the Journal of Organizational Change Management and serving as its first Editor to doing a few of the first longitudinal assessments ever done on organization development (OD) (e.g. Pate and Nielsen, 1987; Pate et al., 1977; Pondy and Pate, 1989) and organizational transformation (OT) (e.g. Frame et al., 1989; Pate, 1989). After all, OD as a proactive, humanistic, systemic change strategy is explicitly concerned with making improvements in the way people interact and are treated. Or perhaps my fascination with Russell’s words is more personal, from having been born into a blue-collar family, a shy only child who always wanted a brother or sister as a playmate, to working the night shift as a laborer in several Los Angeles factories just to put myself through college. Whatever the cause of the fascination, I am glad for it as I believe Russell is telling us something important and profound that is worth remembering.

Over the past 50 years, much has been written about the process of change in organizations. There has certainly been no shortage of advice in both the popular press and the academic literature on everything from how to initiate change to strong warnings on the natural tendency of people to resist it (e.g. Beer and Nohria, 2000; Bennis, 1966; Bennis et al., 1985; Cooper and Hingley, 1985; Greiner, 1967; Hackman and Suttle, 1977; Howell and Higgins, 1990; Kotter, 1996; Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979; Lawrence, 1969; Margulies and Wallace, 1973; Schein and Bennis, 1965). Unfortunately, far less attention has been given to progress. For those who may doubt or question this simple truth, I challenge you to type the words “organizational change” into any Web search engine and count the number of hits. Go ahead. And then do the same with “organizational progress.” When I did this on Google’s search engine (www.google.com/), I got 46,800,000 hits for “organizational change” and (only) 4,400,000 hits for “organizational progress.” One conclusion we might make is that perhaps the field has spent far too much time looking at change and too little looking at progress.

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines change as “to become different… to undergo transformation, transition, or substitution,” and it defines progress as “a forward or onward movement (as to an objective or to a goal)… gradual betterment.” Thus, change implies movement, whereas progress implies directionality of that movement; change must be directed somewhere before it can be considered progress, and even then the interpretation of merit to that progress is subjective. Or, as Pate et al. (1997, pp. 340-41) wrote nearly ten years ago:

Perhaps “progress” is only judged by those individual steps and the degree to which they are connected in an acceptable or valued way. A compelling question this idea raises is the extent to which any of us can do more than simply manage change, as with OD or OT efforts. Giddens (1984) proposes that social change can be categorized in terms of origin, momentum, trajectory, and type. Can we control the trajectory of type of change in order to achieve “progress”?

In my last Editorial, I talked about some of the changes this journal has experienced over the past 14years. These include the acquisition of the journal by Information Age Publishing (IAP) in 2002, along with an accompanying change of Editors and Editorial Boards; a subsequent name change by IAP from International Journal of Organizational Analysis to, simply, Organizational Analysis in 2004-2005; the return of the journal to the original publisher and Editor in 2005, along with a return to the original name and Editorial Board; the acquisition of the journal by Emerald in late 2006; the resignation of the previous Editor in early 2007; my appointment as new Editor-in-Chief effective with the 2007 volume, along with my selection of new Associate Editors and a new Editorial Board also effective with the upcoming 2007 volume. The Editorial also outlined other changes our new Editorial team would be making in 2007-2008, to include a change in focus and direction toward “problem-finding and creating a forum for asking good questions” (Pate, 2006, p. 184).

With all of these changes and in light of Bertrand Russell’s observations on change and progress, it is reasonable to ask, “Is the journal getting any better?” The answer, in my opinion, and I believe in the opinion of every new member of our Editorial team, is an unequivocal and resounding “Yes!” Should there be any doubt, all one needs to do is visit the journal’s website (www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/ijoa/ijoa.jsp) and review the brief bios of the new Associate Editors, Mariann Jelinek and Kenneth D. Mackenzie; the new Film Review Editor, Joe Champoux; and the brief bios of the members of the new Editorial Board. It is an impressive group, containing many of the most respected and admired people in the field. Both Ken and Mariann are well known in the academic community and have distinguished themselves as not only first-rate scholars, but as decent people. Mariann holds the Richard C. Kraemer Chair in Business Strategy, College of William & Mary, while Ken is President of EMAC Assessments Inc. and Emeritus Edmund P. Learned Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Kansas. They have published in all the leading journals in the organizational field, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Management Science, Organization Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, Harvard Business Review, and Academy of Management Review. We all share a common goal – to make this journal one of the top journals in the field.

The new Editorial Board that will take over with the 2007 volume includes such familiar names as Nancy Adler, McGill University; Phil Anderson, INSEAD; Chris Argyris, Harvard University; Katinka Bijlsma-Frankema, Free University Amsterdam; Richard Burton, Duke University; Kim Cameron, University of Michigan; Allan Cohen, Babson College; Cary Cooper, Lancaster University; Fred Dansereau, State University of New York at Buffalo; Robert Dooley, Oklahoma State University; Bob Golembiewski, University of Georgia; Edmund Gray, Loyola Marymount University; James G. Hunt, Texas Tech University; John Kimberly, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton); Roy Lewicki, Ohio State University; Jeanne Logsdon, University of New Mexico; Craig Lundberg, Cornell University; Newton Margulies, University of California, Irvine; Greg Oldham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Andrew Pettigrew, Bath University; Michael Roloff, Northwestern University; Jeff Sonnenfeld, Yale University; Barry Staw, University of California, Berkeley; Daniel Svyantek, Auburn University; John Van Maanen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Whetten, Brigham Young University; Diane Witmer, California State University, Fullerton; Robert Zmud, University of Oklahoma, and many others.

A child who moves from one rung to another on “monkey bars” must let go of the rung behind in order to grab onto the rung ahead. The same principle holds with regard to this journal. To move the journal forward – to progress – we needed to let go of the past. As the old saying goes, “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” Or, putting it in set theory terms, progress is a subset of change, such that all change is not progress but all progress is change. Among the many additional improvements we have planned, Craig Lundberg, Cornell University, will be writing a regular column for us starting in 2007 entitled, “Perplexities,” and Amy Kenworthy-U’Ren, Bond University, Australia, will be serving as Guest Editor of a 2008 Special Issue on “Service learning.” Please see the Call for Papers in the next issue for more details on the Special Issue.

The articles in this issue are good example of things to come. The lead article, “Entry mode and HRM strategies of emerging multinationals: an empirical analysis of Portuguese firms entering the Spanish market,” by José Paulo Esperança, Manuela Magalhães Hill and Ana Cláudia Valente, examines survey data from 208 employees in 28 Portugese firms. This article is particularly interesting since Portugal and Spain have been trading and warring since the Phoenicians. In Julius Caesar’s day, the Portuguese were the Celtibarians. The relationship was dramatically changed by a great earthquake (quake, fire, tsunami) in 1755, which destroyed most of Lisbon (at the time the main Atlantic part). It was when the Spanish Armada was defeated that Portugal and England became long-term allies in order to check Phillip II of Spain and later the French under Napoleon. The Lisbon earthquake occurred at 9:40 a.m. on November 1, 1755, and the effects were felt all through Western Europe. Between 60-100,000 people died in Lisbon alone. Lisbon, which lies at the mouth of the Tagus River, is one of the best ports on the Atlantic in Western Europe. At the time of the earthquake, Portugal was expanding its colonies and trade. After the quake, Lisbon declined as a major seaport on the Atlantic. The earthquake actually occurred out in the Atlantic. After the quake, there was a giant tsunami and then a huge fire on what was left. The one thing that resulted to the good was the birth of seismology. The events of 1755 changed the trade between Spain and Portugal and it changed the relative power in favor of the Spanish.

The article entitled “An examination of cognition and affect in strategic decision-making,” by Kong-Hee Kim, G. Tyge Payne, and James A. Tan, examines the impact of cognition and emotion on organizational heterogeneity and homogeneity in strategic decision making. The article entitled, “Bolstering organizational identity, commitment, and citizenship behaviors through the process of inoculation,” by Michel M. Haigh and Michael Pfau, reports findings from a four-phase laboratory experiment in which organizational identity, commitment, and citizenship behaviors were enhanced through carefully crafted internal communication messages. Finally, the article entitled, “Getting wired for innovation: an analysis of the advice networks of software entrepreneurs,” by Cathleen A. McGrath, Larry E. Pate, Edmund R. Gray, and Charles M. Vance, reports on the importance of trust in advice networks from interview data gathered from successful entrepreneurs. I want to say a special thanks to Arthur Wolak, our new Copy Editor, whose appointment also officially begins with the 2007 volume, for his good work editing these articles.

In short, we’re trying to make real progress with the journal and not just change. We are looking for articles that break new ground, offer a new theory or methodological advance, provide a new synthesis of competing theories, or open up a new area of research. We, therefore, give preference to articles that establish new lines of inquiry, redirect exhausted or unproductive lines to more promising lines, and shut down those heavy on method but light on consequences. Mostly, we prefer vigor over rigor. Let us know how we’re doing.

Larry E. PateRedondo Beach, California, USA