How relevant is Kotter’s change theory on organizational change in meta-organizations : A case study of the ESNreview of the Erasmus Student Network

Abstract

Kotter’s 8-step organizational change model is amongst the most popular change models in the world, however despite its continued success as a popular science approach to the topic of organizational change, it has received limited attention from the scientific community, and little research has been done into how the model works in practice. This thesis is a case study into the use of Kotter’s change model, researching how well it may fit into a meta-organization. According to Ahrne and Brunsson, a lot of organizations may be described as meta-organizations, yet the research into this unique structure and its effects on existing organizational theories is limited. This thesis is a case study of the Erasmus Student Network, a meta-organization, and how well Kotter’s model may be used to describeESNreview, a larger structural change process the organization underwent from 2016-2019.Theresearch has been done using most-similar case analysis and data triangulation of interviews, observations and literature analysis. The findings of this thesis is that while many of the aspects of Kotter’s model are relevantin its most basic form, the way in which Kotter suggests that they be fulfilled are not, as the top-down format of Kotter’s analysis clashes with the member-oriented power dynamic within meta-organizations.Finally, the thesis calls for more research to be done in the field of planned change processes in meta-organizations to broaden and provide more generalizable results. Keywords: Meta-organization, organizational change, Kotter, ESNreview, planned change, case study.