Modelling the dynamics of organisational change in a Spanish industrial cooperative

There is increasing attention on the need for dynamic approaches to manage organisational change in order to sustain competitive advantage in changing business environments. Current frameworks and methods are misleading in terms of the fact that flexibility is a temporal and dynamic condition for survival in environments with a high degree of variability in most real-world organisations. This study aims to examine determinants underpinning organisational change strategies throughout the enterprise lifecycle in order to develop a predictive method that will help managers in the design of effective change options dealing with the complexity of organisational flexibility. A system dynamics model was constructed based on theoretical and empirical data from a case study of a Spanish cooperative company. Then, the predictive method shows the impact of managers’ decisions on organisational flexibility through simulations. The effectiveness of change strategies is investigated through the dynamic behaviour of key variables. These factors cause relevant delays on the desired results and could force firms to choose an inappropriate path for change. This study offers significant implications for theory and practice.