Exploring essential change practices for the successful execution of organizational change efforts in capital project organizations

Abstract

The past few years have brought major disruptions to historically stable industries. Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, labor shortages, low-carbon initiatives, and infrastructure investments have been driving organizations to rethink their current-traditional ways and models of conducting business, and in turn, initiating major organizational change efforts. The capital projects industry is no exception, as capital project organizations are dealing with an endlessly changing environment that is continuously destabilizing the design, construction, delivery, operation, and management of capital projects. Thus, to remain successful in this changing environment, capital project organizations need to properly plan and successfully execute their change efforts. As such, the objective of this study is to investigate change practices that can be essential in supporting the successful execution of organizational change efforts and allowing organizations to effectively adapt to changing environments. To achieve the desired objective, a three-step methodology was adopted. First, a series of interviews were conducted with capital project organizations to learn about their past and ongoing organizational change efforts. Next, thematic analysis was employed to code common themes and identify the utilized change practices. The practices were then defined using the existing research corpus. The methodology resulted in a set of 60 change practices that are presented and defined in this paper. The findings of this study can be important for industry practitioners as they can use the change practices in planning and executing their change efforts, as well as researchers who can build on the change practices when investigating organizational change both inside and outside the capital projects industry.