Abstract for: A Generic Model of Organizational Inertia, Attention, and Change

There exist many examples of organizations which failed to react to environmental change. Polaroid and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) are just two of them. While existing literature in particular focuses on organizational inertia and routines as impediments to change, attention to stakeholders has not received much consideration outside the area of business ethics. Since attention proved an influencing factor at Polaroid, DEC, and in a change process of the New York Stock Exchange, the interrelationships between inertia, attention, and change will be analyzed in the present paper. Stakeholder attention proved to be influenced by stakeholder pressures as well as an influencing factor on the perception of stakeholder pressures. Additionally, sensitivity analyzes revealed how different policies for managerial intervention work by themselves and in interaction.