Critical Review: Organizational Transformation in Orlikowski's Study

This paper reviews Wanda Orlikowski's 1996 article, "Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change perspective," which explores organizational transformation within Zeta Corporations, a software company. The review focuses on Orlikowski's analysis of how transformational factors impact organizational performance, particularly within the Customer Support Division. The research methodology involved interviews, document reviews, and observations, using theories of situated practice and technological advancements. The article's findings suggest that organizational change might deviate from traditional change management norms. While the article provides valuable insights into organizational transformation, the review notes a lack of clarity on the practical implementation of the findings due to the limited sample size. Desklib provides access to this and other student contributed assignments.

Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW
ARTICLE REVIEW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ARTICLE REVIEW
Organizational transformation is one of the major factors that affect the multitude of the
business organizations that are active in the given international market. The following paper aims
at reviewing the article by Orlikowski on the organizational transformation that has been known
to be an endemic condition within the concept of the various organizations.
Orlikowski (1996) in the article entitled “Improvising organizational transformation over
time: A situated change perspective” attempts a discussion on the transformation of the
organizational factors that might affect the overall performance of the company in discussion.
The concerned article majorly focusses on the transformational factors that affect an
organization. The main aim of the article is to implement a perspective towards the
organizational transformation on the changes that are practiced within the organizations. The
study was completed with the data from the employees of a software organization, Zeta
Corporations, that has its headquarters in the Midwest. The concerned organization is known to
have serving the clients all over the United States. The author had undertaken the interviews of
the employees who have been working at the various hierarchical levels within the company
(Orlikowski 1996). The research was mainly targeted towards the employees of the Customer
Support Division within the organization. The research was based on the semi-structured and the
unstructured interviewing, review of the documents and the observations on the part of the
author.
The questions of the interview were majorly organized on the work practices that were
followed by the managers and the specialists within the organization. This had helped in the
completion of the study and thus helped in the composition of the article. The methods that were
used for the completion of the article included the open-ended questionnaires that were presented
to the participants of the interview. The major theories that were used for the completion of the

2ARTICLE REVIEW
article refer to the theories of the situated practice and the theories of the organizational change
that are based on the technological advancements. The major findings of the article discussed the
fact that the change as experienced by the concerned business organization might not follow the
norms of the change as is discussed by the scholars of the change management (Orlikowski
1996). The organizational changes as is discussed within the article is known to have been
shedding light on the ways that are required to discuss the changes within the department of the
Customer Support Division within the organization.
The concept of implementing the necessary changes that might result in the improvement
of the overall performances of the company has been one of the striking features of the article.
The article helps the readers gain better knowledge about the nature of the changes that might
affect the organization. The concerned article mainly focusses on the ways in which the
organizational transformation might affect the overall performance of the company. the article
lacks a clarity on the implementation of the findings of the article in the practical world due to
the restricted sample size of the article. The readers of the article are encouraged to question the
extent of the influence of the changes on the given business organization.

3ARTICLE REVIEW
References
Orlikowski, W.J., 1996. Improvising organizational transformation over time: A situated change
perspective. Information systems research, 7(1), pp.63-92.