Organizing Radical and Incremental Changes in SMEs

For most innovative companies, the ability to respond quickly to market shifts, modulating customer demands and the introduction of new manufacturing technology is a core competence. The organizational difficulties associated with the change processes these rapid responses entail are varied, but many revolve around companies? ability to involve employees in the development of new products, work processes and manufacturing concepts. Difficulties may also arise if companies forget that changes in one area ? e.g. technology ? necessitate changes in others ? e.g. markets and management systems. And small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where developmental resources are often limited and company traditions often dictate daily work practices, may face even greater challenges in this regard. Though a change may be radical in that it involves moving in a radically new direction for the company in question, this change may be implemented incrementally. The opposite is also true. In fact, one of the project representatives? main functions is to act as a sounding board, listening to the way companies perceive the changes taking place within their walls as well as in the outside world, and helping them to describe them in terms that shift their focus from daily operations to the future and the developmental changes necessary to bring them there. Building on empirical data derived from case-studies of five to ten Danish SMEs, the project attempts to document how these companies have initiated and implemented incremental and radical change processes over a 3-5 year period. CIP project group: Research Assistant Christian Nørgaard, Professor Jens O. Riis (project manager), Associate Professor Frank Gertsen Additional contributor: Associate Professor Jeppe Gustafsson ? Department of Business Studies, Aalborg University Financing: LOK Research Center Project duration: fall 1999 ? summer 2003