Award Winner for Volume 18
The Need for Competing Commitments Research: Coping with Change in Knowledge Management
Experiencing regular change for organizations is the new status quo. For every leader who finds themselves in this situation, there are many organizational members called upon to exercise leadership over a change project or a team in the change process. When employees find themselves in these roles, they are soon confronted with a set of daunting recognitions: Leadership involves trying to affect change; it is very difficult to bring about change in any human group without change to the individual; it is very hard to sustain significant change, and it is very difficult to lead on behalf of others. Organizational psychologists have termed some of the problems associated with this “competition commitments”—or, immunity to change. This research aims to discuss the need for competing commitment research and coping with change in knowledge management (KM) research, an area that has not been explored in the KM research. This article asks how academics and practitioners in change management and knowledge management can use competing commitments theory in the field.
In my time studying change in organizations, experiencing regular change for companies is the new status quo. For every leader who finds themselves in this situation, there are many organizational members called upon to exercise leadership over a change project or a team in the change process. When employees find themselves in these roles, they are soon confronted with a set of daunting recognitions: Leadership involves trying to affect change; it is very difficult to bring about change in any human group without change to the individual; it is very hard to sustain significant change, and it is very difficult to lead on behalf of others. I have found that the knowledge management literature has been ignoring what organizational psychologists have termed “competition commitments”—or, immunity to change. My research program aims aims to discuss the need for competing commitment research and coping with change in knowledge management research, an area that I have found not to be explored. This article and my body of work more generally asks how academics and practitioners in change management and knowledge management fields can use competing commitments theory to further organizational understanding.
—Jamie O'Brien