Timing of employee participation and synchronicity in planned organizational change: An event system perspective

Planned change can lead to asynchronicity in the participation and experiences of change initiators and recipients. This may produce suboptimal outcomes for planned change projects. The literature suggests that employee participation events may alleviate this problem; yet, research also shows that not all employee participation events have the desired outcomes. Using event system theory, we explore how the timing of employee participation events in planned organizational change impacts stakeholder asynchronicities in the change process. We interviewed 23 change consultants about one of their planned change projects. We find that different designs of employee participation events give rise to different subsequent event chains with varied impacts on planned change processes in terms of synchronicity. First, a different timing of employee participation events leads to asynchronicity experiences and determines both the amount of facilitated time for change recipients to adapt to the change and the number of change phases employees can participate in. Second, timing, in combination with the kind of employee participation, explains differences in event chains across hierarchical levels in terms of dispersion and proximity. Both design elements contribute to the degree of synchronicity and help explain why some change projects are successful while others are not, despite applying participative interventions. Third, we add to event system theory by studying proactive change events.