The organizational transformation process: The micropolitics of dissonance reduction and the alignment of logics of action

Arguing that current theories of organizational change fail to pay adequate attention to how organizations move from one stable state to another, we generate a model of the organizational transformation process. We argue that to the degree that organizations are systems of exchange, they may be said to be transformed through a process by which the logics of action that parties bring to the exchange are aligned, misaligned, and realigned. Developing the concept of logic of action and drawing on cognitive dissonance theory, we examine how, in the face of a massive environmental shift (in this case, airline deregulation), changes at the institutional level were transformed into changes at the core level. The model is generated from an analysis of qualitative data on the impact of deregulation on labor and management's approach to employee emotional well-being in the airline industry.