Reversal of Strategic Change

Abstract

When planned change is canceled, managers may be tempted to reverse their organization's strategy. Our longitudinal case study documents an organization's canceled merger effort and a failed attempt to return to the organization's widely accepted premerger strategy. We trace the failure to contradictions in symbolic change management. The phenomenon of change reversal draws attention to the historical continuity of “sensemaking” and raises caution about the popular view that managers need to destroy organizational meaning to facilitate the realization of strategic change.