Navigating Tensions to Create Value: An Institutional Logics Perspective on the Change Program and its Organizational Context

Abstract

Research has emphasized the need to understand change programs’ value creation (VC) within their organizational context. This article employs institutional logics to explore the change program–organizational context interface, and investigates how program management actors navigate the interface to create value. A longitudinal comparative study was conducted during the execution of two public-sector municipal merger programs. Contributing to the theory on change program VC by identifying change programs and contexts as different logics, findings show that perspectives on VC may conflict. We theorize navigation practices of problematizing, designing, and team building to resolve the tensions and facilitate program VC.