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Journal of International Business Research and Marketing

Volume 7, Issue 4, January 2023, pages 18-22

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Exploring Organizational Readiness to Change and Learn: A SciVal Analysis from 2012 to 2021

DOI: 10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.74.3002
URL: https://doi.org/10.18775/jibrm.1849-8558.2015.74.3002 

¹Baira Faulks, ¹Song Yinghua, ²Akmal Khudaykulov, ³Aziz Jumanov

¹School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
² School of Business, TEAM University, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
³ Finance and Business Analytics Department. Tashkent State University of Economics. Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Abstract: In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizational change has emerged as a crucial aspect of contemporary business strategies. The capacity to adapt is vital for organizations to maintain their competitive edge and stay relevant. However, executing change can be challenging, and the success of change initiatives largely hinges on an organization’s readiness to change and learn. Organizational readiness to change has been extensively researched in management and organizational studies. This research paper delves into organizational readiness to change and learn, scrutinizing its influence on change initiatives and emphasizing the key trends and developments in this area between 2012 and 2021. The paper presents an in-depth SciVal analysis of the growth and scholarly output in the domains of learning organizations, organizational performance, and personnel over this period. The study identifies the most pertinent keyphrases, leading institutions, countries/regions, and Scopus sources contributing to the field.

Keywords: Organizational Readiness to Change, Learning Organizations, SciVal Analysis, Scientometric Analyses, Change Initiatives

1. Introduction

Organizational readiness for change refers to the beliefs and attitudes of employees towards the possibility of changes in the organization (Shea et al., 2014). Successful organizational change is less dependent on detailed plans and projections and more on understanding the complexity of the issues involved and identifying the full range of possible solutions (Burnes, 2000). The strategic goal is to create and maintain organizational flexibility (McGee and Molloy, 2003), which involves consciously implementing and managing change. The organization is required to create the ability to change, but also the culture of change (Aleksić, 2013). Organizational change and environmental dynamics have a significant relationship, resulting in frequent and rapid changes in organizations (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997). Transformation issues are a major challenge for managers in maintaining the competitive vitality of their organization (Vandangeon-Derumez, 1998). Companies must develop their capacity for change to continuously adapt to environmental dynamics and sometimes even to provoke them (Teece et al., 1993; Hamel and Prahalad, 1995; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). Organizational readiness has been linked to sustainable economic performance (Faulks, 2021).

Leadership has been found to be associated with organizational readiness to change (Wulandari et al., 2020). Empowerment takes place before the bigger picture is clear, during the problem-solving process, where leaders proactively motivate and engage followers to jointly work towards the best solution (Wang et al., 2008; Vecchio et al., 2010). Flexibility is defined as an orientation towards change (Fischer and King, 1995), and innovation is defined as the extent to which employees are encouraged and supported for their new ideas and innovative approaches (West and Farr, 1990). Organizational culture and climate also play a crucial role in organizational readiness to change. Creating a culture of change implies that the whole organization is aware and ready for change (Nastase et al., 2012). Trust and fairness are known as two important antecedents that impact commitment to organizational change. Additionally, empowerment enables workers to have authority and autonomy, build confidence, and establish a positive psychological state. Implementing organizational change can be challenging, and the success of change initiatives largely depends on the readiness of the organization to change. Employees may feel uncertain towards organizational change as it threatens their stability and results in uncertain work conditions (Abrell-Vogel and Rowold, 2014). One of the main reasons for the failure of change initiatives is that these changes take place in organizational place instead of focusing on individual needs of employees (Conner, 1993).

In recent years, significant research has focused on organizational change and learning organizations. However, there appears to be a scarcity of scientometric analyses on this topic. To address this gap, we employ the SciVal methodology to provide a comprehensive overview of the research landscape. Our study uses the SciVal tool to analyze the top keyphrases, authors, and other relevant metrics within this area of research. By doing so, we aim to illuminate emerging trends and further our understanding of the key factors driving organizational change and the development of learning organizations. The first section of the article provides some background on the learning organizations and change, whereas the second part focuses on the scival analysis.

2. Organizational Learning and Transformation

The continuous flux of technological developments on the market requires small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to undergo profound digital transformation to maintain relevance and survive. Adapting human resources to meet the requirements and prospect challenges is best achieved by transforming their attitudes and behaviors. Breaking away from old thought patterns and traditional operational activities and functions and taking on unexpected challenges opens businesses towards exploiting alternative management strategies and the possibility of organizational change. Even though change is fundamental for maintaining sustainability, more than half of attempts to undertake the transformation backslides due to failure to consider individual employee’s attitudes, personal beliefs, and assessment of the benefits from change (Kotter, 1996). Therefore, corporate managers must take on empowering leadership to foster positive attitudes by providing guidance and support throughout the transformational process and ensuring employees of their employment stability. Top-notch managers are traditionally main drivers of sustainability accountable for adding social, economic, and environmental value to the organization. Dynamic environments and chaotic situations subject to rapid shifts require a novel approach to leading business, such as accepting fractal, modular, and networked approaches to decision-making. Enterprises are thus progressively embracing the trend of authority delegation, providing employees with control and autonomy and empowering them to feel confident enough to adapt to new responsibilities (Obrenovic et al., 2020).

Organizational commitment strengthened by intense trust in leadership and the presence of a safe environment is conducive towards open willingness to undergo organizational transformation. Furthermore, followers are far more susceptible to engaging in innovative behaviors and endeavors when they perceive their leaders embody and even endorse such activities (Garvin, 2000). The greater the organizational commitment, the stronger the influence of empowering leaders towards sustainable development will be.

Organizational learning advances ingenious and enterprising efforts and leads to exceptional service improvements, transforming cognitive resources into an asset for sustaining existing practices (Garvin et al., 2008). Intraorganizational knowledge exchange and the transfer of tacit knowledge, such as skills and expertise, increase innovative capacity and enable the accumulation, learning, processing, and stocking of key information (Gherardi and Nicolini, 2017). Treasuring cognitive capital is fundamental for achieving sustainable economic performance, as valuable expertise and know-how build up enterprise resilience and act as a buffer in case of adversity (Bratianu, 2015). Collecting diverse knowledge from all business units, identifying and solving problems, and responding to new technological trends aids in turning intellectual capital into operational intellectual capital (Bratianu and Orzea, 2013).

The circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, including lockdowns and demand for remote working and transitioning into the virtual time-space, advance the need to adopt e-learning strategies for daily business operating. According to previous studies, the reason why many organizations fail the implementation stage of adopting e-learning practices and tools is the lack of reliable evaluative intel on their actual readiness for organizational change, a thorough evaluation of their weak spots, and reliable cost assessment (Pettit et al., 2019; Christopher and Holweg, 2011). For such a transition, organizations must be resourceful and pre-prepared, meaning personnel is to be technologically proficient, while the organization should provide human resources with technological and digital equipment and quality training on how to resume their roles in an online setting, technical and managerial support, software support, education on advanced applications (Ngang and Kuo, 2010; Baldwin,) 

3. SciVal Analysis of Learning Organizations Research

3.1 Methodology

To analyze research performance in the area of learning organizations and related topics from 2012 to 2021, we conducted a comprehensive literature review using the SciVal database. We examined scholarly output, Field-Weighted Citation Impact, international collaboration, and topic prominence. Keyphrases were analyzed to identify the most relevant areas, and trends. Keyphrases including „organizational change“, „learning organization“ and organizational learning“ resulting in Learning Organizations; Organizational Performance; Personnel (T.12454) and Organizational Change; Personnel; Work Engagement (T.71917) clusters identification. We investigated the most active institutions, countries, authors, and Scopus sources contributing to those clusters. Second smaller cluster around organizational change to provide context and insight into the broader research landscape in this area.

3.2 Results

This summary presents a comprehensive analysis of research performance in the area of learning organizations and related topics from 2012 to 2021. The cluster analyzed is Learning Organizations; Organizational Performance; Personnel (T.12454).  The scholarly output has increased during this period, with the number of publications rising from 59 in 2012 to 93 in 2021. However, the Field-Weighted Citation Impact has decreased from 0.74 in 2012 to 0.50 in 2021. International collaboration has improved, with the numbers increasing from 7 in 2012 to 13 in 2021.

The topic prominence percentile score stands at 91.564. Keyphrases analysis reveals that learning organizations, leadership, knowledge management, organizational culture, and organizational performance are among the top relevant terms in this field. Significant areas such as innovation, transformational leadership, and learning culture are also highlighted.

Table 1: Keyphrase analysis

Keyphrase	Relevance (max value = 1.00)	Scholarly Output (growth %, over the period 2012-2021)
Learning Organizations	1	51.5
Learning	0.12	20
Organizations	0.12	50
Leadership	0.11	200
Knowledge Management	0.1	9.1
Organisational Culture	0.09	140
Organizational Performance	0.08	71.4
Dimension	0.08	80
Libraries	0.07	150
Personnel	0.06	83.3
Innovation	0.05	62.5
Learning Culture	0.05	100
Industry	0.05	-23.1
Transformational Leadership	0.05	0
Schools	0.05	300
Capabilities	0.04	60
Leadership Style	0.04	200
Perspective	0.04	800
Culture	0.04	150
Universities	0.04	-20
Firm	0.04	0
Organizational Change	0.03	-40
Employee Performance	0.03	100
Job Satisfaction	0.03	400
Organization Concepts	0.03	–
Open Innovation	0.03	–
Managers	0.03	0
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)	0.03	200
Impact	0.03	100
Organization Learning	0.03	100
Case Study	0.03	57.1
Surveys and Questionnaires	0.03	150
Management Learning	0.03	200
Human Resource Management	0.02	–
Army	0.02	50
Workforce	0.02	50
Workplace	0.02	-100
Editorial	0.02	–
Competency	0.02	100
Creativity	0.02	166.7
Empiricism	0.02	-40
Learning Process	0.02	75
Psychological Practice	0.02	125
Iran	0.02	100
Knowledge Sharing	0.02	150
Organizational Commitment	0.02	200
Workplace Learning	0.02	–
Management Knowledge	0.02	-25
Individual Learning	0.02	-50
Sustainable	0.02	200

 

The most active institutions include Islamic Azad University, Jaume I University, Universiti Teknologi MARA, University of Georgia, and Texas A&M University. The United States, United Kingdom, India, China, and South Korea have the highest scholarly output in this area. The most active authors are Örtenblad, Anders R.; Reese, Simon R.; Chiva, Ricardo; Watkins, Karen E.; and Rupčić, Nataša.

Table 2: Author analysis

Authors	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	Total
Örtenblad, Anders R.	0	6	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	0	12
Reese, Simon R.	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	5	2	11
Chiva, Ricardo	0	1	0	0	1	1	2	0	2	1	8
Watkins, Karen E.	1	3	0	0	0	1	1	0	1	1	8
Rupčić, Nataša	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	1	6

 

Lastly, the most active Scopus sources for this research area are Learning Organization, Handbook of Research on the Learning Organization: Adaptation and Context, Development and Learning in Organizations, Espacios, and Journal of Workplace Learning. Additionally, a smaller cluster around organizational change was examined. The research performance in this area from 2012 to 2021 shows a decline in scholarly output, Field-Weighted Citation Impact, and international collaboration. The topic prominence percentile score is 18.176, with keyphrases such as organizational change, leadership, transformation, ethics, and change management being highly relevant. The most active institutions and authors in this area, as well as the most active Scopus sources, have been previously mentioned in the response.

Figure 1: Visual representation of keyphrases for Learning Organizations; Organizational Performance; Personnel cluster (T.12454)

4. Discussion and Implications

The analysis of research performance in the area of learning organizations and related topics from 2012 to 2021 offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of this field. The increase in scholarly output indicates growing interest and attention to learning organizations, while the decrease in Field-Weighted Citation Impact suggests that there may be a need for further development and refinement of research within this domain. The improvement in international collaboration demonstrates the increasingly global nature of this field, emphasizing the importance of sharing knowledge and expertise across borders. Keyphrases analysis identifies core areas of interest such as learning organizations, leadership, knowledge management, organizational culture, and organizational performance, as well as emerging areas like innovation, transformational leadership, and learning culture. These findings highlight the need for continued exploration of these topics to better understand their role in shaping the success of organizations. The identification of the most active institutions, authors, and Scopus sources can help researchers and practitioners identify key players and resources to further their understanding of learning organizations and related topics. The decline in scholarly output and Field-Weighted Citation Impact in the smaller cluster around organizational change, however, indicates that this area may require more attention and research to better understand its role in learning organizations. This study’s findings underscore the significance of learning organizations and their relationship with leadership, knowledge management, and organizational culture. The implications for practice include the need for organizations to foster a learning culture, embrace innovation, and adopt transformational leadership approaches to stay competitive in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Further research in this field is essential to advance our understanding of the factors that contribute to successful learning organizations and the strategies needed to promote organizational change and growth.

5. Conclusion

Our study highlights the importance of organizational readiness for change and its role in the success of organizational change initiatives. By utilizing the SciVal tool to analyze keyphrases, authors, and other relevant metrics, we have shed light on emerging trends and deepened our understanding of the driving factors behind organizational change and the growth of learning organizations. This analysis serves as a valuable resource for future research in this field. While the SciVal analysis offers valuable insights, it has limitations, including its reliance on available data sources, potential biases in citation counts, and the exclusion of non-English publications. These factors may affect the comprehensiveness and representativeness of the analysis, thus warranting a cautious interpretation of the findings. Future studies could explore the interplay between organizational culture and change readiness, as well as the role of leadership in facilitating successful change initiatives. Additionally, research could focus on the impact of emerging

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