Promise-based Transformations: can the promise be used as a tool to evaluate the success of an organizational change?

Transformations are becoming more and more important in the business world and companies of all sizes need to be able to change to adapt to the changing environment. Still, according to Burnes and Jackson, there is enough evidence to prove that about 70% of all transformations fail to achieve the targets initially set (Burnes & Jackson, 2011). Another study highlights that about 75% of the S&P 500 will go through an organizational change in the next 15 years and it becomes crucial to master the best practices to limit the chances of failure (Anthony, Viguerie, & et al, 2018 ). It is crucial to understand why organizational changes fail so often and what best practices need to be put in place to succeed. Resistance from stakeholders, who are averse to change the current state of how things work, is one of the main causes that lead to failure. As a matter of fact, communicating efficiently the organizational change strategy becomes crucial to avoid resistance. This thesis has the goal of testing the application of promise-based management to organizational changes and to see whether promises can be used to evaluate the success of a transformation. In order to fully understand the proposed approach, this thesis will first present some literature review that will give the reader a deeper understanding of organizational transformations and promise-based management. The third chapter will present the research methodology and the findings of the primary research which will help find an answer to the research question of this thesis: Can promises be used as a tool to evaluate the success of a transformation? The so-called “promise” is the public statement made by the agent of the transformation when he/she communicates it. The data shown will be of qualitative nature and will come from interviews to managers that are experts in leading organizational transformation in international companies.