IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 59

payoff. To an outside observer with full knowledge,
such resistance might seem irrational and surprising.
5) In many of the self-organizing systems studied in
computer science, changes in interaction patterns or
rules are not only inevitable but also highly desired.
Continuous adaptation to highly volatile environments with limited knowledge about other agents and
the consequences of choices is thus a necessity. In
essence, such constant change requires agents that
are willing and able to participate in decisions about
the system as well as agents that are willing and able
to adhere to any changes made. In many cases, single
individual constituents initiate the change and others
are asked to follow the change unquestioningly and
reliably (see, e.g., the "wave" of structural changes
going through a system described in [26]). There, any
kind of resistance seems to be at odds with the fundamental assumption that all involved will support
these changes at short notice and without putting up
a fight about it.
Published literature on organizational change and
associated change management theories in turn suggests that members of an organization are prone to
resist changes that occur in the organization. The reasons for this resistance are likewise not necessarily
rational and instead are often very personal, intangible,
and outside of the organizational context [17]. In some
cases, the resistance put up by individuals is not even
conscious, but rather manifests in unconscious bahavior such as delaying decisions or not participating [25].
Organizational psychology provides a number of possible reasons why seemingly rational individuals are reluctant to change. In general, changes of the status quo are
threatening. The personal position related to power or
standing, might be lowered. There is potential for conflict,
in particular with superiors and outsiders. Existing webs
of trust might be destroyed and a new social system,
including a new pecking order, might be established [27].
Finally, the fear of becoming obsolete is a strong driver to
resist change. An overview of reasons for resistance and
references to studies is provided, e.g., by [17].
At the same time, the organization is reluctant to
change due to a form of organizational inertia. This is
explainable by the fact that change is associated with
both risk and cost. The organization is averse to risk to
ensure its own survival and adverse to cost to ensure
profitability. What is more, established stakeholder interests [23] or the organization's "political realities" [17] can
prevent change. This can often be observed in practice
when change efforts in large corporations fail [11] due to
the bahavior of individuals or due to organizational hurdles that cannot be overcome. At the same time, the
organization has to change to ensure its growth and its
flexible response to a changing environment.
SEPTEMBER 2017

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There are connections between
participatory self-organizing
socio-technical systems and
change management.
This conflict is acknowledged by, e.g., Lewin: driving
and constraining forces together allow organizations to
maintain a stable state [3], [16]. This kind of equilibrium
is also desirable in self-organizing systems that should
achieve some stability that is "fit for purpose" [22]. For a
self-organizing system to function, the driving forces
should be able to take over. When the need for change
arises, the constraining forces should take over when
the change has been performed successfully. While the
driving forces have the upper hand, however, the constituents of the system must become part of the change
process and willingly and actively support the change.

What Change Management Brings to the Table
The theories and approaches presented in the change
management literature do not rely on mechanism design
and pure incentivation, as used in the self-organizing
systems community right now. At the same time, they
suggest certain categorizations, empirically proven
approaches, and ideas that allow successful changes in
social systems. In the following, we will explore these
ideas and how they relate to participatory self-organizing
socio-technical systems. The insights presented here will
be used in the next section to create a mapping between
successful change management techniques and participatory self-organizing sociotechnical systems (see Table 1).
While the treatment of these issues here is far from complete, it is aimed at giving a better understanding of the
notions with which change in organizations is addressed.
A good overview of various theories and understandings
of organizational change is given in [28].
Weick and Quinn [31] differentiate two kinds of
change: episodic changes are "infrequent, discontinuous,
and intentional;" continuous changes are evolutionary
changes as part of the "work processes and social practices." Other authors call essentially the same kinds of
changes by slightly different names, e.g., incremental
and continuous in [3], but in essence it is agreed that
changes occur at different rates and with different preconditions. These categories are not mutually exclusive
and changes of both kinds can be going on at the same
time. It is noteworthy that the scale of the change is
regarded as an independent characteristic [28]; an episodic change can be limited to a small part of the

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