Abstract:
How do organizations communicate with shareholders during times of great uncertainty such
as during transformational change? This question intrigues us because the outcome of
transformational change, defmed here as change which is "radical, and fundamentally alters the
organization at its core" (Newman, 2000: 604), is inherently uncertain with many change
initiatives failing to achieve their intended outcomes (Ghoshal & Bartlett, 1996). Despite this
being an intriguing and, we suggest, important question what is curious is that relatively
neglected are the communication processes directed externally by managers to shareholders in
order to retain their support during major organizational change.
The research reported in this paper continues the work of Arndt and Bigelow (2000) in
studying the communication processes organizations use with external stakeholders during times
of major organizational change. It focuses on GE as a celebrated organization engaged in
transformational changes over the past 20 years which have been described as "one of the most
far-reaching programs of innovation in business history" (Tichy, 1993: 114). Specifically, we
draw on the concept of "change conversations" and speech act theory to identify the
communicative processes used by GE managers in their letters to shareholders which
contributed, at least in part, to how they successfully retained the support of their shareholders.
