Improving Evidence Quality for Organisational Change Management through Open Science

Purpose: Popular contingency approaches to organisational change management imply that it is known what and when practices are most appropriate and effective to manage change. The current work questions this assumption.Approach: The current work critically reviews the quality of current evidence supporting organisational change management and considers the role of open science practices for the field. Findings: First, evidence informing organisational change management is poor; heavily reliant upon unquestioned theoretical models and low-quality cross-sectional or case-study designs. Greater adoption of an evidence-based approach to practice could facilitate organisational change management, but only once a higher-quality of evidence is available to inform more robust practical guidance. Second, open science practices look well placed to drive a higher quality of evidence suitable for informing future change management.Value: The current work highlights the problematic nature of the quality and application of current evidence to inform organisational change and raises a number of recommendations to support future evidence development using an open science approach.