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The purpose of this paper is to provide a process model on how mindfully performed organisational routines can simultaneously enable organisational stability and organisational change.

Via conceptual analysis, the authors develop several propositions and a process model integrating the theory of mindfulness and performative aspects of organisational routines with organisational stability and change. To do so, the authors review the literature on organisational routines, mindfulness, stability, inertia and change.

First, the authors demonstrate that, based on levels of mindfulness employed, performative aspects of organisational routines can be categorised as mindless, mindful and collectively mindful (meta-routines). Second, in the process model, the authors position the mindless performance of routines as enabling organisational stability, mediated through inertial pressure and disabling change, mediated through constrained change capacities. Finally, the authors state that engaging routines with mindfulness at an individual (mindful routines) or collective (meta-routines) level reduces inertia and facilitates change. Such simultaneous engagement leads to either sustaining stability when required or implementing continuous organisational change.

The framework uses continuous, versus episodic, change; future research can consider the model’s workability with episodic change. Future research can also seek to empirically validate the model. The authors hope that this model informs research in organisational change and provides guidance on addressing organisational inertia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to categorise the performative aspects of organisational routine based on the extent of mindfulness employed and propose that mindfulness-based practice of routines stimulates either inertia-induced or inertia-free stability and continuous change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine different types of organization of the firm considering the innovation capabilities of manufacturing firms.

The authors carried out an innovation survey with Brazilian manufacturing firms. A sample of 1,156 firms was analyzed in this paper. Collected data were analyzed using multivariate data analysis techniques. From an innovation capabilities approach, it was possible to identify different types of organization of the firm.

Results show four different types of organization of the firm: advanced, intermediate and basic stability-oriented and change-oriented. Each type presents a different innovation capabilities arrangement. The successful strategies toward innovation are related to change-oriented organization of the firm and advanced stability-oriented organization of the firm.

This study contributes to the literature by presenting a different view on the organization of the firm, encompassing the capabilities approach and thus a higher level on the perception of firms' heterogeneity. This study contributes to narrow the literature gap on how firms internally coordinate its different capabilities into a coherent organization to sustain an innovative behavior.

These straightforward findings can serve as a guideline so that managers can conduct changes within their companies toward more innovation. Managers can reconsider its organization as a way to foment innovation, once it is identified as a key strategy for competitiveness.

This study may help managers understand that focusing on stability-driven capabilities is riskier if change-driven capabilities are not present in an adequate and aligned level of development. The outcome may be the growth of the cost structure greater than the potential return. Conversely, managers should also understand that once change-driven capabilities are in a glance, they need do follow up with stability-driven capabilities. Here, the risk is not having an adequate structure to sustain the upcoming growth, arising from innovation. In short, not only “cost and value” should be taken together, but they must be arranged following the specific situation of the company. Every company should manage costs either to sustain new added value or to allow the addition of new value.

The study is based on a unique dataset that traces a large set of companies, being able to check different types of firm organization and associate it with innovation capabilities. The study relates to an emerging economy, which has not received adequate attention until now, largely because of the lack of micro-level data. The study is based on a robust theoretical model of innovation capabilities, which is being tested through such data. Finally, results elucidate ways to improve innovation performance of firms.

The aim of this paper is to explore interactions between change and stability during the implementation of a specific change initiative (ISO 9000). It attempts to develop a theoretical framework on change and stability management in small firms.

This research uses a process approach based on retrospective comparative case study methodology. Data collection in the six companies lasted over a year. This gives the opportunity to contrast failed change initiatives against successful ones.

Two models emerged from this approach; they support the notion that change and stability could be complementary during the different phases of the change initiative the authors analyzed. The findings show that total absence of stability variables in the change initiative could have negative effect on results.

The research is based on a multiple case study approach, which limits the generalizability of the findings.

This is one of the first studies that applies and empirically tests the change and stability relation in small firms.

The traditional dualism view regards stability and change as opposites and separate, two essential but largely incompatible and mutually exclusive elements in an organization, and it advocates contingency theories to handle the paradox situation; more recent research has adopted the paradoxical lens to highlight both the contradiction and the interdependence between the two elements. This paper aims to address how an organization pursues stability and change simultaneously, i.e., how stability and change contradictorily enable each other to promote the development of an organization.

By adopting a case study on the strategic and structural change of Signcomplex in China, this paper attempts to explore the paradoxical relationship between stability and change, especially their interdependence. Multiple approaches were used during data collection to meet the criteria for trustworthiness, and the data analysis went through a five-step process. Through this analysis, the main mechanisms of stability and change were identified. An analysis was also conducted on how these stable and variable mechanisms enable each other, and finally, a framework was set up to show this paradoxical relationship.

The results confirm the paradox of stability and change: stability enables change by supplying security and consistency, offering reserved knowledge and skills and enabling commitment and the provision of resources for a better realization of the change. Change enables a firm to set up a new state of stability through variable mechanisms such as trial-and-error and exploration activities. The results also indicate that the nature of organizational change is to help an organization reach a new stable stage with higher efficiency and that organizational development relies on the paradoxical effects of both stability and change.

This research is constrained by several limitations. The findings need to be further confirmed through the investigation of more organizations; other stable mechanisms, such as habits, tight coupling, commitments, control and low variance, and variable mechanisms, such as search, mindfulness, redundancy and openness, should be considered. As an organization may experience many cross-level or cross-department changes which struggle with each other for resources and with stable mechanisms, to explore the paradox, future research may need to conduct a more in-depth examination of the system of change.

The findings offer some valuable insights for further research and hold important implications for management practices, especially management practices in a Chinese context. The findings extend the existing paradox theory by further revealing how stability and change enable each other and offer a paradoxical perspective to look into the nature of organizational change and organizational development. The results remind managers to rethink the relationship between stability and change, to factor these coexisting concepts into their decision-making and to accept, understand and use this paradoxical relationship to realize synergistic effects for the firm.

Climate change not only causes serious economic losses but also influences financial stability. The related research is still at the initial stage. This paper aims to examine and explore the impact of climate change on financial stability in China.

This paper first uses vector autoregression model to study the impact of climate change to financial stability and applies NARDL model to assess the nonlinear asymmetric effect of climate change on China’s financial stability using monthly data from 2002 to 2018.

The results show that both positive and negative climate shocks do harm to financial stability. In the short term, the effect of positive climate shocks on financial stability is greater than the negative climate shocks in the current period, but less in the lag period. In the long term, negative climate shocks bring larger adjustments to financial stability relative to positive climate shocks. Moreover, compared with the short-term effect, climate change is more destructive to financial stability in the long run.

The paper provides a quantitative reference for assessing the nexus between climate change and financial stability from a nonlinear and asymmetric perspective, which is beneficial for understanding climate-related financial risks.

Research on identity in organizations takes endurance overtime as a taken‐for‐granted expectation, but then often explores how identity changes. Conversely, research on memory in organizations takes change as a taken‐for‐granted expectation and then explores how particular memories might be maintained by purposeful action. We used both of these literatures as a basis for exploring what happened to two aspects of an organizational group's identity over the course of its first seven years. One aspect of identity centered on the group's mission and the other on the group's internal processes. Based on analysis of the processes involved in the evolution of the group's identity, we suggest several factors that foster stability in identity and several factors that foster change in identity. From the identification of these factors, and based on Lewin's Field Theory approach, we suggest a more complex depiction of what identity stability or change might mean overtime.

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of oil prices, political instability and changes in stability on the bank diversification of the two types of banking systems in the Middle East and North African (MENA) countries.

The study uses bank diversification, stability measurement of probability of default and Zscore by adopting the generalised method of moment for the data between 2007 and 2021. The authors estimate short- and long-run dynamic panel analysis and a robustness test.

The findings reveal that Islamic banks are slightly lower in diversification and stability than conventional peers in the region. Diversification increases with a positive increase in GDP growth, law and order, political stability, bank size, asset quality, oil price, return on equity, profitability and change in banking asset-based stability. The authors found consistency in the two stability measurements in both short- and long-run situations.

Despite the change in banking stability and economic growth and oil prices improved diversification, banks in the region are not diversifying during the crisis period and political instability. Therefore, policymakers should improve mechanisms to monitor the crisis and political unrest to avoid the systemic risk that adversely affects the system through macro-financial linkages in the region.

This study uses change dual stability measurements and oil prices to predict MENA region bank diversification. The authors extended the banking literature by estimating the relationship between crisis periods, political and banking stability, oil prices and other institutional indicators of banking diversification. This study uncovers the effect of the global crisis period on banking diversification and the impact of banking stability changes and validates the models through robustness tests.

Different age groups display different shopping patterns in terms of how and where consumers buy products. During times of crisis, such behavioural differences become even more striking yet remain under-researched with respect to elderly consumers. This paper investigates the impact of age on retail-related behavioural changes and behavioural stability of elderly shoppers (in comparison to younger consumers) during a crisis.

The authors surveyed 643 Austrian consumers to assess the impact of perceived threat on behavioural change and the moderating effect of age groups. Based on findings from this survey, they subsequently conducted 51 semi-structured interviews to understand the causes of behavioural change and behavioural stability during a crisis.

Elderly shoppers display more stable shopping behaviour during a crisis compared to younger consumers, which is influenced by perceived threat related to the crisis. Such findings indicate that elderly shoppers reinforce their learnt and embedded shopping patterns. The causes of change and stability in behaviour include environmental and inter-personal factors.

Through the lens of social cognitive theory, protection motivation theory and dual process theory, this research contributes to an improved understanding of changes in shopping behaviour of elderly consumers, its antecedents and consequences during a time of crisis. The authors reveal reasons that lead to behavioural stability, hence the absence of change, in terms of shopping during a crisis. They further outline implications for retailers that might wish to better respond to shopping behaviours of the elderly.

This study aims to analyze the dynamics of the institutional change and institutional stability undergone by strategic networks (SNs) in the pharmaceutical industry.

The authors performed a case study with four Brazilian SNs which followed different patterns of institutional change and institutional stability. Twenty network managers and network members from the pharmaceutical industry were interviewed, and documents were analyzed.

The results show how and why institutions changed or remained the same. More specifically, exogenous shocks can negatively impact the competitive environment influencing institutional change in SNs. Moreover, endogenous shocks may prevent institutional change and stimulate institutional stability. Continuous interaction between institutions and SNs is the key to institutional change, especially if public and private policies are considered a source of political institutions.

Research has highlighted the endogenous influence of SNs on firms in selecting their partners and arranging their positions in the SNs, but little attention has been paid to how SNs themselves respond to institutions or promote institutional change. This study explains how and why change fails at the network level, additionally pinpointing the main sources of the institutional change and inertia in SNs. As such, network members may use different strategies to stimulate institutional change or stability according to their interests.

Some studies show that improvisation is a source of change, whereas others show that it is a source of stability. The purpose of this paper is to specify the factors which set the boundary between improvised change and improvised stability.

The paper draws on two published studies and contrasts their findings to analyze the extent to which improvisation leads to organizational change or organizational stability.

The paper suggests that the most innovative instances of improvisation reproduce some features of everyday experience. The extent to which an improvisation is a source of stability or a source of change depends on the dynamics of variation, selection and retention therein.

Future research needs to add empirical flesh to this theoretical skeleton to push research on organizational improvisation beyond the study of its causes and into further research on its consequences.

The paper deals with the paradox of making sense about two apparently opposing streams of research on improvisation.