Preparing for Organizational Death: Proactive Hr Engagement in an Organizational Transition

he terms change and transition are used interchangeably in both scholarly and practitioner contexts. They shouldn’t be. Organizational transitions are much more psychologically taxing for employees than rudimentary instances of organizational change. Change is a path to a known state, with orderly, incremental, and continuous steps. A transition, by comparison, is a path to an unknown state—something that involves many simultaneous and interactive changes and adopting new ways of thinking, organizing, or conducting activities (Bridges, 1991). Using this definition, an organization’s death is its ultimate transition. Organizational deaths happen frequently and affect millions of employees annually. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, 544,800 U. S. busiPREPARING FOR