Striving toward the future: aspiration—performance discrepancies and planned organizational change
研究组织如何基于与当前竞争对手及未来向往组织的绩效比较来形成抱负，进而影响计划性变革的广度与深度，对131所AACSB认证商学院的分析表明，即使当前表现优于对手，若与向往组织差距大，也会推动更广泛和更激进的变革。
Interest has been growing in understanding how organizations’ aspiration levels affect their planning for future organizational change. Previous research has not specified whether organizations use direct competitors or other comparable organizations as referents for forming their aspirations. In this study, it is argued that organizations form their social aspirations based on two types of interorganizational comparisons: competitive and striving. In competitive comparisons, an organization compares its current performance against that of its current direct competitors. When relative performance is poor, these organizations plan more extensive and more radical change. However, the study shows that organizations that are performing well relative to competitors do not necessarily become inertial, as theory suggests. Rather, organizations engage in striving comparisons by comparing their current performance against the performance of organizations to which they strive to be like in the future. The analyses show that organizations with large striving discrepancies are driven to more extensive and more radical change, even if they are performing well compared to current competitors. The study examined this interplay between competitive and striving discrepancy in explaining organizational change on a sample of 131 AACSB accredited business schools.