Changing for Efficiency: Triggers for Organizational Change in the Case of Collage and the Swedish Debt Collection Industry

Abstract

Change has for long been a topic of current interest for organizational researchers as well as practitioners and an essential question in organizational literature is how companies adapt and change as internal or external conditions evolve. Previous studies have revealed a number of possible triggers for organizational change on which there exists some general agreement and that they comprise some combination of internal and external factors. Based on a qualitative study, the main purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze what have triggered a major organizational change in one of Sweden’s largest and most significant debt collection companies. The empirical findings suggest that the Swedish debt collection industry is a stable and relatively institutionalized industry that is surrounded by extensive legislation regarding the debt collection procedures. The empirical findings further suggest that several types of triggers have acted in parallel regarding the organizational change in the case company and that three major categories of triggers for organizational change could be used in order to describe and analyze the organizational change of the case company: primary external triggers, primary internal triggers and enabling triggers for organizational change.