Conversational Responsibility: Changing Organizations Through Conversations

Conversations lie at the centre of organizational life and have the potential to contribute to high organizational performance. They can also generate inefficient conversational patterns that pose challenges to organizational (everyday) life. However, most organizational members barely spend time thinking about the quality and effects of their own conversations. To be aware of the content, modes and styles of conversations and their impact on oneself and others implies being conversationally responsible. This systematic literature review aims to increase this awareness, especially in the context of organizational change. It responds to the need in organizational change scholarship of paying attention to the micro level, i.e. to people within organizations, by inquiring into how conversational dynamics affect organizational change. By analysing the available academic literature on the roles and effects of conversations for effective changes in organizational settings, the results show that changes in conversation need to be made at two levels: at the conversation level, i.e. by improving the conversational characteristics; and at the people level, i.e. by augmenting awareness on how people within organizations think about conversations. This review concludes with various future-research pathways on how and why conversations may affect organizational change in the current world. MAD statement The current world is characterized by uncertainties and rapid changes. This paper explores conversations and their potential in the current era, particularly in the context of organizational changes. We review the literature with a focus on the microlevel of organizational change through conversational responsibility, which holds us accountable for what we do and say in (everyday) interactions at work. Because today's organizations live much shorter than ever before, employees need to be included in contributing to the ‘health’ of their place of work. Hence, to better serve organizational challenges, this state-of-the-art on conversations that facilitate organizational change is timely.