Managing continuity and change in development context

: the BNDES case studys

Abstract

Today, the tsunami of digital changes within Third World development organizations is bringing about new forces of change which jeopardize the social purpose of these organizations. Indeed, although digitization offers unique opportunities to create sustainable development, it vehemently shakes deeply-rooted change-continuity dynamics. At this juncture, development managers play the lead role in finding the right balance between change-continuity forces by jointly aiming efforts at development and embracing the opportunities presented by digital changes. The thesis investigates the change-continuity dynamics within the latest development strategy of the Brazilian Development Bank. In particular, through a flexible strategic framework, it attempts to understand if managers of the Digital Operations and Channels Division of the Bank have been able to implement a strategy of innovation which embraces both change and continuity forces and, therefore, aims at sustainable development. Finally, the research shows that, even though neither of the two forces has overwhelmed the other in the short-term, in the long-term, adversarial forms of resistance in the workplace and misled efforts at development may undermine the change-continuity interplay and, as a consequence, the social purpose of the Bank Division.

Date of Award	24 Jun 2019
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Alexandre Faria (Supervisor)