This paper explores how managers orchestrate multiple and overlapping organizational changes. While existing research suggests that multiple change initiatives risk colliding and creating change fatigue among employees, our study shows how managers work to ensure sufficient capacity for multiple and overlapping change initiatives. Through a process study, we examine how senior management in a foreign subsidiary in a multinational telecommunications company attempted to implement a series of parallel and overlapping changes — some initiated locally and others by headquarters. Different capacity-related challenges surfaced over time, yet subsidiary management effectively managed a multitude of stakeholders and change initiatives in ways that effectively secured sufficient resources and support to move the change initiatives forward. Our findings contribute to the strategic change literature by empirically illustrating how managers can manipulate a multiple change context in ways that overcome well-known challenges and secure capacity to move changes forward. We develop theory explaining how managers can draw on complex and emerging situations to secure in-situ capacity, while attempting to simultaneously build long-term organizational capabilities for multiple change.
