In increasingly dynamic and complex organizational environments, understanding how successful change is conceptualized and achieved remains a critical challenge for organizations. This study investigates how "successful change" is understood through reported outcomes in the organizational change literature, addressing the research question: How is successful change conceptualized based on outcomes reported in the literature? By conducting a systematic literature review of 211 articles, we adopt the Input-Process-Outcome (IPO) framework to characterize how successful change has been measured and then explore the interplay between a key structural dimension of change (low vs. high intensity) and two procedural approaches (diagnostic vs. dialogic). Our findings indicate that studies focused on low-intensity changes primarily report individual intangible outcomes, while those focused on high-intensity changes tend to report collective tangible results. From a procedural perspective, diagnostic approaches tend to emphasize technical and measurable outcomes, whereas dialogic approaches emphasize cultural and relational ones. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of successful change by providing an integrated framework that includes not only a more nuanced description of outcomes but also how they vary when combining structural and procedural dimensions of change.
