A Change within a Change : A study of how a Scandinavian bank was challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic while moving operations abroad

Abstract: The world has been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. The pandemic affected all businesses, and the banking sector was no exception. Within this context, efficient change management (CM) is crucial to keep up with the changing business environment. Previous research has extensively covered the planned and emergent approaches to CM. However, the authors found that the perspective of complex organisations and their effect on change was missing. The purpose of the study was to develop a deeper understanding of how the internal processes were challenged during the COVID-19 pandemic, following a Scandinavian bank in their change to open a sister department in Vilnius. To study this, the authors conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with employees of Bank XYZ, from Vilnius and Stockholm. Kotter’s 8-step model and the complexity theory were combined and used as the conceptual framework.  The conclusion shows that the pandemic challenged three different aspects, communication, motivation, and new ways of working. These aspects challenged the traditional view of CM, which is viewed as static. The nonlinearity of CM processes is more present in disruptive changes such as the COVID-19 pandemic.