Can the staff recognition ensure planned process of organizational change?

Purpose Employee recognition is presented in the literature as a mean to achieve change according to a schedule already established by the management of the enterprise (planning process). Such an approach overlooks the fact that organizational change can be explained by other processes such as the political process, the interpretive process, the incremental process and the complex process. Each of these processes offers specific characteristics of change. Through this research, the author tries to answer the following question, while driving an organizational change project does employee recognition favour a change according to the planned process? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach To answer the research question, a qualitative research case study is conducted within Basic Bank, a banking leader institution on the Tunisian market. The author analysed a proposed change induced by the implementation of a Global Banking System. Findings The results show that monetary recognition helps develop employee motivation to change, thus, ensuring a planned change. However, its variability has encouraged the emergence of conflicts between the actors resulting in an increase of change according to the political process. Originality/value Found results enrich the previous work on the role of the staff recognition in the change process. Its originality lies in the study of the relationship between employee recognition and explanatory process of change in a dynamic perspective which enables having an overall view on the evolution of this relationship throughout the implementation of the change.