Comment on "Top Executives' Reactions to Change".

This article comments on the article "Top Executives' Reactions to Change," by Tessa Melkonian, published in the present issue of the journal "International Studies of Management & Organization." In her article about the acceptance and rejection of a feedback program among a sample of French executives, Melkonian seeks to understand how a change initiative becomes legitimated among a group of high-ranking individuals and, implicitly, how it can be legitimated by the organizational administration seeking to institute the change. From a neo-institutional theory perspective, her treatment of the subject matter raised a number of questions about the interplay between acceptance or rejection of a workplace practice and the backdrop constituted by the worldview of French executives. Melkonian reports how the French executives in her sample rejected being evaluated in the feedback process in reference to the negative outcomes they might experience in that role, such as revenge by peers or bias by evaluators. Practical rationality invokes a means-ends calculation but does so without an appeal to universalistic decision principles.