Opportunistic Change During a Punctuation: How and When the Front Lines Can Drive Bursts of Incremental Change

This paper has benefitted from the invaluable conversations and friendly reviews provided by Lotte Bailyn, Jim Baron, Ethan Berstein, Gino Cattani, Curtis Chan, Jillian Chown, Marlys Christianson, Jane Dutton, Elana Feldman, Sarah Kaplan, Katherine Kellogg, Michaela Kerrissey, Marissa King, Andrew Nelson, Trish Reay, Patricia Satterstrom, Beth Schinoff, Sara Soderstrom, András Tilcsik, Batia Wiesenfeld, Jim Walsh, and Amy Wrzesniewski. The authors are grateful to the Work, Identity, and Meaning Group; the New York University (NYU) Qualitative Workshop; the Extreme Contexts Workshop; the Boston Field Researcher Conference; and the People and Organizations Conference for their inputs on earlier versions of this paper. Additionally, the authors appreciate the feedback from seminar participants at the Yale School of Management, Michigan Ross, Rotman, Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan, NYU Stern, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Boston College, Darden, and the University of Pittsburgh. Special thanks go to the broader Covid research team (Amy Wrzesniewski, Marissa King, Eunice Eun, Ali Bray, Rohit Sangal, Leila Horouni, and Angela Ianniello) for their collective efforts during the data collection process as well as Rob Bartholomew and the Initiative on Leadership and Organization at the Yale School of Management for making this project possible. The authors also extend gratitude to Stefano Brusoni and two anonymous reviewers for their generative and insightful guidance in helping them to develop this paper. Additionally, they are deeply grateful to the frontline healthcare workers who generously shared their time and insights. Lastly, the development of this paper coincided with the births of our sons, Ryan and Judah, born a week apart, who have been sources of motivation and joy as they have grown alongside the development of this paper.