The deceptive allure of stage models of strategic processes

This article describes the role of stage models in organizational research. In various sections of the article, we discuss the definition of stage mod els, different varieties of stage models, the way that stage models will ch aracterize strategic change, and finally, the criteria that authors, review ers, and readers ought to apply to stage models. On the whole, the authors conclude that stage models represent an alluring yet fragile form of explan ation. The authors think that the limitations of stage models usually outwe igh their potential benefits in explaining transformational change.