oa Translating Organizational Change: A Case Study of Transformation in Libyan Banking Sector

In 2013, The Central Bank of Libya declared that all Libyan banking institutions must become ‘sharia compliant’ by 2015. Thus, Central Bank of Libya (2013) has formally introduce the Islamic banking and finance model to be compulsory for the first time. Indeed, many Libyan banking institutions especially public banks will go through different complex organizational change processes in order to be able to act the rules of the Islamic banking organizations. Therefore, it is expected that, the processes of building up such organizing procedures will not take any definitive patterns, either implicitly or explicitly as shown in much of organizational change literature. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine how different actors work out how to develop and achieve transforming banking practices into a model that is consistent with the principles of sharia and its practical applications. Yet, this organizational phenomenon has attracted our attention and it becomes increasingly difficult to neglect further exploration and understanding of the manner in which such organizational change processes are constructed and translated within the context of this country. To achieve the above objective this study follows two influential theoretical concepts of organizational change. Change as fluxing reality (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002) embodied in process philosophy and a “translation” model (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). The latter is also referred to as “processual, networked” approach (Nicolini, 2010). Therefore, this study will adapt the two theoretical perceptions to explore and account for the translation of a broad organizational/societal programme into local forms of actions. Whilst, the former presents a contemporary ontological understanding on how social phenomenon such as organizations and change should be constructed and therefore understood (Collins, 2002, 2004), the latter will allow us to follow processual networked patterns of organizing in an attempt to understand different social and complex organizational aspects of constructing change processes. In doing so, this study will draw on three case studies from the banking sector in Libya and based on a qualitative, inductive approach it seeks to explore the complex dynamics of organizational change processes within the Libyan banking context. In particular, the study seeks to contribute to organization theory in three main areas (A) exploring the very nature of organizational change processes and how change is constructed and translated. (b) To illustrate how actors enable and/constrain the translation process itself and with what consequences. (c) To contribute to the sociology of translation by mapping out what actors do to translate the concept of Islamic banking and finance into everyday practices.