Change is other than equilibrium. Empirically, change is the normal state of economics, businesses, and organizations. This change has been characterized as creative destruction by Joseph Schumpeter (1942) -- where the newly created, with its new technology, results in the replacement, or destruction, of existing things based on earlier technologies. The ever increasing efficiency and value of newly innovated processes and offerings are continually shifting the competitive landscape, thus changing the relative value of business-organizations in that landscape.
External change is the change in the population of organizations making up the organization's environment. An organization must adapt in a timely manner to external change in order to persist.
Internal change is the change within the organization. This change is either triggered by the need to respond to external change, internal leadership guidance (e.g. vision, or internal interactive dynamics (see responsive processes).
Organizational inertia -- Internal change requires overcoming organizational inertia, with its rigidities in resource investment and routines, and setting a new organizational trajectory.
See equilibrium for implications of the equilibrium- vs. change-mindset. See organizational change.
