Heliyon · 2025
Why do researchers and interdisciplinary teams often mean different things when they talk about change, and how can these differences be made explicit?
Mahringer, C. A., Schmiedle, L., Albicker, L., & Mayer, S. (2025). The Iceberg Model of Change: A taxonomy differentiating approaches to change. Heliyon, 11, e41952. 10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e41952
Change is studied across organization science, climate research, medicine, psychology, geography, material science, and many other fields. Yet these communities often use the same word to refer to fundamentally different phenomena. One study may treat change as an outcome to be explained, another may compare states before and after an intervention, while a third examines the mechanisms through which a process unfolds over time.
These differences matter because they shape what researchers look for, which questions they ask, and which methods they use. They become particularly consequential in interdisciplinary projects, where collaborators may appear to study the same phenomenon while relying on different implicit assumptions about what change actually is.
The paper asks how different approaches to conceptualizing change can be made explicit and related in a common framework. Its aim is to sensitize researchers to these differences and provide a shared language for reflecting on them.
The Iceberg Model was developed through an extensive review of change research. We first identified 4,423 highly cited articles containing “change” in their titles or author keywords. A bibliometric co-occurrence analysis mapped major domains in which change matters. We then iteratively analyzed the 80 most highly cited papers in the dataset, supplemented by additional illustrative work, until three recurring approaches to change became theoretically saturated. This cross-disciplinary design is important because the framework was derived from variation in how change is actually conceptualized across scientific communities rather than from one disciplinary tradition alone.
Change is a ubiquitous phenomenon, but different scientific communities conceptualize change differently, which hampers conceptual clarity. This conceptual paper, which is based on a review of the literature on change, addresses this problem by developing the ‘Iceberg Model of Change’. This framework distinguishes three approaches to change: objectification, distinction, and unfolding. The objectification approach treats processes of change as things with symbolic properties, which can be used to steer societal and political discourse, reveal thematic relationships across studies, and emphasize the significance of work. This approach also tends to consider change as a variable (dependent or independent) that can be used to understand antecedents and consequences. The distinction approach conceptualizes change as a series of discrete states of an entity or system at multiple points in time or as phases, enabling comparison of those states. The unfolding approach considers how change processes develop, including the complex, interrelated mechanisms underpinning change. Here, line graphs, visualizations of interaction mechanisms, and trajectories are used to capture change. This framework contributes to research, a) by enabling a comprehensive consideration of change phenomena, b) by promoting interdisciplinary collaboration when project partners differ in their assumptions about change, and c) by emphasizing the need for methodological reflexivity.
The Iceberg Model distinguishes three complementary ways of conceptualizing change that differ in how deeply they engage with the change process itself.
Change can be treated as a symbolic object, such as “climate change” or “organizational change,” that gives meaning and relevance to a broader discourse. It can also be operationalized as a dependent or independent variable to study the antecedents or consequences of change while the process itself remains largely black-boxed.
Change can be conceptualized as differences between an entity or system at multiple points in time, or as movement through recognizable phases. This approach makes temporal comparison possible and underpins many longitudinal measurements and stage-based models of change.
The unfolding approach opens the process itself and examines trajectories, interactions, feedback loops, and mechanisms through which change develops over time. It is closest to a strong process view because change is treated as an ongoing flow rather than as something that simply happens to a stable entity.
The Iceberg Model provides a common vocabulary for making assumptions about change explicit. The three approaches are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Researchers can therefore use the framework to ask which dimensions of a change phenomenon their current conceptualization foregrounds and which dimensions it leaves in the background.
The framework is particularly useful for interdisciplinary research on grand challenges. Collaborators from different fields can identify whether they are treating change as an object, comparing states or phases, or examining unfolding mechanisms. This can reduce conceptual misunderstandings and support more reflexive choices about research questions, data, and methods.
The framework can also clarify discussions in organizations and interdisciplinary project teams. When people disagree about a transformation, they may be focusing on different aspects of change: the desired outcome, the difference between current and future states, or the mechanisms through which the transformation is actually developing.
Making these perspectives explicit can improve problem framing. Teams can ask whether they need a target or indicator, a comparison of states and phases, or a deeper understanding of interactions and trajectories. The model therefore offers a diagnostic language for deciding what kind of understanding of change a particular problem requires.
