Creating context

This book chapter of Léon de Caluwé and Hans Vermaak elaborate on complexity and multiplicity in change processes. Given that more organizational change takes place unplanned than planned, and more unsuccessful than successful, there is much reason to reflect on why change does not work. Léon and Hans discuss several perspectives on irrationalities and why […]

This chapter deals with the question why many change programs bog down and what we can do about it. The chapter provides an overall picture of the dynamics of organizational change and learning, and the contemporary challenges that face the discipline of organizational change management. It is argued that many explanations of why change programs […]

This article offers a framework for understanding power dynamics and organizational change. Five perspectives are presented to explore the relationships between change approaches, the power used to effect changes, the agents involved in the change process, the most prominent change strategies and influence tactics, and the behavioral outcomes. The perspectives are related to different levels […]

In this text Jaap Boonstra describes how successful businesses regard their organizational cultures and the motives for them to change their cultures. Many businesses regard culture as the identity of their organizations. This view of culture that was developed 30 years ago still has value today. Businesses also see culture as a learning process. In […]

Organizations, like people, have essential natures defined by their formative experiences, their beliefs, their knowledge bases and their core competences. Attempts at change that are in conflict with this core identity are often doomed to failure. Managers can learn to recognize such conflicts and initiate identity change to make their companies more adaptive. The transformation […]

In this article Mary Jo Hatch and Majken Schulz bring together existing theory concerning the links between organizational identities and images, with new theory concerning how reflection embeds identity in organizational culture and how identity expresses cultural understandings through symbols. They offer a model of organizational identity dynamics built on four processes linking organizational identity […]

In this chapter André Wierdsma states that changing and learning need collective competencies to deal with variety and complexity. For the viability of organizing, it is crucial to deal with mutual differences on the basis of action, and the ability to learn from that action in a collective context. Organizing is regarded as organizing activities […]

In this chapter Morten Levin presents strategies for managing participative change processes. Special attention is given to the role of two external players: external facilitators and professional outsiders. External facilitators may participate in change processes and play a role in promoting change that will increase the ability of members within the organization to enhance the […]

This chapter of Marc Buelens and Geert Devos relates the effectiveness of change strategies to the fit between the playing field and change. Change strategies are seen as a pattern in a stream of decisions and activities, reflecting consistency of behavior over time. Internal and external environments of organizations can be so different that a […]

In this article David Snowden and Mary Boone describe the Cynefin framework, a sense-making device developed to help people make sense of the complexities made visible by the relaxation of these assumptions. The framework is explained and its use in group sense-making and discourse is described. The Cynefin framework helps leaders determine the prevailing operative […]