Organization Change: Theory and Practice, By Warner W. Burke (2018) 5 edition, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 454 pages. ISBN: 978-1-50635-799-7

Organizational change and innovation are central and enduring issues in management theory and practice. The need to understand processes of organization change and innovation has never been greater in order to respond to dramatic changes in population demographics, technology, stakeholder needs, competitive survival, and social, economic, environmental, health, and sustainability concerns. These concerns call for a better understanding of managing organization change and innovation. Why and what organizations change is generally well known; how organizations change is the central focus of this handbook. It focuses on processes of change, or the sequence of events in which organizational characteristics and activities change and develop over time, and the factors that influence these processes, with the organization as the central unit of analysis. Across the diverse and wide-ranging contributions, three central questions evolve: what is the nature of change and process; what are the key concepts and models for understanding organization change and innovation; and how we should study change and innovation. This handbook presents critical evolving scholarship and explores its implications for future research and practice on organizational change and innovation.

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How being appreciative creates change – theory in practice from health and social care in Scotland

Action Research ◽

10.1177/1476750316684002 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 223-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Cathy Sharp ◽

Belinda Dewar ◽

Karen Barrie ◽

Julienne Meyer

Keyword(s):

Action Research ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Positive Attitude ◽

Social Care ◽

Social Systems ◽

Change Theory ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Home Life ◽

Health And Social Care ◽

Design And Testing

This paper develops understanding of appreciative action research that generates curiosity and motivation as a better platform for collaborative change. Blending theory and practice it draws on the example of the My Home Life leadership programme in Scotland that explores the concepts and approaches of ‘Caring Conversations’ and ‘playful provocation’ in care homes for older people. The paper shows how they expand notions of appreciation and help people to deepen inquiry, explore values, acknowledge and express emotion without dispute or judgement, articulate tacit knowledge and give voice to things previously thought to be ‘unsayable’. We explore how these generative approaches act as a powerful positive ‘disruption’ that brings existing relationships to life, supports a positive attitude to risk-taking and helps to devise new approaches to the local design and testing of approaches to problems. Ultimately these approaches play an important part in developing understanding of how to do appreciative action research to enhance relationships and more strengths or assets-based and collaborative ways of working and so, to develop new possibilities for changing social systems and a more future-making orientation to action research.

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The contributions of Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson to communication and social change theory and practice

European Journal of Communication ◽

10.1177/0267323117723968 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 32 (5) ◽

pp. 405-418 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Pradip Ninan Thomas

Keyword(s):

Social Change ◽

18Th Century ◽

Change Theory ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Technological Determinism ◽

The Public ◽

Social Change Theory ◽

Communication For Social Change ◽

Raymond Williams ◽

The Public Sphere

This article explores the contributions made by Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson to communication for social change theory. It argues that Williams’ critique of technological determinism, his notion of the ‘structure of feeling’, analysis of culture and cultural materialism as a mode of analysis contributes to the theorising of communication for social change. This article also examines Thompson’s contributions to historiography, his engagement with the contextualised histories of ordinary people and their contributions to the making of the public sphere in 18th-century England. This article argues that the contributions made by these two theorists enable a critique of structures and a re-centring of agency, both of which are critical to a renewal of communication for social change theory.

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Historical Currents in Scholarship of Organization Change

The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198845973.013.2 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 22-49

Author(s):

W. Warner Burke

Keyword(s):

Change Process ◽

External Environment ◽

Organization Change ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Significant Information ◽

Effective Change ◽

Kurt Lewin ◽

Areas Of Interest ◽

Gathering Data

Grounded in open system theory this chapter covers the primary contributions to our understanding of organization change since the early work of Kurt Lewin in the 1930s and 40s. Two areas of interest represented the theory and practice back then and since—what to change and how to change organizations. Most models of organizations covered both. Regarding the what models, the organization’s external environment, its strategy, culture, and structure are examples of what has been included. The how models developed mostly from practice with learning coming from experience about stages of the change process such as gathering data, diagnosis, developing a vision and communicating it, etc. The latter part of the chapter brings organization change thinking up to date with three articles that have reviewed considerable literatures. These reviews provide significant information regarding organization change that is evidence based, the importance of an organization’s history in terms of its relevance to effective change, and how leadership has a direct impact on organization change.

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Managing Web Technologies Acquisition, Utilization and Organization Change

Managing Web-Enabled Technologies in Organizations ◽

10.4018/978-1-878289-72-8.ch004 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 54-102

Author(s):

Mathew J. Klempa

Keyword(s):

Organization Change ◽

Organization Culture ◽

Analytical Tool ◽

Theory And Practice ◽

Organization Learning ◽

Web Based ◽

Web Technologies ◽

Organization Transformation ◽

Theory Of Structuration

This chapter presents a perspective on web technologies acquisition, utilization, organization change and transformation grounded in Gidden’s theory of structuration, i.e., a contextualist analysis. A contextualist analysis is processually based, emergent, situational, and holistic, marrying both theory and practice. This chapter’s paradigm affords a substantive analytical tool to the practitioner for understanding and managing not only web-based IT acquisition, utilization and organization change, but all IT-based recursive, organization changes and transformations. Organization change associated with IT acquisition and utilization is posited as concomitantly necessary. Organization change is recursive, dynamic, multilevel, and nonlinear, i.e., an “enacted” environment. Ever present organization opposing values are treated dialectically, i.e. as paradox, operating simultaneously. The nature of the resolution of such paradox enabled/inhibits reframing, i.e., organization transformation and change. The paradigm presented defines an organization change continuum, delineating four organization responses to contradiction and paradox. The chapter explicates organization culture and organization learning as systemic, multiplicative metaforce underpinnings of organization change and sociocognitively-based, recursive, structurational processual dynamics. The chapter discusses use of the IT acquisition and utilization paradigm for organization diagnosis as well as customization of organization change interventions. The chapter suggests further typologically-based research venues.

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