Human Agency, the Structuration Process, and Social Systems: Linking Micro, Meso, and Macro Levels of Analysis

This chapter summarizes and reflects on the evolving scholarship on processes of organizational change and innovation that has emerged since the first edition of The Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation in 2004. This includes human agency, time conceptions, causality, and levels of analysis. In addition, we add voices not heard in the first edition about affect and emotion, power and influence, paradox and conflict, political perspectives and endings of organization change, creativity and innovation. These core topics provide an overview of the handbook chapters and future directions for research and practice.

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Business: Conceptualizations of Organizational Change Viewed Through the Lens of Power: A Tutorial for the Speech-Language Pathologist/Audiologist Administrator

Perspectives on Administration and Supervision ◽

10.1044/aas21.1.9 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 9-17

Author(s):

Patrick R. Walden

Keyword(s):

Organizational Change ◽

Health Care Organizations ◽

Social Power ◽

Social Systems ◽

Front Line ◽

Organization Level ◽

Speech Language Pathologist ◽

Constant State ◽

Theories Of Change ◽

Or Organization

Both educational and health care organizations are in a constant state of change, whether triggered by national, regional, local, or organization-level policy. The speech-language pathologist/audiologist-administrator who aids in the planning and implementation of these changes, however, may not be familiar with the expansive literature on change in organizations. Further, how organizational change is planned and implemented is likely affected by leaders' and administrators' personal conceptualizations of social power, which may affect how front line clinicians experience organizational change processes. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to introduce the speech-language pathologist/audiologist-administrator to a research-based classification system for theories of change and to review the concept of power in social systems. Two prominent approaches to change in organizations are reviewed and then discussed as they relate to one another as well as to social conceptualizations of power.

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Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics

10.1017/cbo9780511491245 ◽

2000 ◽

Cited By ~ 99

Author(s):

Roland Bleiker

Keyword(s):

Human Agency ◽

Global Politics

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Collective Human Agency in the Context of Organizational Participation

Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie A&O ◽

10.1026/0932-4089/a000234 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (2) ◽

pp. 51-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Wolfgang Georg Weber ◽

Hans Jeppe Jeppesen

Keyword(s):

Collective Efficacy ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Work Motivation ◽

Human Agency ◽

Employee Participation ◽

Ecological Approach ◽

Cognitive Approach ◽

Organizational Decision Making ◽

Organizational Participation ◽

The Social

Abstract. Connecting the social cognitive approach of human agency by Bandura (1997) and activity theory by Leontiev (1978) , this paper proposes a new theoretical framework for analyzing and understanding employee participation in organizational decision-making. Focusing on the social cognitive concepts of self-reactiveness, self-reflectiveness, intentionality, and forethought, commonalities, complementarities, and differences between both theories are explained. Efficacy in agency is conceived as a cognitive foundation of work motivation, whereas the mediation of societal requirements and resources through practical activity is conceptualized as an ecological approach to motivation. Additionally, we discuss to which degree collective objectifications can be understood as material indicators of employees’ collective efficacy. By way of example, we explore whether an integrated application of concepts from both theories promotes a clearer understanding of mechanisms connected to the practice of employee participation.

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