Facing Organizational Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 742-760
Author(s):  
Filippo Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Change Agent ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Skill Mismatch ◽  
The Common

This chapter aims to present the obstacles both scholars and practitioners must overcome in facing organizational change. Indeed, too often practitioners lack any rigorous evidence-based background and rely on their previous experience and common sense. At the same time, scholars too often work in a very separated academic world, thus ignoring the actual problems that professionals face in actual firms. Being both a scholar and a practitioner, the author highlights the common challenges likely to be faced by change agents when facilitating organizational change: recognizing the readiness of the involved people to change, their skill mismatch, their previous change history, and the level of cynicism. A fully reflective change agent must consider these factors in designing and implementing an evidence-based organizational change and development (EBOCD) initiative and change agency process if he or she wishes to achieve positive outcomes both from the organizational and the involved people's point of view.

Facing Organizational Change

2019 ◽  
pp. 342-360
Author(s):  
Filippo Ferrari
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Change Agent ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Skill Mismatch ◽  
The Common

This chapter aims to present the obstacles both scholars and practitioners must overcome in facing organizational change. Indeed, too often practitioners lack any rigorous evidence-based background and rely on their previous experience and common sense. At the same time, scholars too often work in a very separated academic world, thus ignoring the actual problems that professionals face in actual firms. Being both a scholar and a practitioner, the author highlights the common challenges likely to be faced by change agents when facilitating organizational change: recognizing the readiness of the involved people to change, their skill mismatch, their previous change history, and the level of cynicism. A fully reflective change agent must consider these factors in designing and implementing an evidence-based organizational change and development (EBOCD) initiative and change agency process if he or she wishes to achieve positive outcomes both from the organizational and the involved people's point of view.

scholarly journals Acting as change agents: Insight into Québec occupational therapists’ current practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 000841742199436
Author(s):  
Annie Carrier ◽  
Alexandra Éthier ◽  
Michaël Beaudoin ◽  
Anne Hudon ◽  
Denis Bédard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Communication ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Change Agent ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Occupational Therapists ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Canadian Association ◽  
Academic Degrees

Background. Change agents’ actions have been studied mainly from a theoretical perspective. Purpose. This study aimed to empirically identify occupational therapists’ actual change agent actions. Method. As part of a research partnership with the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists-Québec chapter, we conducted this cross-sectional pilot study using an online survey. Findings. The change agent practices of our 103 participants involve many types of actions but show underinvestment in mass communication. Mass communication actions are more frequent when participants have greater experience, additional academic degrees, and training in change agency. Also, occupational therapists with additional academic degrees and change agency training tend to use a wider variety of actions. Finally, our participants’ actions principally target actors in the clinical context, rarely political actors. Implications. Our results suggest that occupational therapists can and will invest in the full range of change agent actions provided they can acquire the necessary knowledge and skills.

Resistance to Organizational Change in Academia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1451-1471
Author(s):  
Devi Akella ◽  
Grace Khoury
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
College Planning ◽  
Program Accreditation ◽  
Employee Resistance

Resistance to change happens to be a phenomenon in which both the change agents and change recipients are equally responsible for all forms of resistance. Resistance and its various forms are an outcome of the change agents' observations and their interpretations of the conversations, behavior, and reactions of the change recipients. This chapter uses auto-ethnographic reflexive narratives of two change agents involved in the self-assessment process at a college planning to seek US-based business program accreditation to make sense of the change process. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the under-reflected role of the change agents and how they influence and affect the behavior of change recipients and thereby contribute towards employee resistance. The chapter also emphasizes the crucial role of reflection and introspection in the sensemaking activities of the change agents in the entire change initiative and thereby adds evidence-based organizational change and development initiatives in an academic setting where research is limited.

Evidence-Based Organizational Change and Development

2016 ◽  
pp. 120-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Line Managers ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Managing Change ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Replication Research ◽  
Partnership Research

This chapter is targeted mainly toward HRD practitioners and line managers who are actively involved in bringing about effective and beneficial organizational change and development (OCD) within their own respective organizations and/or within host organizations. Its purpose is to help them to appreciate more fully the complexities of the process issues of managing change, and the value of using theory and results of rigorous internal research in a very conscious and focused way to inform, shape, and evaluate their own change agency practice. After discussing why so many OCD programs fail, the author argues that ‘evidence-based management' and ‘evidence-based HRD', coupled with HRD's understanding of and alignment with the strategic thrust of the business, will likely lead to more effective OCD initiatives and programs. Several case examples of evidence-based OCD from the United Kingdom are presented, and the merits of ‘design science', ‘professional partnership research' and ‘replication research' are discussed.

‘Kill Bill’ and the change agent: A multi-genre approach to organizational stories

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 797-811
Author(s):  
Melanie Bryant ◽  
Jennifer Frahm
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Change Agent ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Multiple Modes ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
The Future ◽  
Organizational Stories ◽  
Communication Interventions ◽  
Genre Change

AbstractThis paper argues that change practitioners could benefit from expanding change communication strategies to allow for the emergence and use of multi-genre change stories in place of minimalist storylines. We argue that minimalist storylines do not acknowledge the polyvocal view of change that has been discussed in storytelling theory or engage with multiple modes of understanding and suggest that change agents adopt a multi-genre approach to storytelling to address this gap. Drawing from Quentin Tarantino's movies Kill Bill 1 & 2 as an example of how stories can be constructed, this paper proposes that the use of multiple story genres increases the likelihood of audiences finding a genre they can relate to, thus increasing better audience reach. Findings suggest that existing change narrative types can be viewed as genres of organizational change and added to change agents' repertoires to make change communication interventions more appropriate and appealing to employees. While our paper aims to provide a conceptual way forward for change agents, we acknowledge that change agents need to engage with living stories in the future. Living stories recognize the multiple loose ends developed from past and present change experiences that can be used to construct new stories, which are more likely to transform organizations and acknowledge the unfolding nature of change.

„Seltsame Frage. –“– Eine Interpretation von PU § 263

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Mühlhölzer
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Future ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Common

AbstractIn the first sentence of PI § 263 - “»Surely I can (inwardly) resolve to call THIS ›pain‹ in the future.«” - Wittgenstein uses the word “pain” and not, as one would expect, the sign “S” of §§ 258, 260 and 261 because this sentence is voiced by a common sense person who doesn’t yet see the deep difference between “S” and “pain” as it is demonstrated in the sections before. The subsequent twofold question - “»But is it certain that you have resolved this? Are you sure that it was enough for this purpose to concentrate your attention on your feeling?«” - is Wittgenstein’s own question, induced by his philosophical considerations before, but now seen from the point of view of the common sense person with whom Wittgenstein temporarily identifies himself. He looks at the philosopher Wittgenstein with the eyes of the common sense person Wittgenstein. This explains why not only the first sentence of § 263 but also the subsequent question is put in quotation marks. It furthermore explains why Wittgenstein writes at the end: “An odd question.” From a common sense standpoint the question certainly sounds odd. What does the dash at the end of § 263 mean? According to the interpretation just given, it may be understood as follows: the dashes before and after “An odd question” can be read as quotation marks indicating that this remark is voiced by the common sense Wittgenstein in response to the philosopher Wittgenstein.

Resistance to Organizational Change in Academia

2019 ◽  
pp. 361-381
Author(s):  
Devi Akella ◽  
Grace Khoury
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Self Assessment ◽  
College Planning ◽  
Program Accreditation ◽  
Employee Resistance

Resistance to change happens to be a phenomenon in which both the change agents and change recipients are equally responsible for all forms of resistance. Resistance and its various forms are an outcome of the change agents' observations and their interpretations of the conversations, behavior, and reactions of the change recipients. This chapter uses auto-ethnographic reflexive narratives of two change agents involved in the self-assessment process at a college planning to seek US-based business program accreditation to make sense of the change process. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the under-reflected role of the change agents and how they influence and affect the behavior of change recipients and thereby contribute towards employee resistance. The chapter also emphasizes the crucial role of reflection and introspection in the sensemaking activities of the change agents in the entire change initiative and thereby adds evidence-based organizational change and development initiatives in an academic setting where research is limited.

Organizational Change and Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 1792-1820
Author(s):  
Robert G. Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Change ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Change Agency ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Replication Research ◽  
Partnership Research ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Agency Practices

This chapter first discusses the complexities of change in organizations and why so many OCD programs fail and makes the case for change agents to become evidence-based in their change agency practice. The author then offers a definition of evidence-based organizational change and development (EBOCD) and outlines the types of “best evidence” that can be used to inform and shape the formulation and implementation of OCD strategies and to critically evaluate the associated processes and change agency practices. Various distinctive evidence-based initiatives for OCD are discussed and several case examples from the United Kingdom are presented. The chapter closes with a discussion of the specific merits of “design science,” “professional partnership” research, and “replication” research.

Sidgwick's Ethical Maxims

Philosophy ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 34 (130) ◽  
pp. 217-228
Author(s):  
A. R. Lacey
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
The Common ◽  
Points Of View

Utilitarianism has been attacked many times and from many points of view. Among other objections has been the charge that it cannot account for the moral phenomena connected with justice; we are interested, it is said, not only in producing as much good as possible, but also in distributing it in a certain way. The Utilitarian usually replies that these phenomena either can be deduced from Utilitarianism or are illusory, but a natural reluctance to go against the data of our moral experience usually inclines him to the first alternative. One of the most interesting of the Utilitarians from this point of view is Sidgwick, because he makes Utilitarianism his philosophical basis, but at the same time he has a set of maxims (ME 3.13)2 part of whose purpose is to cover the common-sense views on justice. In this article I shall consider the relations between these maxims and Utilitarianism, and shall try to show by means of an example that some of them do go beyond Utilitarianism, and that in so far, at any rate, as these maxims do represent the common-sense view, it and Utilitarianism are not in all cases strictly reconcilable.

Students as change agents for campus sustainability in Malaysian universities

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeeda Fatimah Mohamad ◽  
Mohd Zufri Mamat ◽  
Muhamad Faisal Muhamad Noor
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Selection Criteria ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Change Agent ◽  
Change Agents ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Campus Sustainability ◽  
Depth Interviews

Purpose The notion of students as change agents have widely been used in the campus sustainability literature, but very little has been done to unpack what it really means in practice. This paper aims to critically investigate university students’ perspectives on their role as a change agent for campus sustainability in the context of Malaysian universities. Design/methodology/approach In-depth interviews were carried out with 21 students that have been categorized as change agents through selection criteria at three leading universities in the area of campus sustainability in Malaysia. The data collected from the interviews were analysed through content-based and thematic analysis. Findings Findings demonstrate that students are the backbone behind the implementation of campus sustainability activities. They play the multi-faceted role of leaders, supporters and ambassadors in initiating and driving campus sustainability. The results further suggest that support and freedom to act are the empowering factors that have driven these change agents in carrying out their initiatives. However, without a position, the students’ voices are not significant. Originality/value This study provides deeper evidence-based insights on the notion of students as change agents and how it can be operationalized in the context of campus sustainability.

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