The “Co-Creation-Wheel”

This case history reflects on a long-term change and development project in the Netherlands, undertaken in communities of practice (CoP) of 20-36 professional development schools for primary education. The initiators were 10 boards of groups of elementary schools and the University for Teacher Education for primary education. The project leader was Dr. Paul Hennissen, and Dr. Corry Ehlen of CoCreata Consulting and Research was invited as external consultant. For 8 years, several methods of in-service quality improvement were used to strengthen the self-management ability of teachers, teams, and head teachers. The case history especially demonstrates the application of “Co-Creation-Wheel” as a guiding tool in an innovation team. This instrument stimulates the individual CoP members and the CoP as a group to co-creative innovation. The digital tool of “Co-Creation-Wheel” proves to be suitable for a bigger number of participants. Complexities of the project and success factors are shown.

Using Integrative Development to Create a Coaching Culture in a Professional Services Firm

This reflective case history introduces integrative development (ID) as an approach for evidence-based organizational change and development initiatives. ID brings adult development and organization development into a unified theory, and it aligns three human resource development disciplines (coaching, training, organization development) into a unified set of practices. The case history outlines how narrative coaching, an ID-based methodology, was used in creating a coaching culture in a professional services firm and offers principles and recommendations for EBOCD practitioners.

Creating a Business Unit Within a Large Sports and Entertainment Organization's Theatre Operation

This reflective case history illustrates the change process in a USA sports and entertainment's theatre organization led by its leader in consultation with a human resource development and organizational change professional. Evidence-based organizational change and development informed by the theoretical perspectives on shop floor management and action learning guided the change process conceptualized on the belief that frontline employees should play a major role in driving change in organizations, and their learning and reflection is crucial in this process.

Transforming Leader Change Agency Skills and Abilities Through Emotional Intelligence Focused Executive Coaching

Sharon Hartley is a UK-based director in the aerospace industry. Following the initial meeting and subsequent conversations regarding the use of emotional intelligence (EI) in leader development, the author was commissioned to design and deliver a bespoke EI Director Development program. Funded by her organization, Goodrich Corporation, later to become UTC Aerospace Systems, the program provided a supported six-month development strategy. Results included an increased ability to use EI and EI competencies for strategy development, and for influencing and driving cultural and organizational change.

Delivering Organizational Change in Partnership With Trade Unions

This case history offers an insiders' view of bringing about change in union bargaining within major New Zealand organizations. While unions play a pivotal role in the day-to-day bargaining of wages and workplace conditions, there has been a significant reduction in union density and membership. In this case, two union leaders narrate how a shift from traditional bargaining to interest-based negotiation enabled participation in organizational change decision-making, built trust in relationships, and increased union membership.

Leading, Managing, and Facilitating Organizational Change

This chapter focuses on organizational change and development and how leadership behavior impacts upon the delivery of the desired change, in terms of implementation, effectiveness, and performance. The reflective perspective seeks to explore learning insights gained via business and academic approaches within transformational change programs in two dimensions: first, the author's PhD research project investigated leadership behavioral approaches designed to deliver organizational change and increased engagement and performance; and second, the author's involvement as a business consultant and executive coach, acting for private sector companies on transformational change programs designed to deliver strategic change to drive increases in efficiency, effectiveness, and performance. The purpose of this chapter is to inform professionals involved in organizational change and development within their own or their client organizations and facilitate learning to help better understand the potential of leadership behavior in delivering successful organizational change strategies.

Employee Participation in Change Programs

This chapter aims to assist those responsible for implementing change to think more about how employee participation or involvement is undertaken during the change process. The chapter starts by providing an overview of the theoretical explanations as to why employee participation in change management is important. The authors then examine the nature of employee participation in three organizations undertaking major culture change programs, each using a different change intervention. They present three case studies that show how the context surrounding the change (comprising drivers, intervention, approach to change, and change levers) influenced the characteristics of employee participation in the change process. They conclude by emphasizing the significance of examining change agents' intervention methodology as a contextual factor to understand better the experience of culture change programs. The key message is that employees' experiences of participation influence their perceptions on the effectiveness of this type of change.

Culturally Informed Evidence-Based Organizational Change and Development Through the Lens of Complexity Theory

In this chapter, the authors apply the lens of complexity theory to explore evidence-based organizational change and development (EBOCD) in global contexts with external OCD consultants working with organizations located in a national culture other than their own. The authors' research and experience leads them to believe that, while OCD is practiced within the complexity of organizations, the addition of cross-cultural dimensions significantly exacerbate the contradictions and paradoxes OCD practitioners need to manage, making change initiatives and their results more unpredictable. The authors highlight the experiences of global OCD external consultants to illustrate this added complexity and discuss how practitioners should apply evidence in a complex, cross-cultural environment.

Reconsidering Essentials of Organization Development

This chapter presents the findings of two closely related studies about a selection of premises on which some organization development (OD) practices are based. In the first study, 18 taken-for-granted assumptions have been held against the scientific literature using rapid evidence assessment (REA) as a method. In light of the available evidence, some of these assumptions proved to be untenable. In a second study, practitioners were confronted with these assumptions and fed back the assessments. These studies, combined together, show that practitioners are often not aware of scientific findings relevant to their field. On the other hand, despite all the reseach that has been done and published, the scientific literature often does not provide satisfactory and conclusive answers to the questions practitioners grapple with.

Limitations and Optimizing Applications of Evidence in Evidence-Based Practices in Organizational Change and Development

The purpose of this chapter is to offer an overview of evidence-based practice's (EBP) limitations and applications in identifying evidence in OCD. While the concept of EBP is growing rapidly in many fields, there are problems with such an approach. Best practice is a widely used term in business that does not take into account questions like, Best for whom? Where? When? In what organization? In what context? Such questions may be more applicable to some modes of research than others, though business people and OCD professionals may be even less convinced by some modes than others. This chapter explores the limitations of identifying evidence while at the same time identifying ways to apply evidence in spite of its limitations. Accepting the resulting ambiguity will enable practitioners to find value in evidence-based practice.