| The De-Development of Contemporary Organizations |
| | Nutt, Paul | Ohio State U., Columbus | nutt.1@osu.edu | 614-292-1275 |
| | Backoff, Robert W. | Ohio State U. | backoff.1@osu.edu | 614-292-6118 |
| | THE DE-DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATIONS
The change literature seems to concentrate on reductions in size, tending to ignore how organizations move to a lower order of complexity.
To prompt debate about this issue, the paper offers a way for leaders to reduce organizational complexity, which we can "de-development", as
a means of improving organizational effectiveness. We show how de-developed organizations retain their effectiveness when they devolve by
preserving core compentencies, customers, products, markets, channels, sources of revenue, alliances, competencies, or image that provide
the basis for collaborative advantage. The prescriptive logic calls for a letting go to produce a soft-landing, one in which de-development can be
desirable and offer some key steps in a de-development process. Ways to study de-development are also considerd.
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| | Keywords: TRANSFORMATION; CHANGE; LEADERSHIP |
| Towards a Processual Framework for Understanding Change |
| | Dawson, Patrick | U. of Aberdeen | p.dawson@abdn.ac.uk | 44-1224-272712 |
| | This paper forwards the view that organizational change should be seen as a
complex ongoing dynamic and not solidified or treated as a series of linear
events. This view, which is being more readily accepted among the academic
community, raises a series of questions about the nature of processual research
and the purpose of processual analysis. In drawing on existing knolwedge
and over fifteen years empirical research into companies such as, General
Motors, Hewlett Packard and Pirelli Cables, a processual framework for
understanding change is developed. The general approach taken is that
organizations undergoing change comprise a number of dynamic states which
interlock and overlap, and that processes associated with change should be
analyzed ‘as-they-happen’ so that their emergent character can be
understood within the context in which they take place. In so doing, the
proposed framework sets out to understand: the political arenas in which
decisions are made, histories recreated and strategies rationalised
(the politics of change); the enabling and constraining characteristics of
change programmes and the scale and type of change (the substance of change);
and the conditions under which change is taking place in relation to
external elements, such as, the business market environment and internal
elements, including the history and culture of an organisation
(the context of change). The paper concludes by calling for further
processual research and the development of conceptual tools which can
accommodate the complex nature, depth and dynamic of workplace change.
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| | Keywords: Change; Processual; Organizations |
| Extending Kurt Lewin's Legacy into the Emerging Pluralistic World |
| | Motamedi, Kurt | Pepperdine U. | motamedi@pepperdine.edu | (310) 568-5577 |
| | An imigrant and escapee of Nazism, Lewin (1890-1947) understood the importance of tolerance and social justice. In the face of war, bigotry
and injustice his research was grounded in democratic values, reflective observation, action research and field theory. He was an imminenet scholar
and teacher who mentored many great contributors to the field of applied behavioral science. His humanitarian work and innovative ideas
continue to influence the development of the field across numerous fronts contributing to quality of life and productivity.The emerging dynamic
forces in the new millennium provide opportunities for searching and furthering Lewin's contributions. The new technologies, global competition,
widening division of haves and have-nots, the misuse of natural resources, and greater interdependence of world events are changing human
life experience in multitude of ways. Such a search may deepen understanding of the appropriateness of our values, paradigms, purposes
and approaches to change and developemnt. The aim is to explore aspects of Lewin's work along the emerging scenarios encompassing
change and development in pluralistic and evolving complex world. Two future scenarios are developed. One deals with emergence of dominance
of economic and competitive values. The other highlights the extension of humanitarian and developmental aspects of the field. It seems at the
present pivotal point of vast global, technological, social, and ecological flux Lewin's perspective and contributions are seminal to making
appropriate choices in the future paths of change and development. Perhaps, Lewin's vision is as relevant today as it was at the end of the WWII.
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| | Keywords: Change; Future; Tradition |
| On the Aesthetic Dimension of Leading Learning and Change |
| | Scharmer, Claus Otto | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | scharmer@MIT.EDU | 617 258-8132 |
| | In 1991, a group of large, primarily U.S.-based corporations came together
to found the MIT Center for Organizational Learning. The intent was to
foster collaboration in exploring how companies could learn from their
experiences in projects of the Centre for Generative Leadership (CGL) with
various U.S.-based multinational companiess, on a two year project with a
global pharmaceutical company (Scharmer/Versteegen/Kaufer 1999), on case
reflections among the SoL consultants, and on the various learning
histories of the MIT Center for Organizational Learning. The article is
organized into three sections. Section A depicts twelve principles of
organizational learning and change. These twelve principles evolved over
three stages of development. Section B links the 12 principles with an
underlying model of change which builds on and modifies the classical
Lewin-Schein model of unfreezing-redefining-refreezing. Section C focuses
on the leverage point suggested by the Lewin-Schein model of change; how to
better lead and facilitate the unfreezing part of the cycle of change.
Suggesting qualities of conversation as the single most important condition,
section C presents a model of four generic Fiel-logics of conventional
action and discusses how they relate to various levels of unfreezing and
change. |
| | Keywords: Transformational Change; Dialogue; Leadership |