Ogc chap 9

1. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE (4TH ED.)
Barbara Senior & Stephen Swailes
Chapter 9: Future directions and challenges

2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
 identify and discuss the contemporary economic
and social forces that are pressuring change;
 identify and discuss organizational capacity for
change;
 summarize the contributions of sensegiving,
sensemaking and appreciative inquiry;
 discuss the main challenges facing change
researchers.

3. FUTURE ORGANIZATIONS
Environmental forces
 Choice
 Falling birth rates and longevity
 Mobility
 Independence
 Creativity
 Information and communication technology
 Technology
 Social structures
 National competitiveness

4. CHANGING SOCIAL CONTRACT
Social Contract: “an individual’s beliefs regarding
terms and conditions of reciprocal exchange
agreement between that person and another party.”
Three types of contract violation:
 Violation of distributive justice
 Violation of procedural justice
 Violation of interactional justice

5. INNOVATION THROUGH COLLABORATION
Three conditions for collaboration to happen:
1. People need time to discuss ideas, reflect, listen
and engage in a host of activities that might
produce fresh ideas
2. The need to develop strong bonds of trust
between each other.
3. People need a sense of territory marking one’s
place in the outcomes of the collaborative
process. These might be stock ownership, stock
options, visible awards, collegial recognition
amongst others, etc.

6. CHANGING
Appreciative inquiry (AI) an organizational change
methodology that takes a radically different view from
traditional approaches, being a far more collective method
that focuses on “positive psychology” generated by asking
positive questions.
1. The constructive principle
2. Simultaneity
3. The poetic principle
4. Anticipation
5. Being positive
6. Wholeness
7. Enactment
8. Free Choice

7. CAPACITY FOR CHANGE
The different ways in which organizational leaders
interpret environmental signals offer one explanation
why some organizations embrace change and thrive,
while others die. Capacities needed to embrace and
thrive:
 Framing
 Participation
 Pacing and sequencing
 Routinizing
 Recruiting

8. SENSGIVING AND SENSEMAKING
Sensemaking is a way of discovering meaning and is
a key ingredient in understanding how organizing
takes places and the organization that results from it.
Sensemaking is a social process that occurs through
interactions and conversation with others who are
also trying to make sense of what is happening.
Sensegiving is the actions of other who influence
others to move towards some concept of
organizational reality.

9. CHALLENGES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
 Multiple contexts and levels of analysis
 Time, history, process and action
 Change processes and organizational performance
 International comparative research
 Reciprocity, customization, sequencing and pace
 Scholar-practitioner engagement

10. FIVE PRACTICES
Five practices being used in contemporary
organization development situations:
1. Appreciative inquiry
2. Changing mindsets and consciousness
3. Diversity and multicultural realities
4. Different modes of change
5. Changing discourses