Organizational change no longer can be thought of as a process limited to individual agencies or firms. Change has become interorganizational in nature and carries important cultural implications for participating groups. However, organization theory fails to consider the cultural, mostly...

In the network of conversations that constitute the realities called organizations, the focus and unit of work in producing and managing change is conversation. This means that change agents work with, through, and on conversations to generate, sustain, and complete new conversations in order to...

The chapter asks whether organization development (OD) should be professionalized and submits for consideration several ideas relating to professionalism, professionalization, and organization development. First, we provide an overview of the issues related to professionalization and...

Signs of increased collaboration within and between organizations are readily apparent. An emerging “new paradigm” literature suggests that this trend is part of a fundamental transformation toward a more collaborative global culture. In this chapter, I first outline the key premises of an...

Increasing global competition has accelerated the rate of organizational changes, such as reengineering, restructuring, and downsizing. As a result, organizational leaders find themselves faced with growing cynicism among employees that the current wave of changes is nothing more than the...

This chapter employs an emerging theoretical perspective—social rules theory—to reframe and redefine organizational change and development in ways potentially overcoming some of their conceptual inadequacies. After elaborating social rules theory, it is first utilized to reframe...