Organizational Change and Leadership: Out of the Quagmire

The intention of this annual editorial is to Make A Difference (MAD) through outlining suggestions to where we need to direct future organizational change and leadership discourse, research and practitioner efforts. Engaging in immensely important fields of study and practice, we have a responsibility to assist the sustainable development of organizations and the wider society. Much good work is undertaken in support of the further development of both theory and practice. However, I do observe in my role as editor-in-chief a sustained tendency amongst both scholars and practitioners of being stuck in a quagmire peddling a dominant orthodoxy that is somewhat lacking in progress, initiative and imagination (it still sells articles, books, courses and seminars though …). Becoming unstuck through reframing the challenges faced is required for our work to stay relevant, and it takes real and conscious effort to make this happen. Or blood, toil, tears and sweat as Churchill would put it.publishedVersio

Stakeholder Capitalism and Implications for How We Think About Leadership

MAD statement The intention of this leading article is to help reframe our take on capitalism and leadership. Rather than presenting a linear, one-solution approach, it promotes an often messy, uncertain approach based on purpose, co-creation, creativity, courage and action delivering on a multitude of stakeholders’ needs and interests.publishedVersio

Reimagining Organisational Change Leadership

Reimagining organisational change leadership orthodoxy requires revisiting theseminal work of Kurt Lewin and James M. Burns. Being the 20thcentury mostinfluential organisational change and leadership scholars, both radicallyreimagined their respective fields. However, often misinterpreted, misunderstoodand even misrepresented, their true recommendations were largely ignored. In thisarticle we discuss why this is so. Despite three decades of transformation andorganisational change leadership discourse, leadership is still in crisis. Workingtowards an alternative to the current orthodoxy, we reimagine organisationalchange leadership as a utilitarian consequentialist process

De los silos a la colaboración interprofesional: un estudio de caso de métodos mixtos que utiliza investigación-acción participativa para fomentar equipos multidisciplinarios en un departamento de cirugía de un centro de día

This single case study reports on the establishment of a multidisciplinary day care surgery at a Norwegian University Hospital utilising participating action research design principles drawn from sociotechnical theory. Data was collected through mixed methods including stakeholder analysis, document studies, observations of meetings, semi-structured interviews and participating group methods. The senior management at the hospital had decided to implement a department that diverged from organising around professional disciplines, and this decision evoked strong resistance among several professional groups in the first phases of this project. This case follows the implications of the decision to establish a multidisciplinary day care surgery through re-organising location, staff and management structures. The findings suggest that the hospital achieved the vision of creating an efficient multidisciplinary work environment, reducing the culture of tribalism between professions, and creating a work environment with a high degree of knowledge transfer. This case describes how action research can be used to reduce organisational silos and to improve multidisciplinary co-operation

Stakeholder Capitalism and Implications for How We Think About Leadership

MAD statement The intention of this leading article is to help reframe our take on capitalism and leadership. Rather than presenting a linear, one-solution approach, it promotes an often messy, uncertain approach based on purpose, co-creation, creativity, courage and action delivering on a multitude of stakeholders’ needs and interests

Investigating the Major Effect of Principal’s Change Leadership on School Teachers’ Professional Development

[[abstract]]With a rapidly changing era, educational change has become one of crucial task forces for better student performance in schools. Potential and innovative leadership in schools have been expected to fit the fast-paced of change to achieve better learning result for students. Therefore, how to build teacher’s professional development to fulfil the outcome-based policy in schools has grown into a new challenge for principals. This study focused on principals’ change leadership perceived by school teachers and explored which dimension of change leadership might impact on teachers’ professional development. This study successfully invited 490 teachers from 41 elementary schools in New Taipei City (Taiwan) to participate in this study. Finally, there are 453 valid questionnaires, it represents 92.4 % of return rate. Twenty-five indicators of change leadership have been classified into three dimensions, named “communicating and shaping change action”, “building supported environment”, and “adjusting organization and performance”. The teachers’ professional development has been defined by eight indicators which classified into “willing” and “effect” of participation. This study employed the stepwise method to determine which one is the major factor impacted on teachers’ professional development in regression models. The result reveals both “building supported environment” and “adjusting organization and performance” in principal’s change leadership can explained 23.2% of the teachers’ professional development. Based on the results of regression analysis, this study suggests properly shaping principal’s change leadership can prompt to enhancing teachers’ professional development. Furthermore, the change leadership might be applied to more wide practices to improve teachers’ performance in various settings.[[notice]]補正完

A Multi-dimensional Analysis of Managers’ Power – Functional, Socio-political, Interpretive-discursive, and Socio-cultural Approaches

Managers’ power within organisations has been analysed by several approaches: Orthodox management and organisation studies (‘functional approach’), Critical Management Studies (‘socio-political approaches’), interpretive, discourse-oriented and constructivist concepts (‘interpretive-discursive approaches’), and anthropological, socio-psychological and sociological approaches (‘socio-cultural approaches’). In organisational reality functional, socio-political, interpretive-discursive, and socio-cultural aspects are closely related and intertwined. However, because of division of intellectual labour, probably more because of different worldviews, researchers often make use of these approaches quite selectively. Such focussing has its advantages but also weaknesses. This paper therefore argues that it often helps to investigate complex phenomena such as managers’ power in multi-dimensional ways.power, managers, management studies, organisation