Episodic Organizational Change and Social Drama – Liminality and Conflict in the Change Process

Abstract

This conceptual paper draws upon Victor Turner's understanding of social change as social drama. It develops an interpretive framework for episodic organizational change as a period of liminal transition that is triggered and driven by conflict. Emphasising the liminal quality inherent in change processes, the social drama is used to generate a conceptual frame to investigate the opportunities and threats in liminal transitions, the various ways to reestablish social order in organizations and the associated role of leaders in liminal times. Promoting conflict's productive nature for organizational change, the social drama is further used to provide a frame to investigate how social reality in organizations is challenged, developed, crafted, transformed and finally re-constituted through conflict. The article argues that the social drama perspective has the capacity to further reflexive thinking about change processes in organizations.

El papel del HCD en la Liminalidad Organizacional

“…En la liminalidad, las personas y organizaciones se encuentran en un estado de transformación y cambio, pero sin haber llegado aún a un estado final o estable (Turner, 1969). Se trata de un estado crítico que pone a prueba a las organizaciones y sus capacidades para adaptarse al cambio, experimentar y aprender (Winkler & Kristensen, 2022). Sin embargo, la transición hacia un estado estable puede requerir un esfuerzo significativo por parte de las organizaciones para superar los desafíos que surgen en el camino.…”