“Not All Fish Will Survive”

Abstract

This dissertation centers on the concept of “urgency for change” in narratives—how, in processes of change, several urgency narratives develop and interact dynamically, influencing the process and outcome of organizational change. Classically, urgency for change is the domain of organizational change scholars like Kotter, who adopted a “clock time” perspective on organizational change. Such scholars pay considerable attention to the role of management and the idea that a good change story facilitates change. These assumptions are challenged in this thesis, which has a temporal narrative focus and appreciates the multiplicity of stories. Martijn van Ooijen asks himself: How do multiple urgency narratives dynamically interact in organizational change processes with societal implications? While in this first chapter a framework for temporal narratives is developed, the next three chapters investigate the dynamic interaction of urgency narratives on several levels in two societal cases. The first case deals with implementation of a new health care law in the Netherlands (Wet Langdurige Zorg in Dutch). The new law that was passed to improve the system, had a big societal impact. First, this chapter adresses the urgency narratives and stakeholders that authored them in the public debate. Second, it investigates the impact of these public narratives on local processes of change in health care organizations. The second case was a change project in the Dutch earthquake region where the researcher was part of a change team. The project’s aim was to improve the safety culture of construction companies involved in the recovery of damaged houses. This case deals with the problematic societal acceptance of construction as a high-risk field with frequent injuries, sickness, absences, and disability retirement. The chapter provides an in-depth view of the development of various urgency narratives of several groups of stakeholders involved. Moreover, it pays attention to the thought processes and intervention strategies of the change consultants of the change platform. The results of the dissertation point to the value of combining temporality and narrative in the tempo-narrative framework. The framework supports researchers through the practical application of time and narrative in processes of change by highlighting various temporal narrative concepts and the necessity and ways to work with a multitude of stories. By focusing on temporality in the two cases, it became possible to explain the tensions in several narrative struggles. The dissertation also points to the importance of dialog on the often hidden and taken-for-granted ideas and beliefs as intervention strategy, and ways to do that. For instance, a good setting where people feel free to share their stories with others is important. Certain questions can help and in one of the chapters a multistory movie was used as an opener for dialog. Future researchers could benefit from the tempo-narrative research approach that was adopted and the various temporal narrative approaches it incorporates. Future research should further explore and integrate the way different intervention strategies are adopted and unfold in change processes characterized by a multitude of urgency narratives. Moreover, there is value in the researcher–practitioner combination but it also requires reflexivity, which is still an underexposed theme in this type of research.