Reimagining organisational change leadership

Burnes, Bernard; Hughes, Mark; By, Rune Todnem

doi:10.1177/1742715016662188

Cited by 91 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(139 reference statements)

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“…Thus far, even the scholarship most deeply engaged in applying complexity theory to innovation practice, such as research on organizational management and strategic leadership (e.g., Burnes 2004, Uhl-Bien et al 2007, Burnes et al 2016, has been unable to go beyond identifying that emergence is something with which managers and organizations need to reckon. It is one thing to state that emergence exists in complex systems but another thing entirely to navigate through the experience of emergence while deliberately trying to address the systemic nature of today's most intractable social-ecological challenges.…”

Section: Navigating Emergence and Systemic Reflexivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Firstly, transformative agency-that is, the agency required to shift systems through any transformative change process-is distributed (Olsson et al 2006, Lawrence et al 2011. As early as four decades ago, Burns (1978) argued that organizational leaders and followers had a symbiotic relationship that was necessary to achieve societal transformations, but these ideas seemed to be buried by an overemphasis on individuals as strong leaders in organizational and leadership studies (Burnes et al 2016). However, evidence increasingly indicates that systemic social innovation and transformation processes do not occur due to the activities of only a single leader or "hero-preneur"; rather, it is through distributed agency, "produced through the strategies of a number of actors, each of whom takes actions that help the system progress through different stages of innovation and transformation" (Westley et al 2013:2; see also Garud and Karnoe 2005, Hahn et al 2006, Olsson 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Navigating emergence and system reflexivity as key transformative capacities: experiences from a Global Fellowship program

Moore¹,

Olsson²,

Nilsson³

et al. 2018

E&S

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The distinction between adaptive and transformative capacities is still not well understood, and in this study we aimed to build a transformative learning space to strengthen transformative capacities. We proposed that two capacities will be essential to transformation: the capacity to navigate emergence and cross-scale systems reflexivity. We outline our efforts to design and deliver a Global Fellowship program in social innovation, intended to strengthen these two capacities among practitioners already engaged in socially innovative work. Results indicated that the concepts, frameworks, and experiences introduced through the Fellowship led to four key insights about these capacities. Firstly, individual Fellows and their organizations were able to see some complex system dynamics that were previously invisible, which in turn, allowed Fellows to see the distribution of resources and agency across the system in new ways. Secondly, engaging with diversity is essential in social innovation and transformative change processes, and system reflexivity aided in doing this. Additionally, Fellows indicated they were able to identify different kinds of opportunities and the generative potential that can lie within social-ecological systems. Lastly, the findings demonstrate the challenging nature of crossing scales and how a transformative space, such as a Fellowship, helps to practice the experience of contestation, unpredictability, and the uncontrollable dynamics of transformation and social innovation.

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Section: Navigating Emergence and Systemic Reflexivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating emergence and system reflexivity as key transformative capacities: experiences from a Global Fellowship program

Moore¹,

Olsson²,

Nilsson³

et al. 2018

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this way, and by following simple rules such as reciprocity and other social norms, patterns of community-level outcomes emerge (Manson, 2001;Mitchell, 2009). Higher education institutions may also be viewed as complex adaptive systems, akin to businesses and other organizations that have been extensively studied through this lens (Burnes, 2005;Burnes, Hughes, & By, 2018;Dooley, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Dynamics of Co-creation of Knowledge: A Paradigm Shift to a Complexity Science Approach to Evaluation of Community-campus Engagement

Nelson¹,

Stroink²

2020

Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

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Community-campus engagement (CCE) offers transformative opportunities for collaborative knowledge creation. Over the last few decades, thoughtful energy has gone into identifying the parts of a CCE and then developing tools to study these parts, with discrete focus on community groups, students, and faculty. Bringing a complexity science approach to CCE evaluation can amplify our understanding by capturing the dynamic nature of collaborative interactions that occur between faculty and students and their relationship with community organizations and groups. Our article begins by introducing key features of a complexity science approach that are well suited to address the evaluation of CCE initiatives. We then position CCE within this approach and discuss how key features of complex systems can operate in the context of CCE. These features include a focus on context and initial conditions, dynamic interactions of adaptation and learning that are nested at different scales, and outcomes that emerge and self-organize in unexpected and nonlinear ways. We draw upon the contextual fluidity (CF) practice model that provides a bridge between abstract concepts of complexity science and the very practical world of community engagement. With awareness of context, dynamic interactions, and emergent outcomes, we propose questions that those evaluating CCE may want to consider. Local, place-based knowledge of community groups can enhance the insights and potentially the applicability of knowledge within context (Siemers, Harrison, Clayton, & Stanley, 2015). CCE promotes the democratization of knowledge sources and offers an accessible and multidisciplinary perspective (Tandon, Singh, Clover, & Hall, 2016; Brown et al., 2003). CCE can also assist in capacity building of community groups (Andrée et al., 2014). Evaluating CCE initiatives in a way that can capture the fullness of such potential impacts presents unique challenges (Reeb, et al., 2017; Stoecker, Beckman, & Min, 2010). We suggest that understanding CCE through the perspective of complexity science offers insight into its dynamics and raises questions that can guide approaches to its evaluation. Although CCE may take different forms, including community service learning (CSL), community-based research (CBR), and participatory action research (PAR), we focus in this article on evaluation with CCE as a general term capturing the dynamic nature of the collaborative interactions that occur between faculty and students and their relationship with community organizations and groups. In our experience, many CCEs combine different forms such as CSL with CBR or PAR with CBR (Kahlke & Taylor, 2018). Both authors engaged in a university-wide community service learning initiative that involved 28 faculty members from seven academic faculties with participation of students from 16 diverse disciplines organized around the theme of food security or sustaining access to food. This themed approach to CCE encouraged faculty, staff, and student participation with diverse community groups ...

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“…Over the past decade, I have become increasingly interested in organizational change leadership which I regard as a subfield particularly informed through interrelationships between organizational change studies and leadership studies. As notions of leading change and change leadership have caught the societal and organizational imagination this focus has been fruitful (see Burnes, Hughes, & By, 2016;By, Hughes, & Ford, 2016;Hughes, 2015;Hughes, 2016aHughes, , 2016b, but equally, it has been frustrating. I have had to meaningfully engage with two different fields of study informing organizational change leadership; organizational change studies and leadership studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections: Studying Organizational Change Leadership as a Subfield

Hughes

2017

Journal of Change Management

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Organizational change scholars frequently engage with academic disciplines such as economics and sociology as well as fields of study such as leadership studies and human resource management studies. Whilst, there has been considerable interest in interrelationships between academic disciplines, interrelationships between management fields of study referred to here as subfields are rarely discussed. As the organization of subfields is significant to studying organizational change, I reflect upon my own learning and frustrations in studying organizational change leadership as a subfield. I suggest that the 1950s hopes for convergent management sciences may still influence thinking about fields and subfields. I highlight the confusing semantics of management subfields and offer quantification through co-citation analysis as one possible way forward. I candidly reflect upon the challenges researching a relevant practitioner orientated subfield raises and also the joy of crossing boundaries between fields. In conclusion, I use the metaphor of a bridge to convey my own learning about interrelationships between the fields of organizational change studies and leadership studies.

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Reimagining organisational change leadership

Cited by 91 publications

References 63 publications

Navigating emergence and system reflexivity as key transformative capacities: experiences from a Global Fellowship program

Navigating emergence and system reflexivity as key transformative capacities: experiences from a Global Fellowship program

Understanding the Dynamics of Co-creation of Knowledge: A Paradigm Shift to a Complexity Science Approach to Evaluation of Community-campus Engagement

Reflections: Studying Organizational Change Leadership as a Subfield

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