Preface

This volume of Research in Organizational Change and Development continues the long established tradition of providing a special platform for scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners to share new thought-provoking research-based insights. The chapters in this volume represent a continuous commitment to the high quality of collaborative work that many of you have come to expect from this publication. This volume includes chapters by international diverse colleagues including Bob Hinings, Royston Greenwood, Barbara B. Bunker, Robert MacIntosh, Jean M. Bartunek, Mamta Bhatt, Donald MacLean, David B. Szabla, William Dardick, Jennifer A. Devlin, Victor J. Friedman, Israel Sykes, Noam Lapidot-Lefler, Noha Haj, Shannon Brown, Michael R. Manning, James D. Ludema, Tobias Fredberg, Johanna Pregmark, Ramkrishnan (Ram) V. Tenkasi, and Yehia Kamel. The themes and areas covered by these authors are as distinct as their disciplinary and occupational backgrounds.

Collaboration, in one variation or another, seems to be an underlying theme of the manuscripts in this volume. According to Berg (1998), “… the Latin roots of the word collaboration trace back to both colabor (to work together) and colapsis (to fall apart). The emotional reality expressed in these apparent opposites describes the possibility as well as the hazard of collaborative work …. To nurture difference is to cultivate precisely what has the potential to divide, to separate, to inflame while simultaneously revealing connection and illuminating new possibilities. Differences are at the heart of relational creativity (much like divergent thinking is at the heart of individual creativity), but these differences demand that a collaboration survive periods of conflict, disagreement, and separation” (Berg, 1998, pp. 50–51).

Berg’s discussion of the etymology of collaboration is meaningful as collaboration in different shapes and forms is at the heart of most organization development (OD) work. OD work is often used as a vessel for speaking to what may be unspeakable in conflicts and disagreements or for bridging separations as well as for birthing and nurturing never before thought of ideas, innovations, and joint ventures. Since the first annual research volume in Organization Change and Development was published by JAI Press in 1987, the volumes were the result of ongoing collaborative efforts.

The drive toward understanding and mastering the process of Organizational Development and Change (OD&C) in a rapidly changing environmental context has been and continues to be a driving force in the development of the field. Collaboration between scholars, scholars and practitioners, and between practitioners via action research, collaborative management research, and learning mechanisms, the foundation of OD&C work, seems to be continuously utilized and advanced. This volume affords new opportunities to understand the roots of the field and build on its foundation by considering current developments in research, theory, and practice.

This volume’s first chapter captures a reflection on 40 years of collaboration and provides an inside perspective on collegial partnerships, successes as well as challenges, and what is required in order to ensure that the products of collaborative work have an impact on the field. Bob Hinings and Royston Greenwood, the first recipients of the Pasmore-Woodman Award (AOM 2015), consider personal recollections as well as general principles about successful academic partnerships. Shifting from a longitudinal perspective of long-time collaborators, to a view from a pioneer, one of the first women in the field, Barbara Bunker, provides a perspective on the interdependence of research and practice through a gender lens. Reflecting on the role of women in OD&C across a 50-year time period helps to explain how social identities have contributed to shaping the field and simultaneously, how the field has contributed to shaping the construction of social identities. Both of these historical perspectives create a foundation for looking forward to new contributions and tools for research and practice.

Our assumptions about whether a research question should legitimately change over the course of field-based research are challenged. Robert MacIntosh, Jean M. Bartunek, Mamta Bhatt, and Donald MacLean present a perspective, which includes strategies for managing changes in the research question, and offer it as a new development for the field and one that is likely to make a difference in how research is conceptualized, implemented, and evaluated. In addition to deepening our understanding of research through examining field-based action research, David B. Szabla, William Dardick, and Jennifer A. Devlin offer the field a new measure, the Perception of Change Strategy Scale (PCS). The PCS provides change leaders with data about how change recipients perceive change strategies, which then allows change leaders to adjust their behaviors to bring about more successful outcomes. Given the challenges of change leadership, the PCS is a promising addition for scholars conducting research on organization change and for practitioners leading change themselves and consulting to change leaders.

We continue to develop our understanding of evidence-based practice through the application of theory in the next two chapters. Dialogic OD, a relatively new perspective in the field, is further developed through the use of “social space” as a generative image by Victor J. Friedman, Israel Sykes, Noam Lapidot-Lefler, and Noha Haj. By discussing a case in which “social space” serves as “transitional space,” the ODC practitioner is provided a theoretically informed set of principles that can be extended to, and evaluated across, various contexts. The nature and role of organization identity seem to shade new insights about the potential impact of OD work on company culture and effectiveness as articulated by Shannon Brown, Michael R. Manning, and James D. Ludema. Learnings from their work provide opportunities for researchers to deepen our understanding of organization identity and for practitioners to lead more successful organization change initiatives by considering the impact of the change on an organization’s identity.

Given that organizational life continues to be characterized by turbulence in the external environment, Tobias Fredberg and Johanna Pregmark argue for the persistent demand of integrating business strategy with OD&C perspectives. Through examining strategies employed to transform a dying business due to the impact of technology, the authors advance new emerging practices that are empirically investigated. The implications for theory and practice are especially relevant and timely given the explosion of digital change initiatives and the imperative that these transformations are successful. While testing and implementing new strategy practices with struggling companies may turnaround some organizations, an under-researched group of organizations is those that have declared bankruptcy. By examining companies that have been successful following bankruptcy, Ram (Ram) V. Tenkasi and Yehia Lamel present what ODC scholar-practitioners can do to support effective strategies that make a difference on the road back to solvency. Considering these two chapters together provides evidence for the relevance of OD&C theory, research, and practice as antidotes to contemporary organizational challenges. Moreover, our assumptions about change processes are challenged and new avenues for research and practice are paved.

From our editorial perspective, one of the best parts of our work on this series is that our collaborations with the authors always brings new learning, whether in the form of making history accessible and relevant, challenging assumptions, extending theory in creative ways, or integrating perspectives that heretofore have remained separate. The series has been around long enough to substantiate the claim that we have published some true classics in the field of OD&C. We have also provided scholar-practitioners across career stage, sector, and geography with a platform to share their work and for colleagues to learn from each other in order to inform future collaborations.

In addition, collectively, the volume represents tremendous diversity: multiple generations of authors including a former AOM President and senior scholar, the inaugural winners of the Division’s Pasmore-Woodman Award, a founder of the field, well-established thought leaders and colleagues at various stages of career including newly minted OD&C researchers and practitioners; colleagues from inside and outside the US; historical pieces that are foundational and current work that opens up new avenues of inquiry as well as multiple research methodologies. Together, these chapters and the collaborative engagements they represent contribute to a sustainable trajectory of research that will broaden and deepen the field of OD&C. It is our hope, that as you read through the volume, you will consider your own thoughts and practice and possible contributions to the field and contact us to suggest topics for future volumes.