Table of Contents

1. Defining Change 2. Constructing Change 3. Understanding the Role of the Change Agent 4. Constructing Change Through Narrative and Storytelling 5. Constructing Change Through the Field Concept 6. Creating Readiness and the Notion of Sensemaking 7. The Problem-Centric Model of Diagnosing Change 8. The Dialogic Model of Diagnosing Change 9. Modes of Intervening 10. Understanding and Managing Organizational Resistance 11. Communicating Change 12. Making Sense of Organizational Identity.

Promotional Information

Jabri takes a thoroughly multi-disciplinary approach to the complexities of organisational change and of the people that try to manage it - making this text highly appropriate for undergraduate or postgraduate students who wish to develop their knowledge and understanding of the area. The reader is carefully guided through the most prominent conventional theories and their more radical challengers, accompanied along the way by an array of organisational metaphors, anecdotes and parables.' - Tina Bass, University of Coventry, UK 'This is quite an amazing book. It is organized around and teaches very current perspectives on organizational change, such as communication, discourse and dialog, which have not previously found their way into textbooks. It is intellectually sophisticated - it would be a wonderful manual for academics who want to learn current thinking about managing change. Yet it also conveys its ideas clearly and presents multiple examples that can help both advanced students and practitioners learn about and gain skill in implementing key elements of change. It should provide an singularly helpful resource to academics, students and practitioners.' - Jean Bartunek, Boston College, USA 'Jabri weaves together traditional approaches to organizational change with recent research that considers change as an ongoing, socially constructed process constituted through dialogical interaction, thereby providing a depth of understanding of organizational change that is often lacking in texts that deal with change as a 'thing'. This book will help readers better understand how planned change and continuous change interact through socially constructed 'reality' powerfully shaped by talk and interaction between people, processes and material things. This book is a very welcome addition for those seeking to understand how to bring about positive change in their organizations.' - Elden Wiebe, The King's University College, Canada

About the Author

Muayyad Jabri is Associate Professor at the University of New England Business School in Australia. He holds an MSocSc from Birmingham Business School (University of Birmingham) and a PhD from Manchester Business School (University of Manchester). As a Visiting Professor in a number of universities in Europe and the People’s Republic of China (1997–2001), he has developed a keen interest in the philosophy of change as inspired by the work of Merleau-Ponty, Alfred North Whitehead and Mikhail Bakhtin. Muayyad previously held teaching positions at the University of Wollongong and Manchester Business School.

Reviews

As we search for more dynamic, complex and relational ways of understanding organizations, there is an urgent need to enrich our vocabulary of change - to treat change in organizations as if change mattered. Muayyad Jabri's marvellous textbook moves us closer to this objective. It is filled with refreshing ideas and insights that make us think, and even feel, change. Drawing on process philosophies as well as state-of-the-art research on managing change, Muayyad invites his readers to appreciate the complexity and open-endedness of organizational change. This is insightful theory that makes a practical difference. Read this stuff and you begin to see organizations differently.
*Haridimos Tsoukas, Warwick Business School, UK*

Drawn from a process orientation to change, this volume provides a refreshing twist to the traditional work in management and organizational studies. The twist comes through recasting classic topics in the change literature through the lens of dialogue. Readers are exposed to central problems, such as diagnosis, intervention and communication, but through reframing these topics from a view of change as unfolding over time, engaging with multiple stakeholders, and embracing relational views of openness and appreciation. The book is a must read for students and scholars of organizational change and development, communication and organizational change, and practitioners involved in change management.
*Linda L. Putnam, University of California, USA*