Nineteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

There seems to be general agreement that the people managing our public and private organizations are increasingly challenged by the rate of change and complexity of the problems they face. Managing change requires changing routines and potentially reinventing oneself as new needs cannot be served with older practices. Can we learn more about how we might more easily transform ourselves, our organizations and society to address the problems we face? The rate of change is underlined by expectations and predictions that future changes will occur at an exponential increase, like Alvin Toffler’s description of future shock in 1970. He offered a prognosis of a future of stress and disorientation of because of changes which are difficult to control are occurring in too short a time, and they will feel like a culture-shock of moving in an entirely different context. The literature on change generally points to many challenges and failures. Given this context, there are strong pressures for transformational change in response to global competition, downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions, the complexity of solving wicked problems, and the growth of new technologies are driving forces that point to the need to explore ways to improve our implementations. Recognizing this need, the purpose of this paper is to develop a framework describing transformational thinking and change which recognizes the possible connections between individual, organizational and societal transformations. Within this purpose, the paper highlights how the context affects how people respond at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.