ARTICLE ANALYSIS

Article Analysis

ARTICLE ANALYSIS

Most academic disciplines are marked by their employment of essential concepts; that is, the way that their own theories, ideas, and constructs are used to capture or provide knowledge about particular phenomena. While there is some debate about the issue, it seems at least viable that change has become one of those essential concepts for the field of organizational development (e.g., Caldwell, 2005b).

Indeed, if there were a concept that would rival any other in the past 2 decades of discourse about organizational dynamics, it would be change. So pressing the perceived need, and so acute the perceived circumstances, that just a few years ago the periodical Fast Company featured the headline “Change or Die!” on the cover.

For the most part, the headline is true. Change has become an integral part of organizational life for both organizational members and organizations. Increasingly powerful technology plays some of a role in this: Technology advances now almost as fast as it processes information, so the ability to process more information faster requires new, innovative ways of managing information for better Decisions. These new innovative ways of managing, in turn, set up an internal organizational dynamic of constant change. It is common—even trite by now—to hear members of all types of organizations talk about a current change initiative as the flavor of the month. While workers (and managers) may be a bit jaded by all of the change and all of the talk about change, it does make the process of change agency in the 21st century a rather complex phenomenon.

Change agency refers to how change is actually accomplished in organizational life. For every organizational change, some mechanism or entity has instigated it or is responsible for the guidance, implementation, or maintenance of the change. This mechanism or entity—usually a human being—is called ...