Description
The first to define the subject of change agency, this excellent book remaps its limits and possibilities, clearly shifting the focus from outmoded debates on agency and structure to new practice-based discourses on agency and change. Offering readers a selective, critical and synthetic review of key literature and empirical research, it will help students contextualize this complex subject area and independently evaluate future prospects for effective change agent roles in organizations Presenting an interdisciplinary exploration of competing discourses, the book uses two overarching conceptual continua: centred agency-decentred agency and systems-processes, thereby allowing a more intensive focus on agency and change. The discourses are classified into: – rationalist – focusing on intentional agency, planned change and strategic action – contextualist – examining emergent change and the constraints on agency in organizations – dispersalist – discussing learning processes in organizations, sense-making agency and communities of practice – constructionist – tackling the concept of ‘decentred agency’ and situations over which humans have little or no control. Well written with challenging content and illustrated with international case studies, this book is essential reading for those interested in the origins, development and future prospects for change agency in an organizational world characterized by increasing complexity, risk and uncertainty.
