New paradigms
for change?
9
New paradigms for change?Theories of organization and the organization of theories
David Collins
Sunderland Business School, University of Sunderland, Sunderland,UK
代写留学生论文IntroductionOver the last few decades western economies have been rocked by a series ofeconomic shocks (Stewart, 1993) and crises (Iacocca, 1986). As a result, the fieldof management and, indeed, managers generally have suffered some degree ofdislocation (Huczynski, 1993). Reacting to this dislocation, managers haveturned to consultants and business school academics for advice and forsolutions to the problems which threaten to swamp them. In recent times thesolutions developed have taken what might be called a “cultural turn” (see, for
example, Reed and Hughes, 1993), such that the shared conviction among
managers, consultants and many business school academics seems to be that
business success requires management attention be directed to the “soft”,cultural and humanistic aspects of organization (Deal and Kennedy, 1982;Legge, 1995; Thackray, 1986). Indeed it has been argued that the culturalmanagement of organizations carries with it a requirement for a new paradigmof management and, by implication, the requirement for a new paradigm bywhich to research the management of change and the management oforganizations more generally. This has been stated explicitly in the works ofBurnes (1992) and Mink (1992) and exists clearly, if more implicitly, in the works
of many other key figures such as Kanter (1989), Ouchi (1981), Peters and
Waterman (1986) and Schein (1985, 1991) to name but a small sample.
While acknowledging and applauding the wider theoretical reflection which
this interest in paradigms invites, this paper will attempt to cast more light onthe notion of paradigms for change and the prospects for the development ofnew paradigms for change. However, unlike mainstream (generallymanagerialist) considerations of change management which tend to operatewith a simple scientific model of theoretical change and development, this paperwill examine theory as a social and organizational process (Alvesson, 1991;
Reed, 1993). Viewed in this way the prospect for a new paradigm for the
analysis of change in organizations is properly viewed as a social and political
question and will be addressed accordingly. Thus, in analysing theories of
change the paper will attempt to locate the theorist and will raise questions as
The author is grateful to Keith Horton, Napier Business School, Edinburgh and to Syd Weston,
Sunderland Business School for constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Journal of Organizational Change
Management, Vol. 9 No. 4, 1996,
pp. 9-23. © MCB University Press,
0953-4814
JOCM
9,4
10
to the ends and objectives to which the theorists of/for change address
themselves.
To this end the paper is structured as follows. The paper begins with an
attempt to contextualize the changing orientations of the students of change
management and will give an account of the new and emergent paradigms, socalled.
From here, the discussion of paradigms of/for change will be placed
within the context of the larger discussion of sociological paradigms (Burrell
and Morgan, 1980). Having placed the discussion of these new paradigms of/for
change within the framework of Burrell and Morgan, the paper will assess the
validity of the claims
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