What is meant by change management and how to analyse organisational change is an important, contested and complex question. It is the focus of this course.
In recent decades, management gurus, consultants, politicians and academics have talked about a transformation of the workplace but what does this mean? A series of change initiatives have emerged such as Teamworking, Quality Management and Business Process Reengineering which can be understood as part of this transformation and a means to achieve it. This course aims to challenge accepted and simplistic understandings and practices associated with change. Our contention is that to understand what is going on necessitates a reflexive and critical appreciation of the contradictions, complexities and paradoxes of organisational change and interventions that seek to secure change.
The course aims to provide students with a theoretical and practical understanding of key ideas and perspectives in the management of organisational change. Throughout the course we will introduce concepts, theories and cases from studies of managers and organisations. Our focus is upon the development your abilities to analyse change management critically, systemically and reflectively.
As managers and others seek to initiate, implement and account for the impacts of change projects it is important that taken for granted assumptions and simplistic solutions about organisational life are both articulated, understood and rethought. Throughout the course prevailing assumptions in the managerial literature are examined and evaluated from a range of advanced social scientific perspectives. By the end of course you should have developed an understanding of the complex and contested nature and practice of the management of organisational change.