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According to Exchange Theory, leaders and followers set goals and carry out actions by calculating interests, efforts required to achieve goals, and possible payoffs. Leaders and followers negotiate a relationship based on reciprocity. If leaders or followers fail to meet mutual expectations, however, the leader-follower relationship deteriorates. Reciprocity, the paper asserts, fails to build relationships of trust. To achieve trust, leaders have an ethical responsibility to reduce fear and increase follower participation. Through this, leaders help followers re-define norms and demonstrate behaviors that achieve a more humane work environment. The article identifies 11 variables that affect leader-follower relationships of trust and suggests areas for future inquiry and organizational change.

This paper draws on critical theory in an attempt to show how organizational ideologies operate in resistance to change that is engendered by training. In particular, the paper introduces critical theory’s views of dialectical reasoning and its relationship to oppression in human thought and action. It then describes the liberating themes from adult education and training concepts and theories. In this discussion, the paper elucidates the notion that unquestioned ideological assumptions produce fallacies that become instrumental modes for domination in interpersonal relationships. It illustrates this in a case analysis of an attempt to change the prevailing management ideology at a major university. Embedded within the attempted change program is the struggle for a new synthesis of meaning in the relationships and the countervailing antithesis of management resistance. The paper concludes with an outline of some of the implications of embracing a critical theory perspective as a trainer and change agent.

Raises the initial problem of what is meant by the term critical theory and discusses some common misconceptions that have arisen about the meaning of this term. The dialectic logic that was championed by the group of scholars collectively known as the Frankfurt School is outlined and it is noted how dialectics transcends binary oppositional thinking. It is argued that the body of work of these scholars has a strong contemporary relevance to issues in the management of change in organizations. The other papers in the issue are introduced.