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In the past decade internal communication began to take on a new identity as it supports the many change efforts underway in organizations today. Change communication – how internal messaging effects individual behavior change – is a key element for an organization undergoing transformation. Although research points to the need to communicate during change, very little information is available on what the outcomes are of an internal communication strategy that can positively influence individual behavior change during transformation. This chapter enhances current knowledge on this topic by investigating the relationship of awareness and understanding of change messages to individual behavior change through the case study examination of the intentional organizational transformation experienced in a large, consumer packaged goods (CPG) company.

There is considerable evidence that long periods of success in organisations can lead to ossification of strategy and strategic inertia. Burgelman (2002) shows how co-evolutionary lock-in occurs through the creation of a strategy vector. He demonstrates that the internal selection environment can become configured to create sources of inertia that dampen the autonomous strategy process, driving out unrelated exploration and creating a dominance of the induced, top-down strategy process. While this study shows how lock-in occurs, it does not address how a company breaks out of co-evolutionary lock-in. This is the focus of this paper. We argue that to understand how an organisation breaks out of a strategy vector a more complete conceptualisation of the structural context, and in particular the under specified cultural mechanisms, is required. It also requires an understanding of the linkages between the structural context and the new core capabilities required for breakout. Thus we first expand on what is known about strategy vectors and review research from the strategy process tradition that explores the linkages between strategy, culture and strategic change, to build a more comprehensive picture of the structural context. Our model demonstrates the extent of interconnectedness between the ‘hard’ (e.g., control systems and organisation structure) and ‘soft’ (e.g. beliefs, symbols and stories) components, and that development of new required capabilities is dependent on a holistic shift in all these aspects of the structural context, including, therefore, change in the organisation's culture. We then illustrate the link between lock-in, capability development and culture change through the case of the famous Formula One team, Ferrari. We finish with a discussion of the implications of our findings for strategic change.

Corporations are now collaborating to meet complex global sustainability challenges, which, until recently, were considered beyond the mandate of business leaders. Multi-organizational consortia have formed, not as philanthropic efforts, but to find competitive advantage. To examine the dynamics of an early collaboration of this sort, with a view to suggesting how future inter-organizational projects might be fostered, we pursued an in-depth multi-method case study of “The Sustainability Consortium.” The Consortium has convened Fortune 50 senior managers since 1998. Our analysis uncovers the primacy of “Relational Space” – a rich context for aspirational trust and reflective learning across organizational boundaries, which is enabled by, and in turn gives rise to, collaborative projects. Within this space, an ecology of organizational leaders committed to sustainability can accomplish together what would be impossible in their individual organizations. We explain the viability of this collaboration.

Here is a new conceptual framework for organizational learning (OL) that applies to both planned reform and emergent change. It integrates strategic and operational, micro and macro perspectives. It has three parts: (a) a revised definition and typology of OL, (b) seven reform stories that define stages and tasks, (c) a management and assessment guide demarcating four areas of OL: (i) action learning within core operations; (ii) sharing learning and innovations across the organization; (iii) mission/s-beyond ambidexterity; (iv) integration-managing mission conflicts and other paradoxes, which ensure endogenous change. Dynamic capability is therefore intrinsic to this view of OL that is illustrated from two cases: NYPD and public school reforms.

While humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) inherently contribute to social sustainability by alleviating the suffering of afflicted communities, their unintended adverse environmental impact has been overlooked hitherto. This paper draws upon contingency theory to synthesize green practices for HSCs, identify the contingency factors that impact on greening HSCs and explore how focal humanitarian organizations (HOs) can cope with such contingency factors.

Deploying an action research methodology, two-and-a-half cycles of collaboration between researchers and a United Nations agency were completed. The first half-cycle developed a deductive greening framework, synthesizing extant green practices from the literature. In the second and third cycles, green practices were adopted/customized/developed reflecting organizational and contextual contingency factors. Action steps were implemented in the HSC for prophylactics, involving an operational mix of disaster relief and development programs.

First, the study presents a greening framework that synthesizes extant green practices in a suitable form for HOs. Second, it identifies the contingency factors associated with greening HSCs regarding funding environment, stakeholders, field of activity and organizational management. Third, it outlines the mechanisms for coping with the contingency factors identified, inter alia, improving the visibility of headquarters over field operations, promoting collaboration and resource sharing with other HOs as well as among different implementing partners in each country, and working with suppliers for greener packaging. The study advances a set of actionable propositions for greening HSCs.

Using an action research methodology, the study makes strong practical contributions. Humanitarian practitioners can adopt the greening framework and the lessons learnt from the implementation cycles presented in this study.

This is one of the first empirical studies to integrate environmental sustainability and HSCs using an action research methodology.

This article brings a new, broad conceptual framework to the quest for understanding dynamic capability in organizations (i.e., “managing on the edge of chaos”). This approach rests on two major ideas: (i) a duality–paradox perspective and (ii) new typologies of organizational learning (OL) and individual action/thinking. A case of radical innovation at Microsoft provides a multilevel stimulus. Understanding it requires a focus on two dualistic challenges. For use in future ODC research and practical assessment, this broad new conceptual framework includes: (i) collaboration as a central concept; (ii) duality–paradox as a key source of conflicts that can threaten collaboration; (iii) five types of OL, (iv) four types of individual action/thinking, including paradoxical thinking, and (v) the proposition that “golden dualities” can be created from once-troubling duality situations (where critical collaboration was in danger) which have been transformed from the metaphorical “odd (contentious) couple” into a “productive (collaborative) partnership.”

Working to improve organizations is the mainstay of organization development (OD) practice and includes figuring out the sources of workplace disruptions and dysfunctions. Casting aside the focus of most change-management initiatives, the organization, organizing intelligence (OQ) relies on paying attention to what people actually do, making meaning of complex, messy human-social organizing activities, in the interests of fostering productive workplaces. Resting on dialog with and among participants “feeling their way” as they organize their work, OQ is an exercise in synthesis rather than analysis. A holistic understanding of organizing activities is helped by exploring the roles of a triad of closely interwoven factors – organizing structures, work-practices, and relationships – in how people get things done, while understanding how these are interconnected. This chapter examines why the capacity for OQ matters, why and how OQ differs from widely practiced, technically framed, organizational analysis, and what distinguishes people with OQ from those with a more conventional interest in organizational change. A case study of the Dutch home-nursing organization, Buurtzorg, illustrates OQ in practice. With small groups of nurses who self-organize, this is a structure that changes both the way people work and their relationships, to the benefit of nurses and the quality of life and care of their patients, while reducing costs; clearly an example of a more productive workplace.

While the main emotional labor strategies are well-documented, the manner in which professionals navigate emotional rules within the workplace and effectively perform emotional labor is less understood. With this contribution, I aim to unveil “the good, the bad and the ugly” of emotional labor as a dynamic theatrical performance.

Focusing on three geriatric long-term care units within a French public hospital, this qualitative study relies on two sets of data (observation and interviews). Deeply rooted within the field of study, the chosen methodological approach substantializes the subtle hues of the emotional experience at work and targets resonance rather than generalization.

Using the theatrical metaphor, this research underlines the role of space in the practice of emotional labor in a unique way. It identifies the main emotionalized zones or emotional regions (front, back, transitional, mixed) and details their characteristics, before unearthing the nonlinearity and polyphonic quality of emotional labor performance and the versatility needed to that effect. Indeed, this research shows how health-care professionals juggle with the specificities of each region, as well as how space generates both constraints and resources. By combining static and dynamic prisms, diverse instantiations of hybridity and spatial in-betweens, anchored in liminality and trajectories, are revealed.

This research adds to the current body of literature on the concept of emotional labor by shedding light on its highly dynamic and interactional nature, revealing different levels of porosity between emotional regions and how the characteristics of each type of area can taint others and increase/decrease the occupational health costs of emotional labor. The study also raises questions about the interplay of emotional labor performance with the level of humanization/dehumanization of elderly people. Given the global demographics about an aging population, this gives food for thought at a social level.

Increasing market pressures require organizations to rethink the development of change capability. Building a sustainable and flexible organization capable of responding in a timely manner to quickly changing customer demands without compromising technological excellence and quality is a complex task. This chapter builds on a five-year study of transformation efforts at a product development unit of Ericsson. The complexity of designing and managing learning mechanisms as both a transformation engine and a way to improve new product development is captured. The chapter points toward the challenges of designing and managing learning mechanisms that enhance organizational agility.

In this interview, Dr. Nancy J. Adler describes her career trajectory, motivation, and the passion that have guided her interests and choices. Asking big questions that matter in her own research and encouraging others in the field of international management to do the same is one of her guiding principles. Dr. Adler details the startling career impact that resulted from her pioneering research on women who are global leaders in the 1990s. Given her groundbreaking research, her attempts to influence what scholars study and how they are evaluated, and her calls to action as a global consultant, speaker, and thought leader, she is one of academe's most well-known and respected global leaders.

Dr. Adler is the S. Bronfman Professor Emerita in Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), having received her BA in Economics, MBA, and PhD in Management. As one of the most widely cited international management scholars, she has authored more than 175 publications and received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Academy of Management's (AMLE) Outstanding Article Award and Decade Award and the Sage Award for Scholarly Contributions in Management. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, the Academy of Management, and the International Academy of Management. In addition, she was honored as one of Canada's top university professors and inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.

Her work has also been widely recognized beyond academia. She received the Prix du Quebec, Doctor Honoris Causa from Slovenia's IEDC Bled, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Center for Creative Leadership's Applied Research Award, the World Federation of People Management Associations' Georges Petitpas Award, ASTD's International Leadership Award, SIETAR's Outstanding Senior Interculturalist Award, the International Leadership Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the YWCA's Femme de Mérite Award.

Although retired from the university setting after 40 years at McGill, Dr. Adler continues to consult and speak around the world. However, she now devotes more time to her art. She is a visual artist known for her paintings, monotype prints, and ceramic artworks. Her “Serendipity Suite” and “Reality in Translation: Art Transforming Apathy into Action” exhibitions were held at the Banff Centre, and her “Going Beyond the Dehydrated Language of Management” exhibition opened in Montreal in conjunction with the Academy of Management Meeting. Dr. Adler's artwork is held in private collections worldwide.