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Organisation concepts consist of prescriptive ideas concerning how to manage or organise. The simultaneous use of multiple concepts in an organisation may create synergies but also confusion and conflicts. This paper aims to explore how change agents deal with the simultaneous use of multiple organisation concepts within a single organisation.

A qualitative case study of a Norwegian energy company using lean, agile and design thinking.

The findings show that change agents compare the concepts with each other and recognise commonalities and differences. They also match individual concepts and tools to the nature of tasks, the different phases of projects/initiatives based on their perceived maturity or internal communities. Most agents emphasise similarities between concepts and complementarities between tools. This approach creates a versatile toolbox for improvement.

Companies making use of multiple organisation concepts should continuously discuss and actively manage the tensions that exist between concepts while establishing a unified approach and common culture for improvement.

This study offers a novel understanding of how change agents make sense of different approaches to improvement within a single organisation.

By exploring the process of concept revitalization, this paper contributes to a better understanding of the intraorganizational retention of organization concepts. Concept revitalization occurs when an organization refocuses attention and resources toward a previously adopted organization concept. This paper investigates why and how organization concepts are revitalized.

The findings are based on a case study of a Norwegian energy company's revitalization of the organization concept “lean”, whose initial implementation had been unsuccessful. The data were analyzed inductively by identifying how the concept was reframed during the second attempt and how the revitalization was justified.

In the case company, the revitalization was driven by (1) replacing the original label, (2) maintaining the original content in a slightly modified form and (3) altering the implementation mode. The changes were supported by a narrative of past shortcomings, lessons learned and a plan for future success, authored by internal experts in lean with a strong interest in ensuring positive results.

Concept revitalization implies that there is more continuity in the application of ideas than is suggested in the literature on management fashions.

So far, the retention of organization concepts has only been studied at the field level. This study is the first to offer an empirically grounded understanding of intraorganizational concept revitalization.

This study aims to emphasize the importance of taking into account the perspectives of prospective participants and identifying potential tensions in action research.

This paper reflects on a (participatory) action research (AR) project in which the first author was involved as an embedded researcher. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, field notes and observed project activities. The authors conducted a thematic analysis.

This paper thematically categorized four types of tensions between both groups. These were tensions connected to: internal facilitators giving guidance, project goals, top-down expectations and unfamiliarity with AR working formats.

Quintessential to AR is giving the less privileged a voice. For this to work, gaining a good understanding of their perspectives is crucial.

This paper challenges the implicit assumption that prospective participants of AR projects are always willing to participate.