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This chapter revisits social space and field theory, constructs foundational to the work of Kurt Lewin but largely abandoned by his followers. It describes the “mystification” surrounding these concepts in the work of Lewin and the sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. It then attempts to demystify social space and field theory by looking at their roots in the idea of “relational thinking” – an idea set forth by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who had a powerful influence on both Lewin and Bourdieu. Finally, it suggests how these concepts can generate innovative thinking about organizational change and development.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the development of planned organisational change models (POCMs) since Lewin’s three-step model and to highlight key linkages between them.

A total of 13 commonly used POCMs were identified and connections with Lewin’s three-step framework and associated process attributes were made, reflecting the connections between these models and Lewin.

The findings show that first Lewin’s three-step model represents a framework for planned change; however, these steps could not be viewed in isolation of other interrelated processes, including action research, group dynamics, and force field analysis. These process steps underpin the iterative aspects of his model. Second, all 13 POCMs have clearly identified linkages to Lewin, suggesting that the ongoing development of POCMs is more of an exercise in developing ongoing procedural steps to support change within the existing framework of the three-step model.

The authors recognise that the inclusion of additional POCMs would help strengthen linkages to Lewin. The findings from this paper refocus attention on the three-step model, suggesting its ongoing centrality in planned organisational change rather than it being dismissed as an historical approach from which more recently developed models have become more relevant.

This paper presents opportunities for organisational change management researchers to challenge their thinking with regard to the ongoing search for model refinement, and for practitioners in the design and structure of POCM.

An analysis of the ongoing relevance of Lewin and his linkage with modern POCMs assist in rationalising the broadening, and often confusing literature on change. This paper therefore not only contributes to filtering such literature, but also helps clarify the myriad of POCMs and their use.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model concerning family business participation. The model can both be used to explain why somebody chooses to become a family business member and how family entrepreneurs act inside their firms. In this paper the author will present a holistic, socio-cultural and constructivist model concerning entrepreneurship behaviour.

The model is based on field theory or the perceptions of human behaviour presented by Kurt Lewin. However, the model is expanded to include modern system theories and family business aspects. The author sees family business participation as an emerging behaviour in a complex social system. The central concept or construct, to help the author understand this emerging behaviour, is the psychological life space of the individual. It is not only family that affects the life space. This life space is affected by the current life situation, the past activities as well as the potential aspirations or “dreams” about the future.

A holistic, socio-cultural and constructivistic model is developed. It starts from the notion of a “psychological life space” construct, suggested by Kurt Lewin. The author has developed the concepts further, thereby expanding the area concerning entrepreneurship and modern theories of human behaviour by adding environment and culture to the model. The temporal dimension can be divided into three parts: i.e. the past (experience), the present (real-time) and the future (aspirations). All actions and changes happen in the present, although they are affected by the past and the aspirations for the future. These three parts will continually affect the individual's decision making. In other words the life space is never static, but constantly changing over time Thus, an individual's choice to enter, expand or exit a family business can be explained by the complex relationship between realistic and unrealistic views of the past, present and the future.

It is only a model. However, it can cast new light on the understanding of how family businesses work and could transfer knowledge to the next generation of the family business.

A better understanding of the development of the complex behavioural patterns and factors behind entrepreneurial family formation is given. This enables the author to design methods to explore and analyse individual life spaces. If the author would have such methods, the author might be able to see how and why individuals’ behaviour becomes family entrepreneurially oriented, thereby giving use effective ways and new instruments to support growth and stability in our society.

The field theory, or as it has also been named, topological psychology, has been more or less forgotten for a long time, or overshadowed by other theories of human behaviour. However, according to Martin Gold (1999), Lewin has in recent years again become one of the most frequently quoted social researchers. The paper contributes in this process by applying it to a family business context.

Purpose – To discuss how coevolutionary framework is useful to research emerging and evolving phenomena, such as global sourcing of business services, where West meets East.

Approach – The authors first introduce the phenomenon of global sourcing of business services and then review extant literature on coevolutionary research.

Findings – The authors discuss how global sourcing is a coevolutionary and multilevel phenomenon, which can be better understood by identifying micro and macro factors (task, firm, industry, and country), demand and supply (clients and service providers), technological and institutional factors (Information and Communication Technology (ICT), digitization, demographic trends, national and regional policies).

Research implications – The authors identify the main mechanisms, research questions, and methodological issues that underlie coevolutionary analysis.

Originality/Value – The main contribution of this chapter is twofold: provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of global sourcing of business services, and assert that in coevolutionary research the role of mechanisms affecting a phenomenon may change over time.

Industrial relations, organizational behavior, and human resource management scholars have studied numerous aspects of internal workplace conflict resolution, ranging from the design of conflict resolution systems to the processes used for resolving conflicts to the outcomes of the systems. Scholars from these specialties, however, have paid considerably less attention to external workplace conflict resolution through litigation. This chapter analyzes certain areas of such litigation, focusing specifically on workplace conflicts involving issues of managerial and employee misclassification, independent contractor versus employee status, no-poaching agreements, and executive compensation.

Leading recent cases involving these issues are examined, with particular attention given to the question of whether the conflicts reflected therein could have been resolved internally or through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods rather than through litigation.

Implications of this analysis are drawn for workplace conflict resolution theory and practice. In doing so, I conclude that misclassification disputes could likely be resolved internally or through ADR rather than through litigation, but that no-poaching and executive compensation disputes could very likely not be resolved internally or through ADR.

The chapter draws on and offers an integrated analysis of particular types of workplace conflict that are typically treated separately by scholars and practitioners. These include misclassification conflicts, no poaching and labor market competition conflicts, and executive compensation conflicts. The originality and value of this chapter are to show that despite their different contexts and particular issues, the attempted resolution through litigation of these types of workplace conflicts has certain common, systematic characteristics.

Organization development is often mourned as stagnant or perhaps dead, but most of these declarations seem to be insular, being supported primarily by anecdotal or survey research among organization development scholars and practitioners. This exploratory study seeks a more objective understanding of the state of organization development by examining big data from the social media platform Twitter. Drawn from over 5.7 million tweets extracted through Twitter's Application Program Interface (API) during 2 months in 2018, this research approaches the state of organization development through a quantitative, abductive study utilizing social network analyses. Organization development is examined through its characteristics as a social network on Twitter and how it relates to and interacts with other familial networks from management and organization studies. Findings show that organization development is relatively inactive as a social network on Twitter, as compared to other familial networks, and the relationships between the organization development network and these familial networks tend to be ones of inequality. Organization development references familial networks much more than any of the familial networks reference organization development. This inequality in social media presence is particularly surprising since several of these familial networks were founded from the field and principles of organization development. We locate organization development's generalist status, as compared to familial networks' specialist status, as generating this interaction disparity drawing on recent research that suggests specialized fields fare better in times of rapid change compared to generalist fields. We discuss the potential for greater specialization of organization development with a reemphasis on its process philosophy and focus.

The purpose of this paper is to consider one inaccuracy in the written record of our discipline. That is, how the aphorism “There is nothing as practical as a good theory” came to be regarded as Kurt Lewin’s signature saying.

Primary and secondary sources were used in the research.

By tracing the history of the above-captioned aphorism back through its use by the General Electric Company in the 1920s to Friedrich W. Dörpfeld’s 1873 book Grundlinien einer Theorie des Lehrplans, zunächst der Volks- und Mittelschule, it can confidently be concluded that it did not originate with Lewin.

Those who study history soon become aware that inaccuracies in the written record are commonplace. Indeed, assuring historical accuracy has been a challenge confronted by historians for centuries.

The widespread acceptance of Lewin as the originator of the referenced aphorism underscores the observation that received knowledge is often wrong. It also provides one more illustration that, whatever their origin, once errors of attribution appear in print, they become diffused and amplified, taking on a life of their own as they are transmitted from generation to generation.

Many have suggested that over the last 25 years or so the debate over organisational change has been dominated by the issue of power and politics in the form of an approach consistent with a free‐market spirit. For too long, power and politics have influenced strategic decisions and “top down” management has been the dominant paradigm. However, the author's work with Toshiba has led to the conclusion that the principles of social responsibility and ethical change, as championed by Kurt Lewin and John Dewey, are emerging as a more amenable and desirable approach to change and appear to be embraced by many in the workforce. Many US observers have argued that such events as the bankruptcy of Enron and the indictment of senior executives from this company and others, as well as the recent events in the UK concerning a perceived lack of financial probity in the banking and political milieux, have shown that a disregard for ethics in decision making can have deleterious consequences for business and society. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the increasing sensitivity to issues of social responsibility, ethical behaviour and democratic ideas and ideals.

A case study is presented using Diploma students from Toshibatec in partnership with Middlesex University to illustrate this increasing sensitivity.

The author contends that Lewin's and Dewey's beliefs are indeed still alive and relevant and that these students are embracing such ideas in their push for organisational change at Toshiba.

The originality of the case study is that, to the best of the author's knowledge, no research has been undertaken either by this company or on this company before. The paper's findings will be interesting for the company and perhaps for working practice to be disseminated to other companies looking to make deep and lasting changes.

How can we foster entrepreneurship? This was one of the basic questions to ask when we, like many others, started to consider different approaches concerning how to motivate students to become interested in entrepreneurship. We soon became puzzled by the theoretical approaches to entrepreneurship. Something seemed to be lacking, for example, the important question of how should one educate entrepreneurs? However, as noticed by Landström (2000) and Sundnäs, Kjellam and Eriksson (2002), it is through the expansion of the theoretical roots of entrepreneurship, i.e. from the economic, behavioural and business studies to multidisciplinary research, that the picture becomes more understandable, albeit more complex.

Rivers have played a defining role in the global development of human societies and culture. This will undoubtedly continue in the twenty-first century with a growing demand for water, increasing pollution of river channel and floodplain environments, and anthropogenic global warming-related changes in the frequency of floods and droughts. These will have major environmental and societal impacts worldwide. We consider how rivers initially shaped societies, and then how urbanisation, industrialisation and intensified agriculture have more recently transformed river systems, so compromising planetary health and human ways of life. So where do we go from here? Humanity now faces an existential environmental catastrophe of its own making, and it will be on the world's most densely populated floodplains where this crisis will be played out. We highlight likely areas facing the greatest challenges. Ironically, many of these are where ancient civilisations began. Interdisciplinary catchment-based approaches, and new technologies such as those based on satellite imagery and unmanned aerial vehicles, are now beginning to address pressing societal and planetary problems in the unfolding climate crisis.