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Third‐order change in organizations refers to attempts to help organizational members to transcend their shared schemata. It has not previously been explored in depth. Uses mystical experience as a model of how the third‐order change process may occur. Discusses several characteristics of mystical experience, focusing in particular on the central characteristic of transconceptual understanding. Presents an example of Teresa of Avila, a Spanish woman from the sixteenth century whose mystical life was reflected in her organizing activities. Suggests how mystical experience can inform understanding of the third‐order organizational change process and presents a preliminary model of ways in which the third‐order change capacity might be developed.

This study explores the relationship between age and job satisfaction among Kuwaiti women employees in the Kuwaiti public government sector. The analysis is focused on the responses of the female employees to their own jobs as indicated by their level of job satisfaction. This study differs from previous investigations of job satisfaction in two principle ways: in dealing with the public sector (rather than the more common private in studies of the Middle East), in taking into account demographic variable such as age. The major findings of this research indicate that a much broader approach towards increasing satisfaction than focusing on the job itself is required.

As a result of the recent changes in world politics, especially in Eastern Europe (and between the United States and the Soviet Union), there has been a re‐evaluation of the United States military forces. There is a movement to develop a variety of ways to trim the numbers of those in the active duty military. At the same time, there is a recognised need to offer assistance to those departing the military and to enable them to make a smooth transition into the civilian world of work. Although the research reported here was conducted over two years ago and focused on those retiring from the military, the issues raised may be more relevant today.

We explore how scholarly understandings of and the practice of organizational transformation have evolved since Bartunek and Louis’s (1988) Research in Organizational Change and Development chapter. While Bartunek and Louis hoped to see strategy scholarship and OD approaches to transformation inform each other, strategy literature has drifted away from transformation toward more continuous change. OD practice has focused on the implementation of its own versions of transformation through Large Group Interventions, Appreciative Inquiry, the new dialogic OD, and Theory U. Based on a discussion of Theory U, we call attention to the importance of individuals as an important source of new ideas in understanding and practicing large-scale change.

Despite the breadth of knowledge on self and identity formation across the study of organizations, the field of organizational development and change has limited research on the construction of professional identity. Much has been written to describe the “self-concepts” of those practicing and researching in the field, but there have been no investigations that have explored how these “self-concepts” form. In addition, although women have contributed to defining the “self” in the field, men have held the dominant perspective on the subject. Thus, in this chapter, we address a disparity in the research by exploring the construction of professional identity in the field of organizational development and change, and we give voice to the renowned women who helped to build the field. Using the profiles of 17 American women included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, we perform a narrative analysis based upon the concepts and models prevalent in the literature on identity formation. By disentangling professional identity formation of the notable women in the field, we can begin to see the nuance and particularities involved in its construction and gain deeper understandings about effective ways to prepare individuals to work in and advance the field.

In a country that has experienced over 15 years of politically driven change, the New Zealand Police Service (NZP) is now in the midst of an ambitious change programme called Policing 2000 (P2). Challenging traditional policing assumptions, P2 is a total quality management (TQM) approach that seeks alignment with an increasingly service orientated public by utilising state‐of‐the‐art technology and strategic management practices more akin to the private sector. Reports on an exploratory case study that investigated individual anticipatory reactions to organisational change. The findings provide insights into the factors necessary for the implementation of a discontinuous change programme; namely alignment of vision, culture and implementation.

This paper develops and tests a descriptive model of management accounting system choice through an empirical analysis of the adoption of innovative cost accounting systems in not-for-profit hospitals. The logistic regression analysis indicates that management accounting system design is impacted by organi zational objectives, technological complexity, and other features of the organizational control system. Descriptive statistics indicate limited use of management accounting techniques common in manufacturing firms, such as standard costing and variance analysis. A cross-lagged model suggests that implementation of an innovative management accounting system may be causally linked to decreasing operating costs.

Performance programs, games, rituals and story telling are looked at as part of the performance of organization. Some leaders in these methods are gifted performers, and they are able to pass on the plots of these themes to succeeding generations of employees.