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This chapter presents trailing research (TR) as an approach for studying organization change in real time. I argue that TR can contribute in bridging the practitioner-scholar divide as well as generating methodologically rigorous, theoretically strong, and practically relevant research. I contrast the method with more traditional ways of researching change, such as positivistic research and action research and discuss various phases of the research process by drawing on my own experience with TR. While the objectives of the research are more similar to action research, the role of the researcher differs from both action research and positivistic research.

Changes in the traditional values, institutional context, and choice of change programs are currently shaping the postmodern science and practice of organization development (OD). These changes manifest themselves in powerful new value orientations, intervention frameworks, and practices that challenge OD's long-held beliefs in ethical and justice-based treatment. In this effort, traditional and new paradigm ethical dilemmas are explored, as well as their relationship to four postmodern practices and five emergent intervention techniques. Components of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice are explained relative to change management programs generally, and to emergent techniques specifically. Published case illustrations are used to depict new paradigm ethical dilemmas and opportunities to create a “just 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.

Since 1973, the pharmacy operations division of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program (KPMCP) has used long-term action research programs as the principal method for orchestrating change. This chapter covers the evolution of action research theory within large, complex organizations, with particular attention to health care organizations. Four case examples from KPMCP are discussed in depth and mapped to the recently advanced Roth model of insider action research. This model considers external and internal business context, the perceived need to create new organizational capabilities, as well as insider action research theory and learning mechanisms used in change programs. Issues posed by the Roth model are explored, and new theory is advanced regarding the need for a long-term perspective, the advantages and difficulties posed when managers act as insider action researchers, and the quality of data gathering that takes place during insider action research change programs.

This is a qualitative study of eight merged organizations. They consist of a unique sector, namely Catholic men's religious provinces. The study attempts to determine characteristics of successful mergers by understanding the processes and dynamics of mergers when membership needs to be involved and in some cases give approval of the merger. Regardless of the initiation of the merger or the processes utilized it appears that three factors and one result bring about success. A clear mission-driven purpose, authentic leadership, and inclusive engagement are essential elements of any process. They set the path for building trust among members and organizations, which may result in organizational renewal.

This chapter presents a case study of building TU/e innovation Space, a unique learning hub for developing, sustaining, and disseminating research-informed challenge-based learning (CBL) practices at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). This learning hub for education innovation fosters the collaboration between students, industry, research, and societal organizations and drives the continued development of the CBL approach at TU/e. The chapter presents insights from the development of CBL at TU/e innovation Space, drawn from postcourse evaluation surveys of two flagship courses, the innovation Space Bachelor End Project (ISBEP; third year bachelor level) and the innovation Space Project (ISP; master's course level). Analysis of the data shows that students generally rated the courses highly. As the main motivation to choose these courses, students cited the desire to do something else than their own major, aiming for interdisciplinarity and breadth of knowledge, and wanting to do something real-life or business-like. Students also liked the ability to choose their own project, but in some cases, struggled with the structure of the assessment. We also briefly describe academics' perspective on running CBL courses at the hub and present additional activities related to the full learning ecosystem of the hub. Finally, we describe some of the future directions in terms of CBL research and educational developments at the hub.

Action learning is a term that is used with a wide range of meanings: from an equivalent term for experiential learning to a philosophy of learning. This chapter takes the latter position and focuses on action learning as a scholarly activity. The chapter has two main sections. In the first part the breadth and depth of action learning is introduced: its variations and applications are discussed. The second part explores how action learning is at the cutting edge of engaging practitioners in real change and at the development of scholar–practitioners and actionable knowledge of how organizations change, how it offers a modality of an action-oriented approach to inquiry that accords with contemporary paradigms of useful and relevant research, its contribution to organization and management theory comes through how critical action learning engages with issues of power and social relations and through its critique of management education.

Change is integral to the concept of development. Research in the development process is therefore implicitly, if not explicitly, directed to achieving change. What is important is how far development researchers see themselves as agents of change. In some cases they are helped by methodologies such as action research and participatory action research (PAR) that have change as integral to the research design. However for qualitative research methods in general there is no necessary connection with change. In fact, for many qualitative methods the aim of the researcher is to have as little impact on the research process and the people being researched as possible. In much ethnographic work, the research scene is to be represented in as “natural” a way as possible. This is very different from the development context where a process of change is assumed to be ongoing, or is encouraged to be so. The role of the researcher in relation to change has become even more marked with the advent of more participatory approaches to development. Research participants are no longer seen as passive objects of research but as active agents in creating their own knowledge and action.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.