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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.

Residents of South Florida have been living with the effects of climate change in the form of flooding due, in part, to sea level rise, for more than a decade. However, previous research has characterized news coverage of climate change impacts as concerning distant events in terms of time and place. In this study, we look at coverage of climate change at The Miami Herald from 2011-2015, a time period significant in terms of increased temperatures and flooding levels on city streets. Through a content analysis of 167 articles, this study argues that news coverage of climate change in The Miami Herald was largely pragmatic, linked to a news peg, locally focused and presented via opinion pieces rather than news articles. Furthermore, Miami Herald coverage links distant hypotheses of climate change with local realities, invokes a network of editorial responses, and emphasizes local impacts, particularly in more affluent areas. Findings from this study contribute to understanding how news coverage of climate change as a local story may provide a useful model for engaging the public in adapting to and mitigating against the impact of climate change, and creating social acceptance of climate change policy.

Artifacts are rarely used today to visualize thoughts, insights, and ideas in strategy work. Rather, textual and verbal communication dominates. This is despite artifacts and visual representations holding many advantages as tools to create and make sense of strategy in teamwork. To advance our understanding of the benefits of visual aids in strategy work, I synthesize insights from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and management research. My analysis exposes distinct neurocognitive advantages concerning attention, emotion, learning, memory, intuition, and creativity from visual sense-building. These advantages increase when sense-building activities are playful and storytelling is used.

President John F. Kennedy navigated through the Cuban missile crisis with the help of his advisers in the so-called ExComm. While ExComm attendance was very stable and its goal, the removal of the missiles, clear, true to the garbage can model the options available were socially constructed and were ambiguously related to the objective they purportedly served. An analysis of the recorded discussions reveals that Kennedy's choice of a blockade required the ExComm to suppress talk about the perils it entailed; his decision not to intercept a Soviet tanker was based less on caution than unsustainable indecision; and when Kennedy squared off against his advisers regarding the best way to respond to Khrushchev's conflicting offers on October 26 and 27, the latter worked to exclude him from the very decision he was about to make. The analysis points to a natural affinity between the garbage can model and ethnomethodological attention to the fine-grained details of deliberative talk.

This chapter seeks to identify the challenges faced by virtual teams and offers solutions to meet those challenges. Basic underlining concepts behind virtual teams are provided along with the most popular forms of virtual teams. Organizational, crowdsourcing, and peer production/online communities are the most common forms of virtual teams. Understanding these basic concepts will help HRD and HRM professionals to develop virtual teams that are suitable for middle- and low-skilled workers. The chapter also presents the various types of communication technologies used in virtual along with the pros and cons associated with each type.