Managing organizational innovation and change

• Introduction: organizational change
• Basics of visual communication
• Change management gone wrong: Domination and harassment - France Telecom case
• Planned change, resistance, power and influence
• Conflict, negotiation and co-operation
• Networks and innovation
• Cultural dynamics
• Participative governance
• Designing organizations, changing things: artefacts and formal processes
• Errors, crisis and resilience

• Make you understand and reflect about the core themes of organizational change: Power, resistance, culture, networks, artifacts and formal arrangements, risk, failure, innovation, engagement
• Find relevant and effective ways of thinking about practical management situations
• Enable you to keep going when check-lists and recipes fail: Balance critical thinking and pragmatic knowledge
• Empower you to appropriate knowledge and skills

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

Organizational behaviour or leadership courses are a useful complement.

Reading and discussion of research articles and professional literature on the topic; interaction and negotiation process integrated in the course to experience listening and accommodation skills; presentation of cases and simulations by student teams; presentation and debates with invited executives. Both teacher and students will be put in an active role:

• Engage and empower fellow students through interactive teaching activities
• Focus on things we do together that you can’t do (better) alone:
  • A safe container for experimenting and learning – Work your soft skills
  • Discuss and debate, Speak and listen, Express and sense
  • Getting reactions and feedback, including informal / non-verbal
• Innovate in our ways of communicating:
  • Visual, diagrammatic, systemic
  • Physical interaction (remote?)
  • Interaction, experimentation and engagement

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

There is no required textbook, but students can refer to Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2024). Making Sense of Change Management (6th Edition). Kogan Page.
References will be made available through the university library. As an example, here are the core references used in 2025:

• Ancona, D., Malone, T. W., Orlikowski, W. J., & Senge, P. M. (2007). In praise of the incomplete leader. Harvard Business Review, 85(2), 92–100.
• Beaton, E. E., DeJordy, R., & Foster, P. (forthcoming). The Lived Experience of Managerialization: Understanding Values Conflict in Non-profits through a Pragmatic Institutionalism. Journal of Management Studies, n/a(n/a). https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12661
• Courpasson, D. (2000). Managerial Strategies of Domination. Power in Soft Bureaucracies. Organization Studies, 21(1), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840600211001
• Follett, M. P. (1925). Constructive conflict. In H. C. Metcalf & L. F. Urwick (Eds.), Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett (pp. 1–22). Harper & Brothers.
• Hatch, M. J. (1993). The Dynamics of Organizational Culture. The Academy of Management Review, 18(4), 657–693. https://doi.org/10.2307/258594
• Jemine, G., Pichault, F., & Dubois, C. (2020). The politics behind design projects: When space, organization, and technology collide. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-01-2020-0020
• Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. (Cover story). Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59–67.
• Lee, M. Y., & Edmondson, A. C. (2017). Self-managing organizations: Exploring the limits of less-hierarchical organizing. Research in Organizational Behavior, 37, 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2017.10.002 
• Perry-Smith, J. E., & Mannucci, P. V. (2017). From Creativity to Innovation: The Social Network Drivers of the Four Phases of the Idea Journey. Academy of Management Review, 42(1), 53–79. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2014.0462
• Pina e Cunha, M., Clegg, S., & Rego, A. (2013). Lessons for leaders: Positive organization studies meets Niccolò Machiavelli. Leadership, 9(4), 450–465. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715012455355
• Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1977). Who gets power — and how they hold on to it: A strategic-contingency model of power. Organizational Dynamics, 5(3), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/0090-2616(77)90028-6
• Thomas, R., & Hardy, C. (2011). Reframing resistance to organizational change. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 27(3), 322–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2011.05.004
• Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On Organizational Becoming: Rethinking Organizational Change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567–582. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.13.5.567.7810
• Uzzi, B., & Dunlap, S. (2005). How to build your network. Harvard Business Review, 83(12), 53.

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Oral presentation
• Group work
• Other

Oral presentation

Group work

Other

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

• Attendance and participation (10%)
• Group presentation in class (case or theory: 30%)
• Rich picture of practitioners’ testimonies (30%)
• Consulting briefing roleplay (30%)

Language(s) of evaluation

• english