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, engagement, culture, networks, artifacts and formal arrangements, risk, failure, innovation
• 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
  • 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 2026:

• Farjoun, M. (2010). Beyond Dualism: Stability and Change As a Duality. Academy of Management Review, 35(2), 202–225. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.35.2.zok202
• Courpasson, D. (2000). Managerial Strategies of Domination. Power in Soft Bureaucracies. Organization Studies, 21(1), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840600211001
• 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
• Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. (Cover story). Harvard Business Review, 73(2), 59–67.
• 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
• Follett, M. P. (1925). Constructive conflict. In H. C. Metcalf & L. F. Urwick (Éds.), Dynamic Administration : The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett (p. 1‑22). Harper & Brothers.
• Brockner, J. (2006). Why it’s so hard to be fair. Harvard Business Review, 84(3), 122‑129.
• Akrich, M., Callon, M., Latour, B., & Monaghan, A. (2002a). The Key to Success in Innovation Part I: The Art of Interessement. International Journal of Innovation Management, 6(2), 187–206. https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919602000550
• Akrich, M., Callon, M., Latour, B., & Monaghan, A. (2002b). The Key to Success in Innovation Part II: The Art of Choosing Good Spokespersons. International Journal of Innovation Management, 6(2), 207–225. https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919602000562
• 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, 14(3), 743–766. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-01-2020-0020
• 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
• Beaton, E. E., DeJordy, R., & Foster, P. (2021). The Lived Experience of Managerialization : Understanding Values Conflict in Non-profits through a Pragmatic Institutionalism. Journal of Management Studies, 58(6), 1471‑1506. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12661
• 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

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Continuous assessment
• Oral examination
• Oral presentation
• Other

Continuous assessment

Oral examination

• Out-of-session examination

Oral presentation

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 (20%)

– Consulting briefing roleplay (40%)

The teacher reserves the right to summon any student to a supplementary oral interview in order to verify their personal mastery of the content of submitted written material.

Language(s) of evaluation

• english