Organizational Change

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 5
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Kevin Cheng
• Assessment: a 2000-word essay (100%)

In this module we introduce you to different perspectives about change in organisations, encouraging you to recognise the social context of work. This will help you to apply knowledge about human attitudes, interactions and group processes to the understanding of organisational change. We also introduce you to the range of ways that culture, social constructionism and psychological processes may influence organisational change, and encourage you to critically analyse change programmes through evaluation and considerations about ethics.

Indicative syllabus

• Organisational change: introduction
• Strategy and strategic change: the practice turn
• Organisational development and change
• Organisational culture and change 
• Power and the politics of organisational change
• Leadership and organisational change
• The process perspective on organisational change 
• Postmodern perspectives: discourse, organising and sensemaking
• Human resource management and agility

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand the importance of different conceptions of organisations
• comprehend the key theories of organisational change and development (e.g. culture and social constructionism theories)
• critically discuss a range of workplace change interventions
• identify influences on selecting change methods
• understand ways in which the external environment may influence change
• examine evidence of the impact of organisational change on individual employees
• consider the influence of the change agent in organisation development and change
• understand the importance and some of the challenges of evaluating organisational change
• demonstrate awareness of some of the difficulties in organisational change interventions.