5 - Bottom up radical change Flashcards
Lecture 6 Plowman et al. Kellogg 2011
4 types of change grid:
- pace
- scope
Pace: Continuous and episodic
Scope: Radical and convergent/incremental
4 types change grid: Incremental continuous change
- Driver of change
- Form of change
- Nature of change
- Systems used
- Type of connections
- Driver: minor system instability
- Form: small adaptation in existing frame
- Nature: emergent and local as members improvise/learn
- Systems: possitive feedback to encourage deviations and adaptations
- connections: loose coupling, prevents local adaptations from amplifying
4 types change grid: Incremental episodic change
- Driver of change
- Form of change
- Nature of change
- Systems used
- Type of connections
- Driver: Minor inertia
- Form: Minor replacement within the existing frame
- Nature: Intended and local
- Systems: Negative feedback highlights the need for change
- connections: loose coupling, requires local minor replacements
4 types change grid: radical continuous change
- Driver of change
- Form of change
- Nature of change
- Systems used
- Type of connections
- Driver: major system instability
- Form: pattern of adaptations that is frame bending
- Nature: emergent and system wide, addaptations accumulate into patterns
- Systems: Possitive and negative feedback, pull the system towards bounded instability
- connections: tight coupling, enables local adaptation to become radical change
4 types change grid: radical episodic change
- Driver of change
- Form of change
- Nature of change
- Systems used
- Type of connections
- Driver: Major inertia
- Form: Dramatic replacement that is frame bending
- Nature: Intended & system wide
- Systems: Negative feedback to highlight need for major change
- connections: tight coupling, requires system wide radical replacement
Bottom up continuous radical change
- How does it usually occur
small adaptations accumulate and a frame‐bending pattern of organizing emerges
Why does bottom up change often fail
Problem of collective action:
- Many collectives who share an interest fail to act on it
- Unclear what conditions or processes gets people to act
Bottomup initiative fail due to
- coordination issues
- relational (intra/inter group) conflicts
Bottom up organizational change agents often lack
- shared goal
- Shared coordination mechanisms
- Shared ways of working (practices / routines)
- Shared conflict resolution mechanisms
Leads to failure in mobilizing critical mass of groups needed for radical change
Plowman et al. - Can continuous change be radical?
- How?
Yes, radical change can be the result of small micro level changes that occur over time.
This can happen Through the interaction of amplifiers, contextual conditions, and small changes
Plowman et al. - Amplifiers
Amplifying actions are accelerating the systems’ movement toward radical the change
Amplifiers
- Resources
- Language
- Symbols
- Organizational conditions
- Small changes
Possitive feedback
- what does it do
- what does it lead to
- Amplification of deviation
- Instead of control
- Leads to new cognitive frameworks for interpreting goals, issues, or objects in general
Cultural toolkit
- What is it
- How is it used
- Shared values & believes, language, symbols, (whatever connects people)
- Change agents draw upon the cultural toolkit to mobilize people for change processes
Kellog - Cultural toolkit
- Composed of
- How to get it
- Used for
Cultural toolkit:
- composed of symbolic elements such as frames, identities and tactics
- can be brought into organizations from other settings by any organization member
- used to develop strategies of action in particular situations
Kellog - Cultural toolkit
- kinds of cultural tools
Injustice frame
- Arguments that allow less powerful members to define traditional practices as questionable or wrong.
- Diagnose the existing situation as unfair, identify particular groups responsible, and depict the problem as amenable to change through collective action
Alternative identity
- Enables members of a class to see themselves as part of a group that is disadvantaged by the existing social system.
- e.g. reformers that are identified as “troublemakers” can be recast their identity as “concerned citizens”
Contentious tactics repetoire
- A collection of practices that the less powerful inside organizations can draw from to challenge the status quo and its defenders.
- Often created by an external social movement
Kellog - Political tools
- Tools composed of materialistic elements (accountability systems, staffing systems, evaluation systems, etc.)
- Depend on formal authority of more powerful organization members for their introduction into particular organizations.
Kellog - differences political & cultural toolkit
Differences in effect on less powerful organization members
(Them = less powerful organization members)
Cultural tools
- allow them to reinterpret practices that disadvantage them as unfair, political tools
- enable less powerful members to develop a “we” feeling with other reformers
- provide them with a repertoire of contentious tactics,
Political tools
- allow them to feel optimistic that others will help them effect change.
- allow them to coordinate their change efforts.
- afford them a sense of security that they can battle defenders of the status quo without ruining their careers.
