This research investigates how resistance to change can trigger organizational learning. In order to structure the elusive concept of organizational learning, a framework is proposed that integrates processes of learning and memory at three levels of analysis. The framework identifies learning as cognition at the individual level, communication at the group level, and formalization at the organizational level. The concept of resistance is introduced by delineating its development from a mere nuisance to the change effort towards a more recent functional understanding. Focusing on the diagnostic qualities of resistance, a functional analysis is employed that concentrates on the effects of resistance, namely its potential function as a source of learning. Informed by an analogy to acute pain, the process is then defined as a sequence of resistance, awareness, and organizational learning across three levels of analysis. This process is examined in an empirical case study of a software implementation at the British subsidiary of a global manufacturing company headquartered in Germany. Methods and data used include personal interviews, repertory grids, and project documentation. Results indicate limited resistance at the individual level, confined awareness at the individual and group level, and no organizational learning from this source. Resistance was suppressed due to a prevalent dysfunctional understanding of the concept among project participants and strong contextual factors, such as a success imperative, the inflexibility of the new technology, and a general disinterest in learning and bottom-up feedback. It is concluded that organizational learning by resistance depends on the understanding of resistance and on the culture of learning in the organization. The results suggest that not heeding resistance will have opportunity costs in the long run. The thesis concludes with hypotheses about the relationship between resistance and learning and its contextual influences.

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A review of the learning literature reveals the current lack of a viable theory of how people learn when they encounter change in the workplace. This thesis presents a new model of learning that describes how people learn in response to changes in their environment. The research tracked the learning of twenty-one managers and staff from two organisations implementing change programmes. Participants recorded their learning in monthly diaries whilst interviews were conducted at the beginning and end of the year. Learning as an outcome was defined as any change in behaviour, cognition or emotional orientation towards a cue. Learning outcomes for each participant were identified and the learning process was then tracked through the interviews and monthly diaries. The research identifies four core learning processes that appear in all instances of learning: paying attention, responding emotionally, making sense of 'cues' and taking action. Learning is said to have taken place when these four processes are engaged in such a way as to lead to emotional, behavioural or cognitive change. We then ask the question - what motivates people to engage these processes in ways that lead to learning and change? We noted that learning is both driven and inhibited by four important needs - the desire to achieve important goals, achieve psychological well-being, fulfil personal values and establish self-esteem. Finally, we identify five different learning states, showing how the underlying dynamic driving these processes differs according to the degree of control exercised over the learning process. The research goes on to describe the detailed dynamics that illustrate this theory. We conclude that learning, particularly in response to change, is a far more complex process than many current models suggest. We attempt to encapsulate this complexity in our own learning model and then suggest possible area for future research.

This thesis presents nine studies aiming to identify and explore the managerial behaviours that are associated with employee innovation. The first study adopted an exploratory approach and used Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) and Repertory Grid interviews (Kelly, 1955) to identify 15 managerial behaviours that are associated with innovation. The second study then explored the underlying factor structure of these 15 managerial behaviours, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to identify a four-factor model (n=386). The four factors; Interpersonal Style, Feedback, Role Modelling and Empowerment can, be plotted on two axes: 1) ideas- focused versus global behaviours, and 2) employee-focused versus task-focused behaviours. The subsequent three studies aimed to establish construct validation of this four-factor model. Study 3 examined the four-factor model in relation to two prominent models of leadership: 1) Leader-Member Exchange theory (LMX) and 2) the Full Range Leadership Model. Study 4 explored the four-factor model in relation to the organisational characteristics previously shown to influence innovation. Study 5 examined the associations between the four-factor model and manager personality, using the Big Five model of personality and the Innovation Potential Indicator. Overall the result demonstrated evidence of construct validity. Study 6 and 7 then provided preliminary evidence of criterion-related validation of the four-factor model. The final study then explored how the four managerial behaviour relate to the process of the innovation. The results indicate that managers influence all three phases of the nnovation process; idea generation, idea exploration and development and idea implementation. In the final chapter the overall findings, are discussed outlining the practical and theoretical implications of the research. The results are discussed in relation to the Cognitive Evaluation Theory of motivation, exploring possible ways in which a manager may influence an employee's motivation to innovate.

This thesis explores processes of organisational and culture change as experienced by an external consultant/facilitator. Through a reflexive inquiry into my own experience of how change happens, I have come to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about organisations as 'systems' where change is 'driven' by leadership or project teams. I am suggesting that 'organisations' are people in conversation and that change happens because individuals participate actively in organisational conversations and act courageously into unknown and risky situations. The mainstream systemic perspective on 'organisational culture' is that it is a 'thing' with causal 'power'. I am arguing against this and present a process perspective of organisational culture, where culture is understood as the continuously changing configuration of interweaving themes organising the experience of people who participate in the social processes of being an organisation. Culture change is then changes in organising themes. Change occurs through the actions of individuals with each action having the potential to shift or maintain organising themes. I carefully explored the difference in the kinds of constraints experienced by internalpermanent and external-temporary members of organisations and came to the conclusion that the 'internal' Vexternal' distinction is a false dichotomy. Externals (like internals) are constrained through their interdependence - they are not free to do whatever they want. This leads to a re-consideration of the 'contribution' of an external. I am arguing that externals and internals make a contribution to processes of organisational and cultural change when they participate actively in political processes of inclusion/exclusion. I conclude by suggesting that it might be possible to facilitate cultural and organisational change through processes of persuasion and offer a process perspective on persuasion through sensemaking (as opposed to mainstream perspectives on persuasion that is based on a sender-receiver model of communication). This thesis is the 'result' of a personal journey of change in practice and identity which leads me to argue that change happens through planned, formal, legitimate 'events' as well as through informal everyday activities (doing, thinking and talking). I am arguing that it is important for practitioners to pay attention to their participation in the organisational processes of 'going on together'.

Theatre has gained wider use in organizational change processes, either as Forum Theatre inspired by Boal (1998, [1979] 2000) or as improvisation inspired by Johnstone (1981,1999); and in recent years, a number of authors have reflected upon this when seeking to understand its impact. Some suggest that theatre is a kind of laboratory where change takes place beside and after the work with theatre. Others, such as postmodernists, see theatre as a forum for revealing the oppression that can exist within organizations. This thesis takes another direction. Forum Theatre has been an inspiration; but, based on my experience of working with theatre improvisation as processes for organizational change, I have come to negate Boal's understanding of Forum Theatre as Theatre of the Oppressed. Instead I see conflicts between people in the organization as key. I argue for a link between theatre improvisation and understanding human interaction as complex responsive processes, and I come to see organizations and organizational change as temporal and constantly recreated through local interactions among people, where power relations, seen as dependency, are essential. The processes of relating involve responding to each other in recognisable and yet surprising ways, that is, with spontaneity. Spontaneity can be recognized as liveliness: one finds oneself in spontaneous activity when one becomes unsure of the response the other will take to one's gesture. Daring to be spontaneous is essentially risky because it challenges power relations, which themselves are maintained only by continuously responding to each other in ways that are mutually expected. Working with theatre improvisation is seen as paradoxically fictitious and real at the same time, because the actor's supposedly fictitious work is constantly met by a real response from the audience - real in the sense that people react from their own experience. By experiencing this together, power relations are immediately changing - not as a result of the work, but as a part of it. Theatre improvisation serves as an invitation to spontaneity, an invitation to be aware of changes in each other's reaction. The apparently fictitious character of the work makes it appear safe to do so.

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Orientadora : Profª. Drª. Mariane Lemos Lourenço / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração. Defesa: Curitiba, 11/04/2016 / Inclui referências : f.86-94 / Resumo: A valorização do conhecimento tácito, a compreensão das dimensões intersubjetivas e as abordagens contemporâneas da gestão de pessoas nas organizações são perspectivas que reforçam a importância da retenção dos indivíduos nas empresas. Contudo, e se a questão não for a retenção, mas as condições para que as pessoas escolham ficar? Disto surgiu o interesse em compreender como a cultura organizacional, mediante a identificação dos indivíduos com as organizações, abriga condições capazes de despertar o desejo de sua permanência em determinado contexto organizacional. Para tanto, se utilizou como estratégia de pesquisa o estudo de casos múltiplo, mediante entrevistas e análise documental, com corte temporal transversal e aproximação longitudinal. As análises em cinco organizações mostraram que a identificação das pessoas com os traços culturais da organização parece ser fator decisivo para que elas queiram permanecer na empresa. Porém, não existe fórmula prescritiva uma vez que a influência se dá pela identificação dos indivíduos com os elementos da cultura, construída na dimensão intersubjetiva. Palavras chave: cultura organizacional, identificação, retenção de pessoas, desejo de permanecer / Abstract: The appreciation of the tacit knowledge, understanding inter-subjective dimensions and contemporary approaches to the management of people in organizations are perspectives that reinforce the importance of retention of individuals in enterprises. However, what if the issue is not retention, but the conditions for people to choose to stay? This became interested in understanding how organizational culture by identifying individuals, housing conditions capable of awakening the desire for permanence of people in a particular organizational context. Therefore, it uses as a research strategy the study of multiple cases, through structured interviews and documentary analysis, crosstemporal cutting and longitudinal approach. The analyzes in five companies showed that the identification of people with the organization of cultural characteristics seem to be decisive factor for them to want to stay in the company. However, there is no prescriptive formula once the influence is by identifying individuals with the elements of culture, built on the subjective dimension. Keywords: organizational culture, identification, retention of people, desire to stay