As leaders must increasingly find ways to include and engage others in a power-with approach to competently meet today’s complex challenges, the problem occurs when they find themselves stuck within pre-existing systems structured for exclusion and power-over others. These conventional structures are a source of systemic conflict. This participatory action research/cooperative inquiry case study focuses on the topic of leading organizational change collaboratively in the space between formal hierarchical structures and informal human dynamics using a qualitative methodology. The purpose of this study is to understand how a newly developed Liberating Structures Problem Solving (LSPS) model of facilitation helps participants of a contract manufacturing firm navigate this space through a collaborative dialogic organization development (OD) approach to change within a hierarchical organization structure. The theoretical underpinning of this research is a dialogic OD approach to change using Lipmanowicz and McCandless’s liberating structures group processes grounded in complexity science and social constructionism. The methodological approach is cooperative inquiry, a form of radically participative action research. Triangulation of data was employed using video-recordings, observations, reflections and interviews. The study involved 21 participants from different functions and levels within the organization. Findings demonstrate the importance of including diverse participants in dialogic events; improved communication and relationships; reduced tooling costs; and a modified organizational macrostructure to be more inclusive. Implications of this study suggest the LSPS model was instrumental in helping this organization shift from conventional leadership structures towards a shared leadership approach that helped ignite transformational change.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nova.edu/oai:nsuworks.nova.edu:shss_dcar_etd-1085 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| Creators | Allen, Barbara |
| Publisher | NSUWorks |
| Source Sets | Nova Southeastern University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations |
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