Change management

Implementing change in organizations is a widespread practice and a common topic of scholarship. Change may be heralded as inevitable and good or decried as something “everyone hates.”Change can serve as means to address many important challenges… Change can also be wrong-headed, faddish, unnecessary, and a waste of resources. (Lewis, forthcoming, p. 1)Bringing about change in practice, technology, process, or even the meanings associated with organizational activity or roles involves oftentimes complex and sophisticated practice, behaviors, and routines of many stakeholders. Those responsible for implementing change and countering intentional or unconscious resistance are expected to address stakeholders’ reactions. Communication is an important means by which change implementers introduce, describe, persuade, support, and evaluate changes and change processes. It is also the chief means by which those opposed to or uncertain about changes resist, question, challenge, and seek support. Lewis’s (2000) study of an international sample of organizational implementers found that implementers rated communication problems as among the most severe they encountered.