Running to Stand Still: Late Modernity's Acceleration Fixation (original) (raw)
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The march of time and the" evolution" of change
SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 2007
Change and organisational change are some of the most discussed topics of our time. Yet despite this, reported success rates for major organisational change initiatives remain exceptionally poor. Part of the problem is that contemporary change management practices assume a stable, unidimensional concept of organisational change. By contrast an analysis of organisational and systems thinking over the past five decades or so reveals an evolving concept of organisation and consequently invalidates the assumption of organisational change as a stable unidimensional concept. The evolving character of organisational change and its implications for change management practices are briefly indicated. OPSOMMING Verandering en organisasieverandering is van die mees besproke onderwerpe van ons tyd. Ten spyte hiervan bly die gerapporteerde sukseskoers vir primêre organisasieveranderingsinisiatiewe buitengewoon swak. Deel van die probleem is daarin geleë dat kontemporêre veranderingsbestuurspraktyke die aanname maak dat organisasieverandering 'n stabiele, een-dimensionele konsep is. In stryd hiermee toon 'n ontleding van organisasieen sisteemdenke oor die afgelope vyf of so dekades egter 'n ontwikkelende konsep van organisasie wat gevolglik die aanname van 'n stabiele en een-dimensionele organisasieveranderingskonsep ongeldig verklaar. Die ontwikkelende karakter van organisasieverandering en die implikasies daarvan vir veranderingsbestuurspraktyke word kortliks aangedui.
Slowing the pace of technological change?
Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2016
I share the concerns raised in Vogt's commentary, 'How Fast Should We Innovate?' Controlling the pace of technological change is one of the epochal challenges of this era, and I offer suggestions to facilitate scholarly inquiry, collective deliberation, and public policy. Two framing moves Most writing on the subject of pace focuses on individuals' and subcultures' subjective experiences: John Dewey observed a 'mania for speed' (1927) long before Alvin Toffler discovered 'future shock' (1970) and nearly a century prior to Judy Wajcman's STS perspective in Pressed for Time (2014). 'We're always chasing time,' averred a sleep-deprived longhaul trucker, surveilled by bosses while at the mercy of nearly impossible schedules (Menzies 2005, 36). Energy-extraction boomtowns have long been recognized as socially dysfunctional (Freudenburg 1984)and much of the world now resembles a boomtown. Contemporary commerce, communication, and transport are said to have generated a hyperculture, 'a swirling vortex that today sucks into itself all elements of individual experience, thought and emotion' (Bertman 1998, 84). I am disposed to accept this general picture although I would prefer greater nuance in the claimsmore acknowledgement, for example, that hours actually spent on work and housework have remained fairly steady (albeit unfairly distributed by gender and social class). And some of the technosocial disruption has been beneficial for some peoplerelaxing formerly overbearing constraints from marriage, religion, in-grouping, and social convention. However, my main quarrel with stories about the 'no time' problem is a classic level-of-analysis issue: preoccupation with micro-level symptoms distracts from study of the institutions and political-economic practices causing the difficulties. What is driving the pace of innovation, where are the potential brakes, and what would it take to selectively decelerate somewhat adroitly? A second important reframing of pace-of-change thinking is to stop using the pronoun we, because we in fact rarely innovatethey do. Corporations with the highest R&D spending are based in the U.S. (11), Germany (2), Great Britain (2), Switzerland (2), France (1), Japan (1), and South Korea (1) (Strategy& 2016). California venture capital and Silicon Valley predominate among start-up firms globally; the U.S. military determines more than half of weaponry R&D; and those driving permissionless innovation (Dotson 2015) are disproportionately young, male, affluent, and whitewith the blindered standpoints that come from a narrow demography.
Change in a chaotic post-modern world
Strategic Change, 1994
This paper seeks to argue that despite the easy surface pervaisiveness of notions of turbulence, instability and chaos, such conceptions have yet to radically influence our views of change. Most of the change literature can be seen to be rooted in a traditional modernist paradigm which sees change as linear incremental progression. While there are some theorists who appreciate the limitations of the modernist paradigm, there are few who have begun to develop a truly postmodernist approach to change. This paper represents a small step in that process and concludes by surfacing the practical implications for change agents of transcending the modernist paradigm.‘Speculate what our ideas of cause and effect might have been had melting butter been our model rather than billiard balls. As it is, the world may seem to us to be a succession of clicks, pushes, ticks and tocks. Had the melting of butter or wax seized our imagination instead, the world would have appeared to us as a series of simmering, drippings, meltings, and splashes…’ (Hanson, 1969, pp. 282–283).
Navigating the Currents of Change
2001
Colleges and universities are constantly undergoing change of some sort. Each new academic year brings computer software upgrades, fresh scheduling issues, new courses, and an influx of faculty and staff members. But some institutional change is more ambitious, penetrating into the fabric of the institution. Many call this change "transformational"-meaning that it affects culture, structures, policies, attitudes, and behaviors.
HOW DOES CHANGE COME ABOUT ? / ABOUT SOCIETAL INTERACTIVE CHANGE An inter/trans-disciplinary attempt to the complexity of a contemporary change prospect SPIRITUALITY-BIODIVERSITY / CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP OF WELFARE – a Past, Present, and Future Outlook eliciting the Heritage, Contemporary Challenge, Near and Next Perspective. Does Humankind matter beyond limitations and paradoxes? Are “Contemporary World Changes” possible, and how to be proceeded? Are all these probabilistic and/or fuzzy patterns, or else? How could be done the initial steps toward ’Innovative Social Relations’ for “Sustainable Development“ through Social Signal Processing – within a cybernetic and systemic background addressing an incompleteness / inconsistence (Gödel, 1931) of our human elicited and disseminated information/knowledge/data? [versus the only “N-1” characteristics from a set of “N” rational desired characteristics cognitively described into the current systemic context] Purpose – This (e-)book aims to constitute an initial and open global study addressing the open stance “Past, Present, Future” as a challenge to analyse the possibility and to elicit a part of the procedures related to “Contemporary World Changes”, and to propose the initial steps toward an ‘Innovative Social Relations’ for “Sustainable Development” corpus through Social Signal Processing. It is to gain the conceptual basis toward the elicitation of the constructs: new type of entrepreneur, and a new type of entrepreneur of PEACE – the both types within Knowledge Society Mind/Conscience/Consciousness Society. Design/methodology/approach – The nucleus of this critical global study is addressed to the contemporary and near future (e-)World – Including an Interacting Forum of (e-)readers from an open societal systemic background. The nucleus is step by step extended to eleven inquiries, their explanation, the associated guide by the content of the table presenting four cases of the relation between different modelling approaches according to an extended System Theory to a (Non)Systemic Theory – on the background of KNOWLEDGE vs. FRAME concepts, subsequent to an ordered list of I – XXIV inquiries, and their details – addressing a so called Social Signal Processing toward the constituting and developing of an ‘Innovative Social Relations’ for “Sustainable Development” corpus. All these would be the locus for (re)acting the proposed 'SPIRITUALITY-BIODIVERSITY / CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP OF WELFARE' composed construct as an innovative perspective for the open stance “Past, Present, Future”. Findings – 'SPIRITUALITY-BIODIVERSITY / CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP OF WELFARE' composed construct as a perspective for the open stance “Past, Present, Future”. So, our Humankind beyond the space-time continuum could transit from the contemporary Knowledge Economy/Society by eliciting Contemporary World Changes, within a multi-staged approach toward a Mind/Conscience/Consciousness Economy/Society. A primal role would be assigned by the coherent, cohesive and concordant implementation of the triadic construct Generosity versus Creativity and Solidarity, and the elicited way to attain the scientific and supposed praxis realm toward an ‘Innovative Social Relations’ for “Sustainable Development” corpus through Social Signal Processing / toward a new type of entrepreneur, and toward a new type of entrepreneur of PEACE – the both types within Knowledge Society Mind/Conscience/Consciousness Society. Originality/value – It is obvious that a critical analysis and synthesis of our worldwide (post-)crisis events must deal with an original approach within an added gnoseologic and/or epistemic value, and expected responsible 'points' - as societal turning points - yesterday, today, tomorrow....
DYNAMICS OF CHANGE: THE ROAD AHEAD
Vision-The Journal of Business Perspective, 2006
The advocates of proactive approaches towards managing systems, structures and processes have made the currency of change much evident and over-encompassing. The reactive approach has given way to proactive approach towards managing individuals, teams and organizations as a whole. Kurt Lewin's theory of de-freezing the status quo and refreezing with new inputs has become partially if not fully irrelevant in the present environment which is so dynamic and full of uncertainties. The stakeholders want quick results, which makes things worse for organizational specialists.