ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the dynamic context related to the organizational life cycle, evolutionary and planned change, and cultural transformation. Executive roles that provide guidance for executive assessment and development, and especially for selection, are explicated. Organizational changes of all kinds, swift or slow, major or minor, are increasingly not only the common circumstances of executive succession, but imply competencies that successors require. If some form of change is the predominant circumstance in which organizations increasingly find themselves, then they will find it advisable to attract and retain, as well as develop, executives who possess change and transformation competencies. For organizational change the executive may also engage in goal clarification and assign one or more others the responsibility for going forward. The dynamic contexts, processes, activities, and roles have implied differential criteria for executive behavior in a variety of circumstances.
