ABSTRACT
We began this book with a belief that social change and organizations are deeply connected, and that a positive lens can be used to unlock new ways of understanding and enabling change processes. Along the way, the chapters portray and unpack this connection by disclosing new lines of sight on prevailing theories, for example, elaborating understanding of factors leading to organizational success and survival through analyzing dual pressures of legitimacy and accountability in charter schools (Beckman & Gatewood, Chapter 18), or by using practice theory in the empirical context of sustainability to propose an alternative view of change agency as a distributed phenomenon (Feldman, Chapter 9). Th e chapters also unpack the connection by excavating stories and the embedded wisdom that might otherwise not have been told, for example, Sawa Heroes (Branzei, Chapter 2), and by bringing forward important pathways for the analysis and practice of change, for example, alternative models of philanthropy (Meyerson & Wernick, Chapter 5).
