ABSTRACT
The essential basis of each profession and each science exists in its ‘body of knowledge’, the systematic and validated formal knowledge (Greenwood, 1957; Barber, 1963; Freidson, 1973; Abbott, 1988). Systematic and formal knowledge in particular defines professional work (Wilensky, 1964). Professional effect and contribution are defined by the quality of knowledge and the quality of its application. But however excellent the process of application may be, without the right knowledge it will probably not fly. Sometimes the required knowledge does not exist or is not available. Then, practitioners are forced to experiment, to prototype, to work according to trial and error—which can also be done in an evidence-based way. But when the knowledge does exist and when knowledge can be made available, not using it is, from a professional perspective, unforgiveable. It was for these reasons that we started our process to make social psychological knowledge available for the science and practice of management in general and change management in particular. The popular change management literature shows that subjects such as cooperation, leadership, vision and mission, communication, resistance to change, participation, structure and culture are important, if not essential, for the discipline and its organizational context. Almost without exception, social psychology is a discipline—if not the discipline—that provides the insights, knowledge and behavioural repertoire that is helpful or necessary to tackle these subjects. “Social psychology is the scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other human beings” (Allport & Lindzey, 1954, p. 5). The same popular literature also shows, however, that social psychology is underutilized, if not absent, in the more than fifty most popular, best-selling books on change management that have been analysed. The fact that there is a relatively small, high-quality collection of more scholarly books that do address change management topics and issues by using social psychological theories, concepts, insights and evidence (e.g. Boje et al., 2012; Oreg, Michel, & Todnem, 2013) does not make the underutilization or absence mentioned previously any less noteworthy. The same applies to the fact that a lot of change management practitioners and probably a subset of the managers ‘know’ the founding fathers and great thinkers like Lewin, Schein, Weick and Argyris. Managers and other practitioners probably buy and read the popular books and are influenced by their approach and the gurus and ‘management thinkers’ who write them. To illustrate this, as stated in the first chapter, our analysis showed that some of the popular books still mention Albert Bandura (e.g. Bandura, 1963) and his social-cognitive learning theory. ‘Groupthink’ and group dynamics are referred to frequently (e.g. Janis, 1982). The notion of ‘social proof’ is visible in opinions about model behaviour, ‘significant others’ and the dissemination of ideas (e.g. Sherif, 1935; Cialdini, Wosinska, Barett, & Gornik-Durose, 1999). But that is about it. The process we started was focused on collecting, analysing and presenting or making available social psychological knowledge relevant to change management in an encyclopaedic, coherent and evidence-based way. In the final chapter, we reflect on the process and its results and present some additional thoughts and notions with regard to a social psychology of change management and its conceptualization. In addition, we show that the five categories and the related theories are not only fruitful and helpful in themselves, but also through their combinations. We reflect briefly on the methodology and possible consequences for additional research and give some pointers for a future agenda for science and practice.
