ABSTRACT
Change is ubiquitous. Or is it? In the micro-events which surround our particular lives and in the daily trumpetings of the media change has an everpresent illusion of reality. Yet observe other men consciously attempting to move large and small systems in different directions, or attempt it yourself, and one sees what a difficult and complicated human process change is. And there is the problem of perspective. Where we sit not only influences where we stand, but also what we see. No observer of life or form begins with his mind a blank, to be gradually filled by evidence. Time itself sets a frame of reference for what changes are seen and how those changes are explained. The more we look at present-day events the easier it is to identify change; the longer we stay with an emergent process and the further back we go to disentangle its origins, the more we can identify continuities. Empirically and theoretically, change and continuity need one another, although as we shall see, many social scientists in their attempts to identify and explain change in organisations in terms of the micro-events of the day have artificially abstracted change out from the structures and contexts which give that change form, meaning, and dynamic. Change and continuity, process and structure, are inextricably linked.
