ABSTRACT
Having established in the previous chapter that the key task of formation can be conceptualized as establishing a firm group identity and design, this chapter focuses upon the subsequent set of questions: Can groups adapt and change form over their careers (what are the sources of constraint and enablement)? What types of change are there (and which are most disruptive)? These strike me as important empirical and conceptual questions to the study of group maintenance, but ones that have attracted relatively little dedicated attention in the group literature. This chapter addresses this gap with an explicit focus on developing an approach to describe and calibrate change in group organizational form. The aim is to encourage debate by exploring ways we might use concepts like organizational form to get a handle on the dynamic of group evolution. It presents a framework for describing organizational form, and levels of change in group form. This discussion is supported by illustrative examples from predominantly UK group cases.
