Leaders play an important role in creating suitable conditions for and leading change, and leadership is most effective when it is needed most, such as during disruptive change. We used the disruption caused by the pandemic as a case to study how school leaders responded, starting from the framework by Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins (2008. “Seven Strong Claims About Successful School Leadership.” School Leadership & Management 28 (1): 27–42. https://doi-org.hu.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13632430701800060). 89 school leaders in higher education completed an open-ended questionnaire. Additionally, nine of these leaders were interviewed to explore their practices in depth. The leadership practices and paths of influence defined by Leithwood and colleagues (2008. “Seven Strong Claims About Successful School Leadership.” School Leadership & Management 28 (1): 27–42. https://doi-org.hu.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13632430701800060) largely worked to understand leadership in times of disruption. We identified a new path of influence (relational) and refined the framework based on our insights. School leaders focused on setting directions and developing people and mainly influenced the change process through the relational and emotional path. These findings are an important next step in understanding and supporting leadership in times of disruption. This will become more and more important in a world of growing complexity and uncertainty.
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In this dissertation, the author describes the development of a practice called Relational Coaching for Management Consultants. This practice has been developed as a resource for management consultants who seek to ‘take a look in the mirror’ with regard to their facilitating role in complex organizational change processes. The author’s ultimate aim is to contribute to decreasing the infamous number of 70% of organizational change initiatives that fail to deliver the expected results.
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In this entry communicating organizational change will be discussed. Organizational change is one of the most published topics within business and organizational studies and communication during organizational change received a lot of attention as well. In this entry episodic, top-down change approaches versus continuous, developmental approach of organizational change will be discussed, also the distinction between information and relational aspects of communication during change.
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Within large service organizations there are currently two trends visible. These trends seem to be diametrically opposed. On the one hand organizations face increasing price pressure and thus a pressure to cut costs. One of the consequences of this trend is that organizations are increasingly encouraging customers to make more use of digital communication channels. At the same time, companies find it important to know their customers in order to respond adequately to their needs. To do this, organizations must have a certain degree of personal involvement to their customers and they must have regular personal contact. It is assumed that both trends – digitisation and personalisation – will have a strong impact on customer experience and (perhaps) on the relational models customers use. If it is true that relational models - so the way in which people perceive and assess a relationship - play a role in the perception of the customer, it is also interesting to know if it is possible to influence these relational models. During the last fifty years much research has been done into the possibilities to influence customers by using subliminal priming techniques. In these techniques thoughts and feelings are unconsciously activated by showing people certain words or images (eg Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis, 2005). In recent years a number of experiments were performed in which customers were unconsciously primed at some type of relationship (eg Aggarwal, 2004; McGraw & Tetlock, 2005; Tuk, Verlegh, Smidts & Wigboldus, 2009). These experiments showed that it is possible to activate a certain type of relationship. The experiments however the researchers used scenario’s based on an interpersonal relationship, and often to a fictitious relationship. The question is whether priming techniques also work for an already existing and more complex relationship between an organization and its customers. From 2010-2013 we conducted research for six large service providers in banking, insurance, utilities and social welfare to discover what the customer experience of these organisations, what role relational models played in customer experience and whether it was possible to influence these relational models. The research project has provided answers to the following questions: - Which relational models are used by customers and what is the influence of these models on customer experience? - What is the influence of digitisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? - What is the influence of personalisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? And finally, - Is it possible to influence relational models (and customer experience) by using specific words and images that are associated with relational models (relational framing)?
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Purpose This study aims to enhance understanding of the collaboration between chairs of nurse councils (CNCs) and members of executive hospital boards (BM) from a relational leadership perspective. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a qualitative and interpretive methodology. The authors study the daily interactions of BM and CNCs of seven Dutch hospitals through a relational leadership lens. The authors used a combination of observations, interviews and document analysis. The author’s qualitative analysis was used to grasp the process of collaborating between BM and CNCs. Findings Knowing each other, relating with and relating to are distinct but intertwined processes that influence the collaboration between BM and CNC. The absence of conflict is also regarded as a finding in this paper. Combined together, they show the importance of a relational process perspective to understand the complexity of collaboration in hospitals. Originality/value Collaboration between professional groups in hospitals is becoming more important due to increasing interdependence. This is a consequence of the complexity in organizing qualitative care. Nevertheless, research on the process of collaborating between nurse councils (NCs) and executive hospital boards is scarce. Furthermore, the understanding of the workings of boards, in general, is limited. The relational process perspective and the combination of observations, interviewing and document analysis proved valuable in this study and is underrepresented in leadership research. This process perspective is a valuable addition to skills- and competencies-focused leadership literature.
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Behaviour Change Support Systems (BCSS), already running for the 10th time at Persuasive Technology, is a workshop that builds around the concept of systems that are specifically designed to help and support behaviour change in individuals or groups. The highly multi-disciplinary nature of designing and implementing behaviour change strategies and systems for the strategies has been in the forefront of this workshop from the very beginning. The persuasive technology field is becoming a linking pin connecting natural and social sciences, requiring a holistic view on persuasive technologies, as well as multi-disciplinary approach for design, implementation, and evaluation. So far, the capacities of technologies to change behaviours and to continuously monitor the progress and effects of interventions are not being used to its full potential. The use of technologies as persuaders may shed a new light on the interaction process of persuasion, influencing attitudes and behaviours. Yet, although human- computer interaction is social in nature and people often do see computers as social actors, it is still unknown how these interactions re-shape attitude, beliefs, and emotions, or how they change behaviour, and what the drawbacks are for persuasion via technologies. Humans re-shape technology, changing their goals during usage. This means that persuasion is not a static ad hoc event but an ongoing process. Technology has the capacity to create smart (virtual) persuasive environments that provide simultaneously multimodal cues and psycho-physiological feedback for personal change by strengthening emotional, social, and physical presence. An array of persuasive applications has been developed over the past decade with an aim to induce desirable behaviour change. Persuasive applications have shown promising results in motivating and supporting people to change or adopt new behaviours and attitudes in various domains such as health and wellbeing, sustainable energy, education, and marketing. This workshop aims at connecting multidisciplinary researchers, practitioners and experts from a variety of scientific domains, such as information sciences, human-computer interaction, industrial design, psychology and medicine. This interactive workshop will act as a forum where experts from multiple disciplines can present their work, and can discuss and debate the pillars for persuasive technology.
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While digitalisation requires facilities management (FM) organisations to change at an increasing rate, little is known about the mechanisms that create ownership and enable individuals to implement changes in everyday FM practice. In this study, these mechanisms are explored from a stewardship perspective. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights in the dynamics of organisational change in FM by analysing how stewardship behaviour leads to change.A process model for implementing organisational change is constructed, based on existing theoretical insights from stewardship and intrapreneurship literature. The model is evaluated in a case study through analysis of critical events. Interviewing was the key data collection method.The process model gives an event-driven explanation of change through psychological ownership. Analysis of multiple critical events suggests that the model explains intra-organisational as well as inter-organisational change. The case data further suggests that, compared to intra-organisational change, tailored relational and motivational support is more important for inter-organisational change because of the higher risks involved. Job crafting emerged as an unanticipated finding that offers interesting prospects for future FM research.The process model offers guidance for leaders in FM organisations on providing tailored support to internal and external employees during periods of organisational change.Stewardship and intrapreneurship are combined to provide insights on organisational change in FM. The study demonstrates how intrapreneurial behaviour and stewardship behaviour can be linked to create innovation within and between organisations.
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In this chapter, we first summarise the findings from the country chapters on the multiple meanings of SA, documenting terms, translations and contrasting understandings between citizens and public officials. Second, we highlight how civil mobilisation tends to be cyclical over time and is often mediated by brokers. Strategies to spur stakeholders into action rely on a delicate balance of both collaboration and confrontation. Third, we examine the responses from authorities to SAIs, finding that reactions are uneven and that all civic innovators fear appropriation or co-optation by officials. Fourth, we assess overall outcomes of Arab SAIs and highlight that the transformative potential of SAIs exists especially at municipal level, if four conditions for success are present (trust, proximity, endorsement, evaluation). We also point out that the actual outcomes of SAIs in Arab societies have, so far, been limited due to design deficiencies (emphasising short-term objectives and limited context sensitivity) or because of officials’ resistance in active or passive forms. We characterise SAIs as a discursive action format that is best understood with a relational approach to power. In a final section, we formulate recommendations for activists, officials and donors on how to make SAIs more effective.
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Due to the variegated nature of the teaching profession system, different actors operating in this system (teachers, school leaders, policy makers) are inevitably intertwined and assumably influence each other’s sensemaking processes, especially when system-wide educational change occurs. Gaining insight into how different actors in the teacher profession system make sense of educational change is important, as it might hamper or enable the system's adaptive capacity. That is why we stretched Coburn’s model of collective sensemaking from a teacher-team lens to include different actors and focus on their interpersonal dynamics during sensemaking processes. Performing a conceptual review, we synthesized 87 articles which focus on collective sensemaking of the following actor groups: (1) teachers (micro), (2) school leaders (meso), and/or (3) district/state/national leaders, policy makers, professional development providers, curriculum developers, researchers, community members, and parents (macro). In the results we describe how actors’ involvement varied due to different role distributions and role perceptions of actors. In addition, four contextual factors influencing the interpersonal dynamics were distinguished that were closely related to leadership practices that enable actors to compare the change with their own beliefs and (organizational) practices. We describe three mechanisms which explain how actors valuate a change (valuating), how they are owning this change (owning), and which is shaped by gatekeeping of sensegivers in their social context (gatekeeping).
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