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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Selected Works

Politics

Patrick Dawson

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Organizational Change Stories And Management Research: Facts Or Fiction, Patrick M. Dawson Apr 2012

Organizational Change Stories And Management Research: Facts Or Fiction, Patrick M. Dawson

Patrick Dawson

Company change stories are often constructed around a linear series of ‘successful’ events which serve to show the company in a positive light to any interested external party. These stories of company success sanitise this process and offer data for change experts to formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to best manage change. This position is criticised in this paper which draws on processual case study data to argue that change is a far more complex muddied political process consisting of competing histories and ongoing multiple change narratives which may vie for dominance in seeking to be the change story. …


The Way It Really Happened: Competing Narratives In The Political Process Of Technological Change, Patrick M. Dawson, D. Buchanan Apr 2012

The Way It Really Happened: Competing Narratives In The Political Process Of Technological Change, Patrick M. Dawson, D. Buchanan

Patrick Dawson

Corporate narratives concerning technological change are often constructed around a linear series of events that show the organization in a positive light to internal and external observers. These narratives often sanitize the change process, and present data from which commentators can formulate neat linear prescriptions on how to implement new technology. In contrast, this paper draws on processual-contextual theoretical perspectives to argue that technological change is a more complex political process represented by multiple ongoing narratives which compete with each other for dominance as definitive change accounts. A central aim of this paper, therefore, is to demonstrate the analytical significance …