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Chapter 4 ■ Theories of change: traditional models
democratization of organizations through power equalization. The growing con-
cern for customers and clients, along with the realization that much pension pro-
vision involves stock market investment, rather complicates that notion.
However, there is much real value in this approach for those seeking to better
understand the dynamics of change settings. Most large organizations conduct
(or have specialist survey organizations conduct) regular attitude surveys of their
employees and of customers. Action research has found wide application. The
concept was introduced by Lewin (1947). Simply put, he argued that we study
problems in order to solve them and we do so most effectively if our analysis of
the problem is based on full and valid data, that all possible solutions are con-
sidered and that the most appropriate solution is selected. This begs the ques-
tions of how it is selected and why, and also effectively makes the assumption
that a solution is possible. Nevertheless, action research and action learning (orig-
inally formulated by Revans (1972) are widely practised today.
It is worth noting that ‘resistance to change’ is commonly seen as a problem
which OD practitioners are particularly well positioned to resolve. Note here that
this is not necessarily viewed solely as a matter of resistance to change among
lower level employees. Often it is seen as driven by ‘vested interests’ and can
encompass behaviour from professional groups such as senior managers, clinical
staff in hospitals, senior officers in the armed forces and so on. Indeed, as I write
these words, ‘resistance to change’ arguments are being advanced in the media
to explain the reported controversy between Donald Rumsfield, former Secretary
of Defense in the President Bush administration, and some senior officers,
including some recently retired officers. It is clear that there is a range of indi-
vidual, team and organizational antecedents to ‘resistance to change’. Moreover,
resistance to change takes various forms (see Carnall, 1986) from opposition to
apathy or indifference. We do need a diagnostic framework and conceptual
schema to allow us to understand how and why people react to change and the
OD tradition and practice provides these tools and concepts.
It is worth noting here that the real value of the OD approach may lie in the
ability of practitioners to reveal what is currently ‘hidden’ in terms of people and
their views, ideas, perceptions, attitudes and so on. The idea of the psychological

contract is that it is different from the more clearly specified economic contract
in that the expectations which comprise the psychological contract are likely to
be tacit, unstated and only partly understood. Add to this the well known ‘Johari
Window’ idea, which is that individuals do not fully understand what feelings
and emotions drive their own preferences and behaviour, and place it all in a
period of change and uncertainty and the need to seek valid data on people is
obvious enough. Finally, it should be noted that OD practitioners were among
those who developed an interest in organizational culture (Schein, 1996). We will
look at this in Chapter 17 because it deserves a fuller treatment.

Linear approaches

This might be labelled the ‘managerial approach’ because models tend to describe
change as a series of steps from vision to implementation. Often of value because

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