A second-order approach to evaluating and facilitating organizational change

Abstract

The question of how organizations change is essential both for intra-organizational change agents and external stakeholders. Many non-governmental organizations are asking how they can evaluate their influence, but their understanding of organizational change may actually inhibit change. This article touches on inadequacies in current theorizing - related to conceptualizations of communication and learning - which, it is argued, adversely affect attempts to bring about change. It then outlines the process of evaluating organizational influence using an innovative, ‘second-order’ approach that was pioneered in the context of evaluating the work of an organization advocating sustainable development with sector-leading companies. In order to create an evaluation ‘yardstick’, an heuristic model was constructed to represent ‘organizational learning for sustainable development’ (OLSD). The model posited that patterns of organization and networks exist, evolve and are challenged via persistent ‘conversational lineages’ - sets of discernible inherited and recurring distinctions - that weave through dynamic conversations over time. By defining the constituent distinctions of a particular conversational lineage and then bounding qualitative data into narrative accounts, it was possible to trace accurately the organizational levels in the narrative accounts through which a conversational lineage ran. It was then possible to evaluate associated possibilities and constraints to OLSD. This led both to conclusions about the extent of the advocacy organization’s influence and to relative measures of progress in OLSD. Both the model of OLSD and evaluation approach, it is suggested, are potentially applicable in other organizational, network and subject domains, other than that of sustainable development.

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