Search

We explore Pope Francis's "integral ecology" in the encyclical Laudato Si (Francis, 2015) as it provides us with an agenda for a planetary virtue ethic that should inspire the field of Organizational Development to reconsider the moral implications of our work. We begin by offering the framework of virtue ethics as a way of understanding Laudato Si (LS). We then summarize the argument in LS as it focuses on four ecological issues—climate change, pollution, water, and the plight of the poor as we tease out the document's implicit virtue ethic. Finally, we propose how OD practitioners can become more aware of the lens through which they approach their task, thereby coming to regard organizational change initiatives and moral-identity development as a single, undifferentiated, act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes issues affecting the design of lessons-learned systems for defense acquisition organizations. It draws both on studies of existing lessons learned systems and the literature of organizational learning [...]

This article reconceptualizes the change process from a rational planning perspective to an interpretive perspective emphasizing the social construction of meaning. Discourse is viewed as the core of the change process through which our basic assumptions about organizing are created, sustained, and transformed. To illustrate the dynamics of meaning systems, examples are provided of organizations shifting from mechanistic assumptions to become more adaptive, responsive, quality-oriented organizations. Implications for researchers and managers are included. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The study of social and organizational life has been characterized mainly by a structural-functionalist orientation, but this orientation has resulted in unintentional consequences. The structural-functionalist approach tends to produce a limited approach to research by emphasizing the givenness of social structures. A method of capturing the historicity and continuity of organizational behavior is presented. To re-discover the original objectives and decisions of predecessors, researchers need to focus on the human cosmogony, the human use of contingencies, accidents, and choices in creating the world.

This article proposes that one way to help a group liberate itself from dysfunctional conflict and defensive routine is through the introduction of generative metaphor. By intervening at a tacit, indirect level of awareness, group members are able to generate fresh perceptions of one another, thereby allowing for the revitalization of the social bond and a heightened collective will to act. After exploring insights into the recent literature on social cognition and selective perception, a case is presented in which generative metaphor was successfully used to help a dysfunctional group build (1) liberated aspirations and the development of hope, (2) decreased interpersonal conflict, (3) strategic consensus around a positive vision for the future, (4) renewed collective will to act, and (5) egalitarian language reflecting a new sense of unity and mutuality in the joint creation of the group's future. Stages of the generative metaphor intervention are discussed, and propostions are developed concerning those factors that will likely enhance the generative potential of metaphor as an agent for group development and organizational change. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)