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Throughout the annals of organizational history, the role of internal consultants has quietly steered the course of success in organizations, often playing pivotal roles in shaping strategy, solving complex challenges, and fostering change. Today, as the ever-evolving landscape of work and technology reshapes the organizational paradigm, the future of internal consultancy shines with unparalleled promise. This confluence of human expertise and emerging trends opens new frontiers, offering internal consultants an unprecedented opportunity to embrace dynamic roles enriched by cutting-edge technologies and innovative methodologies. "Internal consultants: The driving force behind organizational innovation and success," a new addition to David Szabla's Research in Management Consulting book series, will be published in the fall of 2024. The chapters in this volume delve into the timeless wisdom of internal consultancy and its seamless integration with future trends exploring the accelerating strategic importance of internal consulting capabilities in fostering innovation, adaptability and transformation competencies vital to navigating uncertainty and complexity. This timely panel symposium affords the opportunity for contributing authors to situate their work and thoughts within the broader themes of the book and interact with fellow thought leaders- scholars and practitioners- to further the discussion of the power, possibilities, and challenges of internal consultants. As the landscape of technology and work evolves, panelists will highlight how an array of pivotal roles across functions are integrating consultative mindsets marked by systems thinking, cross-boundary collaboration, and change leadership expertise. Further, panelists will discuss their chapter contributions and innovative frameworks for how diverse intrapreneurial perspectives can intersect with emerging trends such as public sector reforms, talent pathway cultivation, and equity culture shifts to drive enterprise resilience and progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a context where the French government is prioritizing digital transformation, the issues related to its appropriation by the actors of the public administration represent an important challenge. This research investigated the appropriation and the factors that influence this process by conducting an actor-centered study in a departmental administration. Drawing on the literature on the adoption and appropriation of technology (DeSanctis & Pool, 1994), and sensemaking theory (Weick, 1993, 1995), we propose a comparative perspective to investigate how managers and agents engage differently in the appropriation process. The methodology used is one of an – ongoing - longitudinal intervention research. Results from qualitative investigation indicate that appropriation of digital transformation in the public administration is shaped by the meanings created by the actors during their interactions with "the new reality" induced by this transformation, and is influenced by many structural, organizational, and individual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Socio-Economic Approach to Management is celebrated, this symposium showcases the philosophical and theoretical foundations of the approach to change and knowledge creation. The symposium brings together some of the foremost scholars of the socio-economic approach to re-examine the foundations and the path to intervention-research. Submission document, since uploading in the other section of the proposal was frozen. Author: Eric Sanders; Elmhurst U. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium will offer a panel of experts from two different organizations, both having exemplary practices of "Putting the Worker Front and Center." One example is the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). This group received a presidential award for their success in combatting decades-long enslavement practices in their region. In this symposium they will focus on how their affiliated Fair Food Program (FFP) and Fair Foods Standards Council (FFSC) use "worker-driven" processes and procedures to achieve their success. They call this approach "Worker-Driven Corporate Social Responsibility" (WSR). Symposium convenors Boje, Rosile, and Herder introduced the CIW to the Academy as part of a 2019 AoM All-Academy Symposium, highlighting their inclusionary "Ensemble Leadership." This discussion extends that work to focus on worker voices. The CIW example also highlights the role of worker voices in transforming CSR into WSR. The CIW's long boycott of Wendy's fast food chain triggered Panelist David Boje to deconstruct Wendy's code of ethics. In this symposium, Boje's deconstruction will reveal evidence of missing workers' voices. Our second examplary organization is the Institute for Socio-Economic Organizational Research (ISEOR), whose founding leader Henri Savall was recognized by the French government in 2017 with their "Chevalier of the Legion of Honor" for his work. The ISEOR ethnographic-tinted methods of interviewing in organizations has always put worker voices "front and center." These two stories demonstrate how worker-driven processes can be more effective than traditional "management" methods, even against persistent decades-old problems such as enslavement practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1997, ISEOR research center has been a partner of the MC Division along with a few other research centers focused on management consulting methodologies. This partnership has been an opportunity to set up debates between various scientific approaches to management consulting, in particular with the Tavistock Institute, Benedictine University, Center for Effective Organizations (USC), etc. In addition, international comparisons took place in the past 22 years through the organization of nine co-sponsored conferences and doctoral consortia in Lyon, France. Such conferences gave rise to an overall 900 papers, in addition to the 200 papers submitted by Iseor researchers to MCD over the past twenty years. In the wake of an overall 40 paper presentations at the MCD in the past twenty years and 9 co-sponsored MCD-ISEOR conferences in Lyon, the Socio-Economic Approach to Management has gained visibility through ten of the books edited by A. F. Buono in the Research Series in Management Consulting published by Information Age Publishing. Therefore, this proposed symposium to the MCD is an opportunity to formalize the learning of this long cooperation and its contribution to the scientific legitimacy of management consulting as a science that is as worthy as medicine, while focused on the health of companies and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past two years have created an amazing quasi-experimental condition for firms to find ways to succeed or fail dramatically during the economic catastrophe caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other simultaneous crises. This gives us a unique opportunity to learn from successful firms what they did, and use that to generate new theory and practices that may generalize to a much broader audience. We often talk about how to integrate more field-work into our divisions. This is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. This global panel of business leaders from the United States, Lebanon, and China, will share how their firms not only survived, but thrived during these crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose An intervention research was proposed to help a notorious middle eastern non-governmental organization to face its challenges in transforming into a social enterprise while maintaining its values, and into its passage from a founders' leadership into more institutionalization. Design/methodology/approach The methodology is one of scientific consulting anchored in qualimetric intervention research, and the socio-economic approach to management. Findings Research findings suggest that the socio-economic approach to management congregated organizational constituency around a shared understanding of organizational dysfunctions and initiated a transformation process. The research also depicted a diagram of socio-economic transformation in organizations. Originality/value The originality of the paper stem from the application of the socio-economic theory in the specific context of a middle eastern organizations undergoing structural change. The theoretical value of the organizational transformation appends the practical transformation brought with a potentially generic model. Limitations of time and context warrant further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. The narrative of non-profits is dominated by social values. The scarcity of resources and incommensurable needs of society are forcing them to acknowledge their challenges and to adapt to morphing environments. The underlying story pertains to economic challenges and organizational survival. The paper investigates the ability of the socio-economic approach to management re-story nonprofit organizations. Design/methodology/approach. The paper first compares the tenets of storytelling with those of the socio-economic approach to management, and then compares the outcomes of interventions in five intrinsically different nonprofits operating in Europe and the Middle-East. Findings. The results point to an effective change in the nonprofit narrative to protrude the economic dimension and resource efficiency to maintain their social services. The paper also demonstrates symbiosis between storytelling and the socio-economic approach to management. Originality/value. The main contribution of the paper is in the inductive contribution of non-profit actors to recount their organizations along social and economic dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The non-governmental sector is fast growing in the developing context of the Middle East. Despite this growth, NGOs are faced with challenges of sustainability and credibility towards stakeholders, forcing them to work together. Despite decades of civil society experience, many cooperation attempts among Lebanese organizations fell short of their goals. This paper studies the dysfunctions in NGO cooperation, and brings field induced recommendations to tackle this problem. The research findings group cooperation dysfunctions under three major groups: strategic considerations in a fragmented landscape, adaptation of procedures, and developing a common language. Pragmatic recommendations were developed with actors from the field. Design/methodology/approach - Essentially inductive, a specific action research called intervention research was adopted to accompany fifteen active NGOs in framing cooperation dysfunctions and developing applicable solutions. Findings - The research identified major inter-organizational dysfunctions grouped under strategy, procedures, and language axes, and accompanied the organizations in conceiving a series of propositions to advance cooperation among them. Originality/value - The main contribution of the paper is the identification of holistic cooperation dysfunctions among non-governmental organizations in the specific context of the Middle East, and the production of actionable and instantly applicable solutions." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The present paper investigates performance improvement in organizations, from the perspective of generalizability. The objective is to examine generic aspects of organizational performance in different contexts. Abiding by a confirmatory approach, the paper endeavoured to bring change to the reality of two organizations, in order to test aspects of performance enhancement theory, namely management paradigms based on synchronized decentralization and information sharing. The research finds evidence to confirm these generic aspects of performance improvement. Design/methodology/approach - The framework is a comparative case study in action research/intervention research using the socio-economic approach to management. Findings - The results of the research support that synchronized decentralization and the subsequent adaptation of procedures, and the systematic sharing of information across the organization yield performance improvement across various organizational contexts. Originality/value - The main contributions of the paper is the transformation of case study organizations towards improved performance, and the confirmation of the underlying theory through case research. Keywords: Performance improvement, Organizational development, Intervention research, Socio-economic approach to management, Engineering inspection and certification body, Higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the positioning of the socioeconomic approach to management (SEAM) onto three streams. Starting with the positioning in the action research literature stretching to organizational development, the second stream studies the ontological and epistemological underpinning followed by the socioeconomic methodology and strategy. The third stream situates the method in the strategic management control realm. The approach builds on a literature review that yielded a theoretical positioning diagram, and proved to be a solid basis for the subsequent socioeconomic interventions in management consultancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]