Using a Positive Lens to Explore Social Change and Organizations

Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation

Karen Golden-Biddle, Jane E. Dutton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415878852
• eBook ISBN: 9781136486555
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

How can application of a positive lens to understanding social change and organizations enrich and elaborate theory and practice? This is the core question that inspired this book. It is a question that brought together a diverse and talented group of researchers interested in change and organizations in different problem domains (sustainability, healthcare, and poverty alleviation). The contributors to this book bring different theoretical lenses to the question of social change and organizations. Some are anchored in more macro accounts of how and why social change processes occur, while others approach the question from a more psychological or social psychological perspective. Many of the chapters in the book travel across levels of analyses, making their accounts of social change good examples of multi-level theorizing. Some scholars are practiced and immersed in thinking about organizational phenomena through a positive lens; for others it was a total adventure in trying on a new set of glasses. However, connecting all contributing authors was an excitement and willingness to explore new insights and new angles on how to explain and cultivate social change within or across organizations. This edited volume will be of interest to an international community who seek to understand how organizations and people can generate positive outcomes for society. Students and researchers in organizational behavior, management, positive psychology, leadership and corporate responsibility will find this book of interest.

Part I

Introduction

1

The Call: Why a Book Now on Using a Positive Lens to Explore Social Change and Organizations?

Jane E. Dutton

University of Michigan

Karen Golden-Biddle and Elana Feldman

Boston University

How can application of a positive lens to understanding social change and organizations enrich and elaborate theory and practice? This is the core question that inspired this book. It is a question that brought together a diverse and talented group of researchers interested in change and organizations in different problem domains (sustainability, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and education). The contributors to this book bring different theoretical lenses to the question of social change and organizations. Some are anchored in more macro accounts of how and why social change processes occur, while others approach the question from a more psychological or social psychological perspective. Many of the chapters in the book travel across levels of analyses, making their accounts of social change good examples of multi-level theorizing. Some scholars are practiced and immersed in thinking about organizational phenomena from a positive lens; for others it is a total adventure in trying on a new set of glasses. However, connecting all contributing authors is an excitement and willingness to explore new insights and new angles on how to explain and cultivate social change within or across organizations.

Starting Assumptions

Social Change and Organizations Are Fundamentally Intertwined

Social change has been a critical and enduring concern of organizational researchers since the field of organizational studies took root. Whether catalyzed by sociologists and their interests in social movements (e.g., Zald & McCarthy, 1979), social change organizations (Selznick, 1949), the social consequences of organizations (Blau & Scott, 1962), or prompted by psychologists’ interests in how organizations and human welfare are intertwined (e.g., Argyris, 1957; Mayo, 1945), organizational studies have been central to understanding the processes and outcomes of social change. Today, interest in organizations and social change is more dispersed. The links between social change and organizations show up in a variety of topical areas including social entrepreneurship (e.g., Bornstein, 2007; Dees & Elian, 1998; Mair & Marti, 2006), social and corporate responsibility (e.g., Aguilera, Rupp, Williams, & Ganapathi, 2007; Tribo, Surroco, & Waddock, 2010), and under the broad umbrella of business and society (e.g., Carroll & Buckholz, 2009; Post, 2004; Waddock, 2009). In addition, there is focused interest by organizational researchers working on certain types of organizations (e.g., educational or healthcare organizations) or on certain large-scale issue domains (e.g., sustainability, diversity). However, to date there has been limited effort to look across these diverse research arenas to distill integrative insights about how social change and organizations come together in ways that enrich theory and practice. The time for integration and learning across research silos is particularly ripe given the call to researchers to more fully consider the links between organizations and society (Hinings & Greenwood, 2002; Margolis & Walsh, 2003) and the critique that organizational research is not having significant beneficial impact (Ghoshal, 2005).

Application of a Positive Lens Unlocks New Ways of Understanding and Enabling Change Processes

This book applies a positive lens to enrich theory and practice about social change and organizations. The use of a positive lens means there is an explicit focus on understanding the elements in the change process in and of organizations that build up, increase, enable, and foster beneficial outcomes associated with social change (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003). A focus on these kinds of forces and processes at work in social change is particularly important given that most social efforts are directed toward producing outcomes that are viewed as beneficial or desirable. At the same time, application of a positive lens looks for instances of positive deviance involving social change (Pasquale, Sternin, & Sternin, 2010) and asks: How did that process work? Why did those outcomes happen? What were the roles of organizations or people connected to organizations in accounting for the social change? Application of a positive lens does not mean ignoring the role of negative states, processes, or outcomes in social change. In fact, the nature of social change means that negative conditions and states are endemic to activating social change efforts.

Application of a positive lens does mean keeping a particular eye on what are the processes and states which open up, build, strengthen, facilitate, and enable social change. Application of a positive lens is intentionally an appreciative scholarly stance. It is a lens which begins with inquiry about what is generative, life-giving, and worth noticing and appreciating in the way that this social change process is working and in the outcomes it produces (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005).

As the chapters will reveal, the use of this eye discloses multiple new insights about the outcomes of change processes, new insights about change and resources, process insights about generativity and agency, and a host of other patterns that help to unlock the mystery behind social change. Thus, in contrast to accounts of social change that concentrate on barriers to change or accounts of change resistance, use of a positive lens directs attention to features and dynamics of processes and states that foster the change process or amplify beneficial results from the social change process. The book explicitly builds on previous efforts to elaborate and complicate organizational research using a positive lens (e.g., Cameron & Spreitzer, 2011; Dutton & Ragins, 2007; Nelson & Cooper, 2007; Roberts & Dutton, 2009). Like the efforts that have preceded this one, application of a positive lens stretches the boundaries of what we are able to see as important in explanatory theories and what we imagine for practical interventions.

Stories of Positive Social Change Unlock Wisdom but Also Inspire Scholarly Imagination Regarding What Is Possible With Respect to Organizations and Social Change

The chapters that compose this book contain compelling narratives of social change. These narratives reveal patterns of processes and practices that make a difference in the scale, scope, and impact of social change in a variety of realms. While these accounts can be analyzed for what they imply about organizations and social change, they are also carriers of imagined possibilities for the roles that individuals and organizations could play in social change. The potency of the stories transcends what they unlock for explanatory accounts. Individually and collectively, the stories elevate a sense of hope and possibility about the promise and the potential for social change when analyzed and viewed from an organizational lens.

Goals for the Book and Process of Book Building

We began this book with three clear goals in mind. First, we wished to enrich theories and practice through applying a positive lens to the study of social change and organizations. Our assumption beginning this project was that the majority of cases on social change in organizational studies tended to invite inquiry into failed or less-than-satisfactory change efforts. Second, we aspired to provide deeper inquiry into the processes and forms of change agency (at both the individual and collective levels) that play a role in social change processes and outcomes. The focus on agency as manifest in and of social change processes spotlights how engagement of different actors in different contexts transforms or alters structures and processes in response to a problem (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). A focus on different forms and impacts of change agents in social change processes celebrates the variability in these critical activities, and how they matter in change processes serves to both enrich theory and broaden applications to practice. Third, we sought to foster linkages across important issue contexts where social change was active and desired (e.g., sustainability, healthcare, poverty, and low-wage work), exploring synergies and possibilities for cross-fertilization between these domains where organizational processes and practices matter for the accomplishment of social change. The book seeks to integrate ideas that arise from often segregated pockets of theory and practice that operate in siloed domains of inquiry in organizational and policy studies.

In meeting these goals, we used a different kind of book-building strategy than is typically used for composing edited books. We aspired to create this book in a way that foster the building of bridges across siloed areas of inquiry, as well as facilitate collective exploration of the value of applying a positive lens to the domain of organizations and social change. Accordingly, we gathered all book authors at Boston University in March 2010 to share chapter outlines and to foster building and helping each other with the outlines as the central conference activity. We also had sufficient group and collective time to wrestle with the meaning and the value of applying a positive lens. As a result of this book-building process, we believe the elements of the book cohere and speak to each other at a level that is not typically observed in edited volumes. We hope that you the reader will agree and will benefit from this integrating activity.

Book Roadmap

The book is divided into six parts. After an introductory chapter by the editors (Part I), the next four parts are composed of four chapters each plus a fifth commentator chapter that highlights themes and observations derived from the chapter contributions. Part II illustrates different takes on the role and form of change agency illuminated by applying a positive lens to social change and organizations. Part III includes four chapters that address the crucial issue of the natural environment and sustainability. Part IV addresses a similarly critical issue of social change in the domain of health care. Part V contains chapters that address the important but often invisible issue of poverty alleviation and low-wage work. Part VI comprises a response by the editors to the application of the positive lens to the study of social changes and organizations. To preview each chapter and to see how it contributes to the overall theme of the book, we next present appreciative summaries.

Appreciative Summaries

Chapter 2: Social Change Agency under Adversity: How Relational Processes (Re)Produce Hope in Hopeless Settings. In this chapter, Oana Branzei draws from life story interviews, visual ethnographies, and archival sources that document the lives and contributions of two individuals designated as Sawa Heroes. Sawa Heroes are inspirational individuals nominated by Sawa World who have made a difference in eradicating poverty. Branzei identifies the relational processes used by these two effective change agents to initiate and accelerate social change through creation and replenishment of hope. Through her study of these two leaders, Branzei shows us that change agency is deeply relational and can be a potent source to foster change through activating moral, social, and relational energies. Her chapter details three core relational processes of relating, revising, and rotating that account for hope (re)production during social change. Her chapter elevates theoretical and practical possibilities of how to unleash hope through relational connections to change agents’ pasts and futures.

Chapter 3: Being a Positive Social Change Agent through Issue Selling. In this chapter, Scott Sonenshein draws on issue-selling theory to examine agency for social change inside organizations that foster goodness both in processes used and outcomes generated in the efforts. Drawing on vivid stories of such agency, Sonenshein portrays how efforts of even a few individuals can broaden over time to effect larger change for social good in organizations. Two particular issue-selling processes are highlighted: those that widen and enrich dialogue, and those that mindfully reclaim dead issues when the organizational context shifts or when individuals can use different meanings to sell the same issue. In addition to processes, the stories elucidate the importance of broadening the traditional range of issue-selling outcomes beyond the instrumental benefits to the individual change agent to include organization and good for society. Through the development of an endogenous model of social change agency incorporating these processes and outcomes, this chapter enriches understanding of social change, and elaborates and extends theorizing of issue selling.

Chapter 4: Social Entrepreneurs, Socialization Processes, and Social Change: The Case of SEKEM. In their chapter, Tomislav Rimac, Johanna Mair, and Julie Battilana transport us to the SEKEM initiative in Egypt, which has been ongoing as a living experiment of social change since its inception in the late 1970s. The authors provide a detailed analysis of how an everyday practice of congregating, holding hands as a circle at the beginning and the end of the day, coupled with a sharing of grace and the day’s work and plan, contributes to the ongoing institutionalization of social change. They detail how the circle as a socialization practice creates and recreates a sense of dignity, respect, and worth that symbolically and instrumentally enacts inclusion at the beginning and end of each day. This practice introduces people to new beliefs and behaviors that are central to adopting other aspects of the societal innovations that are part of SEKEM. Their chapter grounds and elaborates the importance of everyday practices that cultivate ways of interrelating that create reciprocity and energy, and that are central to the solidarity necessary for initiating and guiding divergent social change.

Chapter 5: Power Beyond the Purse: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Social Change. In this chapter, Debra Meyerson and Laura Wernick use two cases developed through rich field methodology, “Ed Ventures” and “Resource Generation,” to explore the role of two different types of philanthropic foundations in social change—”venture philanthropy” and “grassroots, or community-based social justice philanthropy.” An intriguing case comparison, both foundations are similar in their intentional departure from a traditional philanthropic approach of funding established organizations, while at the same time they are differentiated by their respective innovative approaches. The authors enrich ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Part I: Introduction
• Part II: Change Agency
• Part III: Environment and Sustainability
• Part IV: Health Care
• Part V: Poverty and Low-Wage Work
• Part VI: Conclusion
• Author Index
• Subject Index