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18 - They Meet, They Talk…but Nothing Changes

Meetings as a Focal Context for Studying Change Processes in Organizations

from Capturing and Understanding Dynamics and Processes of the Meeting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2015

By
Florian E. Klonek ,
Hilko Paulsen  and
Simone Kauffeld
Edited by
Joseph A. Allen ,
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock  and
Steven G. Rogelberg
Joseph A. Allen
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Omaha
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock
Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Steven G. Rogelberg
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
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Summary

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss how meetings relate to organizational change management. We present a coding instrument that assesses meeting talk in terms of change or sustain talk, two psycholinguistic constructs that are supposed to facilitate or inhibit organizational changes and that represent participants' readiness versus their resistance to change. We present a step-by-step guideline on how the dynamics of readiness and resistance to change within one meeting can be graphed using a time-sensitive measure that we call the R-index (i.e., for readiness and resistance to change). We show how two theoretical frameworks – Lewin's field theory and the transtheoretical model of change – are related to the operationalization of change talk and sustain talk in meetings. Finally, we discuss how the R-index can be used as a dynamic measure of change readiness in meetings.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Meeting Science , pp. 413 - 439
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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