Doctoral Degrees (University of Stellenbosch Business School)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (University of Stellenbosch Business School) by Author "Cloete, Gideon Stephanus"

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    Towards re-imagining the roles of change agents from a critical complexity perspective : an exploratory action research approach
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Cloete, Gideon Stephanus; Preiser, Rika; Schurink, Willem Johannes; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. University of Stellenbosch Business School.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : Research on the theoretical conceptualisations and research methods informing current change agency theory and practice in the field of Organisation Theory (OT) in general, and Organisational Change and Development (OCD) in particular, are deficient to engage with the inherently complex nature of business organisations. The dominant paradigm applied in organisational change interventions assumes that change happens through linear cause and effect approaches, which can be enhanced by technical skills, with the aim of maximising optimisation strategies. The theoretical and practical contributions by organisational scholars to important mainstream debates on alternative conceptualisations and methods to explore and re-think change agency have been limited. The purpose of this dissertation is to cultivate and foster a re-think of the role of change agents in OCD interventions by employing a critical complexity lens to shift their current spiritual identity praxis towards co-creating alternative complexity-informed change agency praxis. The following framings are explored: new avenues for providing complexity-informed interpretations of change, organisational structure and function in general, but more specifically alternative change agency as informed by identity and spirituality in OCD interventions. A critical complexity lens is adopted for exploring and re-thinking the interactional nature of both identity and spirituality of change agents. The study highlights these notions as possible entry points for reflecting on novel change agency praxis. It is argued that the notion of ‘spiritual identity praxis’ (ways of being-becoming) enables the co-exploration and co-creation of complexity-informed theoretical and methodological contributions to organisational change agency and mainstream debates on OCD. The study explored whether OCD practitioners could reflect on their current spiritual identity praxis and what the implications were of re-thinking their current roles as change agents when employing critical complexity as a lens. Co-operative Inquiry (CI) was used, which is ideally suited to explore a participatory worldview for co-creating propositional, experiential, practical and presentational knowledge. With the aid of multiple qualitative methods, CI enabled the co-creation of a re-imagined spiritual identity praxis heuristics framework. Collaborating with six OCD practitioners, a co-created community of practice was established which reflected over a period of eighteen months, on processes of: (i) engagement with ideas of complexity thinking and its influence on change agents; (ii) spiritual identity and the co-operative inquiry process in contributing to a deeper reflection on their perspectives as change agents; (iii) spiritual identity praxis in framing the roles of change agents in change interventions; and (iv) authentic co-operation and collaboration during the co-operative inquiry process. The research findings confirm the importance of: (i) embracing complexity thinking as change agents; (ii) navigating ambiguity and incongruence of spiritual identity; (iii) becoming aware of the relational constitutedness of spiritual identity praxis; and (iv) the utility of critical complexity integrated with CI in co-creating resilient heuristics through authentic collaboration and co-operation, which fosters complexity-informed spiritual identity praxis heuristics. The study contributes to an extended understanding of change agency praxis, provides a framework for re-imagined complexity-informed being-becoming praxis in change agency, and offers non-linear pathways to distil iterative principles and reflective signposts for complexity-informed OCD praxis.