Jon-Arild Johannessen

Change Jon-Arild Johannessen

The problem in organizational change projects is that people often resist organizational change. Many change projects in organizations does not reach their goals. The question is why? Part of this book investigates how prospect theory can be used to explain people's resistance to organizational change. Prospect theory is based on research from Kahneman and Tversky. If we know why people resist organizational change, we as leaders can do something to promote the change project. The objective of chapter one is to advise managers and leaders on ways of reducing resistance to organizational change. We identify seven propositions that explain how managerial strategies reduce organizational change. We recommend seven measures that may be employed by management to obtain support for projects implementing organizational change. In the rest of the book we ask the following questions: How can we explain institutional changes? What are the important value-creation processes in the knowledge society? How can social mechanisms be examined from at systemic point of view? The purpose is to understand and explain social mechanisms and the corresponding social processes instrumental in determining the development of the knowledge society. Understanding the knowledge society is a prerequisite for understanding the fourth industrial revolution.