Agents of Change: Crossing the Post-Industrial Divide

by Charles C. Heckscher, Michael Maccoby, Rafael Ramírez

This book focuses on the transition faced by business organizations and their stakeholders as they move from protected markets to open competition, and it explores how these changes can be facilitated by outside interveners/agents. The four authors--two from Europe and two from the United
States--have worked separately as consultants with leaders of many companies and unions facing these challenges including AT & T, Lucent, Electricite de France and the Italian State Railways (Ferrovie dello Stato). The reader is thus afforded an unusual insight into the process of change in a large
organization--not only close up accounts of what happened, but understanding of the relationship between the researcher/consultant and different groups within the senior managers, HR people, unions, and ordinary employees. The book draws lessons from these cases and experiences on a
number of different lessons about the methods of intervention in large organizations; about the nature of the organizational transitions as business faces increased competition; about the pressures this places on unions and other stakeholder groups; about the differences between the US and
European context; and about possible models for advancing the change process in the future. The analysis finally focuses on the larger set of forces driving all these the transition to a global post-industrial economy. The experience of change in these corporations, from this perspective,
illuminates the dynamics of transition between neo-corporatist stakeholder relations and a more pluralist and decentralized system emerging throughout the industrialized world. This unusual book--by a team of highly experienced researchers/consultants--will be of interest to a broad readership of
academics, students, consultants, HR professionals interested in the process and management and change and contemporary trends in modern societies.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Mike Staresinic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Large-scale transformational change hadn't really been studied, written-about, or understood when these four pioneers took case as large as national railways and telecommunications monopolies. Reading "Agents of Change" is reading THE pioneering book by change agents and practitioners reflecting on their work. There are no formulae for change - no 7 easy steps, no 8 musts before breakfast - it was all being done afresh, no need to think out of the box when there is not box, no toolbox, and few tools. Thus the practitioners find themselves trying different techniques from fields near and far, psychology, and the still-incipient management fields. Not that it is ancient history: the practitioners are still with us, still practicing, leaders in the field, teaching and sharing what is relevant with a new generation of agents of change. The work has inspired a new generation of reflective change practitioners, not least the Change Leaders UK, a group of veterans of Oxford's Said Business School and HEC Paris, who have published two volumes of articles as of the date of this review.