Transitioning organizations to the new normal following environmental shocks, economic upheavals and technological innovations is a challenge to classic organizational management, because no single organization knows with precision what the target of change is. Resources created and operated in relationships can support the organization in overcoming its constraints, changing faster, and adapting better. This book takes a relational perspective on how organizations adjust and adapt to their turbulent environment. Drawing from a broad literature and empirical studies, this book offers novel insights into how businesses create, grow, and manage relationships with partners to support strategic change. It discusses the benefits of cooperating with partners and relying on shared resources, while controlling relational risks. It presents key relational processes including organizational intelligence, open culture, knowledge sharing routines, motivation, co-creation, and communication. It discusses focus areas: longevity of family firms, improving health and safety in medical services, crisis management, public administration reforms, and relational risk management. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students in the fields of organizational studies, organizational change, technology, and innovation management. Managers and entrepreneurs can find inspiration, motivation, and strategies for implementing and managing relationships along the value chain.

Cognition is usually associated with brain activity. Undoubtedly, some brain activity is necessary for it to function. However, the last thirty years have revolutionized the way we intend and think about cognition. These developments allow us to think of cognition as distributed in the sense that it needs tools, artifacts, objects, and other external entities to allow the brain to operate properly. Organizational Cognition: The Theory of Social Organizing takes this perspective and applies it to the organization by introducing a model that defines the elements that allow cognition to work. This model shows that cognition needs the combined and simultaneous presence of micro aspects—i.e. the biological individual—and macro super-structural elements—e.g. organizational climate, culture, norms, values, rules. These two become practice of cognition as they materialize in a meso domain—this is any action that allows individuals to perform their daily duties. Due to the micro-meso-macro interactions, this has been called the 3M Model. Most of what happens in the meso domain relates to exchanges between two or more people, i.e. it is a social activity. This is usually mentioned in the perspectives above, but it is rarely explored. By bringing meso activities to the center of cognition, the book develops and presents the Theory of Social Organizing. Not only this is useful to organizational scholars, but it also opens a new path for cognition research.

This book includes a selection of the best research papers presented at the annual conference of the Italian chapter of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), which took place in Verona, Italy in October 2016. Tracing various aspects of the ongoing phenomenon of evolution towards a global society, and consequently the ever-innovating digital world, it first discusses emerging technologies and the new practices in the information-systems world. It then examines the new businesses and ongoing business transformations. Lastly, it considers the economic and societal changes brought about by access to and exploitation of socio-technical networks. The plurality of views offered makes the book particularly relevant for users, companies, scientists and governments.

Despite the plethora of books on change, there appears a notable gap in the field; rarely is the authentic and candid voice of change agents heard. How often do academics or practitioners candidly state what they actually do when they are faced with managing change in their own organisations or when they are called on in a consultancy capacity? In this new book, the editors bring together a diverse group of contributors who have worked as Internal Change Agents in organizations to divulge what they really do and think about change. The authors draw on their own research work involving change agents and their change interventions and include current reflections on the post-Covid world of work, and the change required for achieving change interventions successfully. Each contribution offers perspectives from real change programmes, in both the public and private sector, offering a unique opportunity to move beyond theory and understand change in practice. The book offers valuable insights for academics and students of organisational change and behaviour, leadership and organisational development.

The social and political changes of this era have created a climate change and fundamental shift in how businesses view the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace. It is essential to understand how leaders make significant, sustainable changes utilizing communication abilities, envisioning, conflict management skills, and innovative DEIB initiatives. However, leaders must be careful not to rely on anecdotal evidence as it does not always reflect DEIB realities. Implementing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Management in Organizational Change Initiatives analyzes how leaders implement DEIB organizational change initiatives. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective of how issues and challenges pertaining to DEIB management affect organization performance. Covering topics such as inclusive organizational identity, socio-intercultural entrepreneurship, and supplier diversity programs, this book is an indispensable resource for business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, academic administration, students and educators of higher education, government officials, researchers, and academicians.

The reflection on university management is based on the question about the shape of universities of the future. Civic, responsible, sustainable, virtual, digital, and many other universities can be mentioned among the concepts present in the literature. All these names describe an important distinctive feature of a university, which will gain more and more importance in the future. However, given the fundamental importance of the radical change taking place, it seems that the most appropriate name, reflecting the essence of the emerging new formation, is "digital university." This is because of the importance of digital transformation, which has been developing for several decades, bringing deep and multidirectional changes in the areas of technology, economy, society, and culture. It is a disruptive civilizational transition and, although stretched over many decades, it is revolutionary in nature, significantly changing our lives in the Anthropocene. The book has three cognitive and pragmatic objectives: to provide a new perspective on the changing academic organization and management; to reflect on higher education management concepts and methods; and to present an overview of university management, governance, and leadership, useful from the perspective of academic managers, and other stakeholders. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Developing Relational Leadership offers the scholar, the practitioner, and most importantly, the scholar-practitioner an exuberance of riches. The authors provide a deep foray into the worlds of systemic, cybernetic and constructionist ideas, while bringing those ideas to the worlds of leadership and organizational change and practice. The authors share cases that present tools for exploring these ideas and practices. While the authors position the two halves of this volume as ¿tools for thinking¿ and ¿tools for action,¿ marking this as a book about both theory and practice, the reader experiences ¿tools for thinking about the relationship between thinking and action¿ ¿ and this connection is quite a treat. Relationship and context are continually in the foreground. Developing Relational Leadership looks at the importance of the questions that we ask ¿ and what our questions do for systemic inquiry and praxis. The focus on diverse ways of asking powerful questions is worth the read itself. This book is for those who are interested in systems theory, cybernetics, constructionism, and communication theory, as well as those interested in leadership, coaching, and organization development. The authors, true to their reliance on positioning ourselves in a multitude of roles, invite us to converse with an ecology of ideas, and open space for a profound reflective practice. A joyful read that will change how systems practitioners think and systems theoreticians act.