Write an essay of 2,500-3,000 words on one of the following topics below, ensuring coverage of the following points:
1. A literature review of the relevant academic and practitioner literature including at least five (5) academic references and three (3) practitioner references making a minimum of eight (8) references in total. (After a brief, indicative literature review, the student may choose to spread the analysis of the relevant literature throughout the paper).
2. A discussion of the student’s relevant professional strengths and limitations regarding change management. What might be the challenges for the student in applying the insights she/he has gained from the literature and classes? How could she/he meet these challenges? Refer to the literature as relevant.
3. A discussion which relates the literature to the student’s professional life and/or work context. The work/life context could be a past, current or possible future situation. How will the student apply the insights and learnings from the literature and classes in a current or future endeavours as a change agent (whether as an explicit change agent, a manager, or more generally managing change at work)?
Students with limited/no professional work experience should choose a relevant life change or event to write about for the essay.
• What do you consider are the most important things to get right in a successful change process?
• The theories and dynamics of change management
• Organisational development as a theory and practice: does it work?
• The role of IT in organisation development: how is it used; what are the possible traps of using IT in OD? What are the reporting mechanisms for ensuring successful use of IT in OD?
Is OD really just a fancy idea that in practice amounts to brainwashing in which employees are conscripted into the organisation’s preferred type of groupthink at the time.
