14973: Making Relationships Visible: How to Study Relational Aspects of Organizational Change

It is well established in the change literature that relationships are central elements of organizational change processes, i.e., coordination, leadership, or sensemaking of change within and across organizations. And yet without methods for assessing the quality and strength of relationships, they can disappear from our hypotheses, our research designs and our findings. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss how different methodological approaches and methods can be used to “make visible” and investigate relational aspects of organizational change. More specifically, the workshop provides participants with three key take-aways. First, panelists will provide participants with examples of methodologies for the empirical study of relationships and relating in inter- and intraorganizational change efforts: surveys, video, ethnography, and reflexive narratives. Acknowledging that relational aspects of inter and intra organizational change is a broad field, our invitation is open for a variety of different methodological approaches. Then, inspired by the panelists, we will engage PDW participants in facilitated small groups discussions to explore how relational aspects of their own research is - or can be - studied. Finally, the PDW will be summarized by mapping out relevant implications of different methodological choices, enabling the participants to further develop their own methods to study relational aspects of organizational change.

This PDW welcomes both walk-in and pre-registered participants. Participants, who wish to pre-register, must submit an abstract outlining the methodological approach that they would like to present and receive feedback on in group discussions. Application for pre-registration is made by sending an abstract (max 300 words) to lhajjar@suffolk.edu. Deadline for abstract submission is July 1rst 2pm CET. Notification of acceptance of abstract is July 14th 2pm CET.