Organizational Change

In today’s world, organizational resilience, adaptability and agility gain new prominence.  Awaken, mobilize, accelerate, and institutionalize change with Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit, Fifth Edition. Bridging theory with practice, this new edition uses models, examples, and exercises to help students engage others in the change process. Authors Gene Deszca, Cynthia Ingols, Tupper F. Cawsey, and Evelina Atanassova provide tools for implementing, measuring, and monitoring sustainable change initiatives and helping organizations achieve their objectives. 

Gene Deszca is professor emeritus of business administration and a former MBA director and associate director in the Lazaridis School of Business and Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. He played a variety of leadership roles at Laurier, including the development and launch of the full-time, one-year MBA program, the executive MBA program, and the undergraduate international business concentration. He was instrumental in the development of the post-university professional accreditation programs for one of Canada’s major accounting bodies and was a member of its national board of directors for several years. Gene loves working with students and practitioners and values the excitement, energy, and breakthroughs that can emerge from these interactions. He has served on boards and continues to teach graduate and executive courses, both nationally and internationally, in organizational behavior, leading organizational change, and international business. His consulting work follows similar themes for clients in both the public and private sectors, with a focus on framing and navigating organizational change and the development and delivery of executive programs. He is involved in entrepreneurial initiatives that are in the process of scaling. One of these focuses on the development and deployment of public and private blockchains for use across a wide array of applications. Gene is the author or coauthor of over 100 journal articles, books, monographs, cases, conference publications/presentations, and technical papers. These include the books Canadian Cases in Human Resource Management, Cases in Organizational Behaviour, and Organizational Change: An Action Oriented Toolkit (now in its fifth edition) and the articles “Driving Loyalty Through Time-to-Value,” “Managing the New Product Development Process: Best-in-Class Principles and Leading Practices,” and “Aging Well in Management Education: An Interview.” He is an active case writer, and his current research focuses on organizational change and the development of high-performance enterprises. Cynthia Ingols is a Fellow, Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership, Boston, Massachusetts. In this role, Cynthia coaches executive women on their leadership skills, the change roles which they take up in their organizations, and the ever-present question of how they care for themselves amidst the swirl of the external environment. Cynthia continues to research topics of interest to women leaders: how they give and receive useful feedback; what’s the place of mentoring and being mentored as leaders; and how women leaders gain and/or serve as corporate sponsors of other women. Cynthia received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in organization behavior and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For twenty-plus years, she taught and worked as a Professor of Practice, School of Business, Simmons University, Boston. She taught management communication at the Harvard Business School, managed the 65-person case writing and research staff at HBS, and taught qualitative methods courses at several Boston-area universities. She serves as an editorial member of the Case Research Journal. She has served on corporate boards for several organizations, including FOX RPM and Biosymposia. Cynthia’s research has been published in leading journals. Her research on executive education programs has been published in the Harvard Business Review, Organizational Dynamics, and Training. Her research work on creating innovative organizational structures and change was published in the Design Management Journal. She has published numerous articles about careers in journals, such as the Journal of Career Development and Human Resource Development Quarterly. She coauthored two books on career management: Take Charge of Your Career and A Smart, Easy Guide to Interviewing. Cynthia is grateful to Tupper and Gene for their invitation to join the team to publish the second through fourth editions of Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit and welcomes Evelina to the team to publish the fifth edition. Evelina Atanassova is an associate professor of human resources and business administration at University of Massachusetts Global. In this role, she takes different leadership assignments, including the curriculum development of the School of Business and Professional Studies, program reviews, and development of instructional media and instruments. Evelina specializes in teaching business administration, human resources, management, and data analysis. Her research interests include organization management and organization behavior theories; she is currently investigating social networking strategies as a response to professional demands and individual goals, as well as social network configurations. Her research has been presented at major academic conferences, such as the Academy of Management, the European Group for Organization Studies, the International Network for Social Network Analysis, and the Paris Conference on Education. Earlier in her career, Evelina gained operational leadership experience in human resource management as an HR manager for a large European telecommunications company. In that capacity, she was responsible for developing and implementing large-scale strategic initiatives spanning diverse HR disciplines, including job evaluation and grading, performance management, competency models, and leadership development. Evelina holds a PhD in management from HEC Paris in Paris, France, as well as an MA in organizational leadership from Chapman University in Irvine, California, an MA in human resource management from the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, Bulgaria, and a BA in sociology from Sofia University in Sofia, Bulgaria. As a life-long learner, Evelina is passionate about supporting students with their drive for knowledge and developing the leaders of tomorrow. She is grateful to Gene and Cynthia for selecting her as a coauthor of this exciting new edition of Organizational Change: An Action Oriented Toolkit. Tupper F. Cawsey is professor emeritus of Business, Wilfrid Laurier University. He served as editor, Case Research Journal, for the North American Case Research Association. He has served on several boards of directors and was chair, Lutherwood Board from 2003–2008. Tupper was recognized nationally in 2001 as one of Canada’s top five business professors by receiving the Leaders in Management Education award, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Post. He is also the 1994 recipient of the David Bradford Educator Award, presented by the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, and the 1990 Wilfrid Laurier University “Outstanding Teacher Award.” Tupper created the Case Track for the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, a peer review process for cases. He is author or coauthor of over six books and monographs including, Toolkit for Organizational Change—1st Edition, Canadian Cases in Human Resource Management, Cases in Organizational Behaviour, and several monographs including Control Systems in Excellent Canadian Companies and the Career Management Guide. Tupper has over 50 refereed journal and conference publications. In 2005, he received the Christiansen Award from the Kaufman Foundation and the North American Case Research Association (NACRA), and in 2007 his case, “Board Games at Lutherwood,” won the Directors College Corporate Governance Award and the Bronze Case Award at the NACRA Conference. In 2009, his case, “NuComm International,” won the Gold Case Award at the NACRA Conference.