study guides
study guide for superdomain05c ["Government"]
Material from: Bartunek, J. M., & Moch, M. K. (1994). Third-order organizational change and the western mystical tradition. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 7 (1), 24-41.
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1. Know whether or not first-order change is incremental, involving behavioral adjustments considered appropriate within an organization’s or organization subgroup’s established set of implicit or explicit beliefs about how the organization does or should act. Know whether or not second-order change refers to changes in the cognitive frameworks underlying the organization’s activities. Know whether or not third-order change is designed to give organization members the opportunity to transcend schemata. Know whether or not, while third-order change may seem simple on paper, it is very difficult to achieve in practice.
2. Know whether or not schemata cannot give meaning to themselves. Know whether or not achieving the capacity for third-order change, however, presumes experience that is transconceptual, not subsumed by individual or social cognitive structures. Know whether or not, once modes themselves become apparent, they cease being the media and become the objects of observation, manipulation and change. Know whether or not, for Daft and Lengel, equivocality refers to absence of a shared understanding of situations.
3. Know whether or not [the authors] define analogical communication as communication that is capable of conveying interpretive schemata from one situation to another. Know whether or not the capability for third-order change requires greater awareness than that afforded simply by the experience of on-going second-order changes. Know whether or not great works involve more than their authors. Know whether or not mystics may attempt to capture their experience using aesthetic media, but the experience itself cannot be captured by analogies. Know whether or not William James describes the mystical experience as having four essential attributes: ineffability, passivity, transience and a noetic quality.
4. Know whether or not mystical states are transient. Know whether or not each successively higher understanding involves an expansion of horizons, an enlarged world view in which contradictions implicit in previous understandings are reconciled and their underlying unity appreciated. Know whether or not the passage through the purgative to the illuminative stage is extremely difficult, and certainly not traversed by everyone who begins the mystical journey. Know whether or not the mystical experience is not divorced from the world of action. Know whether or not mystics are creative because, while basing their actions on their experience, they simultaneously distrust their interpretation of this experience and therefore are open to ongoing interpretation and reinterpretation.
5. Know whether or not Teresa of Avila’s most famous image is that of an “interior castle” composed of seven nested dwelling places, each representing a deeper and more profound experience of God. Know whether or not the experience of western Christian mystics is a form of transconceptual understanding that cannot be grasped, much less translated, into cognitive categories and communicated analogically or digitally. Know whether or not it is difficult to avoid the inference that change agents must encourage spiritual development in the client system in order to facilitate third-order change. Know whether or not transconceptual knowledge is not wholly identical with mystical experience.
6. Know whether or not, by considering alternative understandings and then focusing on what is lost as well as gained as each is evaluated, change agents may be able cognitively if not experientially to communicate an appreciation of the limited and relative nature of cognitive understanding in general. Know whether or not third order change may focus on the unity between the organization and its environment. Know whether or not third-order change may be directed towards the process rather than the content of understanding.
7. Know whether or not, like mystical experience, third order change should enable those who experience it to act in novel and creative ways for the benefit of humanity. Know whether or not change agents must initiate a series of second-order changes. Know whether or not, in addition to fostering cognitive movement, change agents must be responsive to managing a number of very difficult feelings, such as anger, a strong sense of loss, anxiety or hopelessness, and conflict and tension experienced among organizational members.
8. Know whether or not Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and other cultures and religions have important mystical Traditions…but [the authors] are less familiar with them and therefore do not discuss them in this article. Know whether or not we cannot conceptually grasp a level higher than third-order change, only experience it as mystery. According to Dupre, any quest for spiritual meaning today requires an inward turn, however much the ultimate goal may be communal. Know whether or not what Bateson…calls “learning III” can be “converted” to a perspective that views perspectives themselves as problems or as solutions for grasping “reality” which must ultimately be regarded as mysterious.
"As Below, So Above"
