Cultural Change and Leadership in Organizations

The need for change within organizations is not uncommon, whether as a result of financial crisis, collaboration issues following an international merger, or other major events. But how can organizations effectively transform themselves? Jaap Boonstra argues that it is not possible to achieve positive strategic change without cultural change, but cultural change is itself not a simple process. So what steps can leaders take in order to tackle cultural change successfully and what are meaningful change strategies? Offering a clear vision on organizational change, Cultural Change and Leadership in Organizations outlines the conditions and factors necessary for an organization’s positive strategic and cultural transformation. Boonstra explores the relationship between culture and leadership, and details ways to effectively combine and organize diverse approaches for strategic and cultural change within organizations. Throughout the text, he combines inspirational and conceptual material with practical examples and concrete interventions for planning and implementing these changes. The text is an invaluable addition for students of MBA and executive MBA programs, as well as a broad range of practitioners.

“This book is written for leaders involved in or planning organisational change.  It is jargon-free and easy to dip in and out of.  It does not require substantial grounding in management of change theories, therefore is useful both for managers facilitating change and also for employees of companies undergoing a strategic and cultural change as a tool for providing meaning to those changes.”  (The British Psychological Society, 1 June 2013)

Jaap Boonstra is Professor of Organization Dynamics at Esade Business School in Barcelona and Professor of Organizational Change and Learning at the University of Amsterdam. He is involved in strategic change processes of international companies like KLM, Bayer, Ahold and Arcadis. In addition he is a non-executive board member of several organizations including the International Choreographic Arts Centre and the Dutch Immigration Services. He is the co-author of Intervening and Changing: Looking for Meaning in Interactions (with Léon de Caluwé, Wiley, 2004) and author of Dynamics of Organizational Change and Learning (Wiley, 2007).