Literature review

What is it about?

This paper explored the literature around planned organisational change with a specific focus on the works of Lewin and his three-step change model. It charts the development of his model in the context of a number of currently in-use change management models, both research and practice-based. As an exploratory literature review, it considers all elements of the Lewin model, which includes action research, group dynamics and force field analysis, elements which have, in much of the current literature, been overlooked in descriptions of the three-step model in a more restricted linear form. The paper examines a number of models and the literature that surrounds them, categorising them as Research-Based, being both governance and structural approaches, or Practice-based with the former encompassing both governance and structural approaches. In this manner, the paper links each of these with the underlying elements of Lewin’s model, and in the process of doing so, seeks to reassert the historical as well as the ongoing importance and relevance of his model.

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Why is it important?

We consider the relationship between Lewin's original approach to change and 14 currently in-use models, and suggest that whilst a number of refinements have evolved over time, they do not digress to the extent that some would suggest, especially when the true nature of Lewin's approach, which included not just his three-stage model, but also involved action research, group dynamics and force-field analysis, is accounted for.

Perspectives