Social Cognition in Organizational Change: An Insider-Outsider Approach

Abstract

This article uses a joint insider-outsider research approach to understand the cognitive dynamics associated with implementation of a new empowerment schema. The schema was experientially developed by the founders of a group of teachers in a network of schools. An outside researcher and the two founders (the insiders) collaborated in a study of the dynamics associated with the implementation of the schema, focusing on the founders' implicit expectations regarding implementation and the cognitive processes involved in the teachers' reception of the schema. These expectations and cognitive processes were uncovered through analysis of dilemmas experienced when the founders implemented the schema at a faculty institute. On the basis of these dilemmas, the article suggests that certain cognitive processes are likely to be evoked in a group or organization when a new schema is introduced and that conflicts are likely to arise because of these cognitive processes.