Field Theory In Social Science Research Articles

Change Management and Athletic Training: A Primer for Athletic Training Educators

ContextChange management is a discipline guiding how organizations prepare, equip, and support people to adopt a change to drive organizational success and outcomes successfully.ObjectiveTo introduce the concept of change management and create a primer document for athletic training educators to use in the classroom.BackgroundWhile Lean and Six Sigma methodologies are essential for achieving a high-reliability organization, human resistance to change is inevitable. Change management provides a structured approach via different theoretical methods, specific principles, and tools to guide organizations through growth and development and serves an essential role during process improvement initiatives.SynthesisThere are several theories or models of change management, 3 of which are specifically relevant in health care. Kotter and Rathgeber believe change has both an emotional and situational component and use an 8-step approach: increase urgency, guide teams, have the right vision, communicate for buy-in, enable action, create short-term wins, and make-it-stick [Kotter J., Rathgeber H. Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Circumstances. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2006]. Bridges' Transitional Model focuses on the premise that change does not influence project success; instead, a transition does [Bridges W. Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1991]. Lewin's model suggests that restraining forces influence organizations and that driving forces cause change to happen [Lewin K. Problems of research in social psychology. In: Cartwright D, ed. Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers. New York, NY: Harpers; 1951].Recommendation(s)Whether athletic trainers approach change management in a leadership role or as a stakeholder, newly transitioning professionals and those seeking leadership roles should value and appreciate change management theories and tools. Moreover, while no best practice statement exists relative to the incorporation of change management into a curriculum, addressing the subject early may allow immersive-experience students an opportunity to use change management during a process improvement initiative, facilitating a greater appreciation of the content.Conclusion(s)Athletic training curriculums should consider including change management course content, whether separately or in combination with other process-improvement content, thereby familiarizing athletic trainers with a common language for organizational and professional change.

The Muktangan story (Part A): an organizational study and The Muktangan story (Part B): winds of change

Subject area The subject areas are organizational management, organizational behaviour and human resource management. Study level/applicability The study is applicable for courses in human resource management and organizational behaviour as part of masters-level programmes in business administration and management, executive development programmes on organization design and development for middle/senior management. Case overview In 2003, Elizabeth and Sunil Mehta had founded a voluntary organization, “Muktangan”, focussed on child-centric education through innovative pedagogy for the community of the urban poor. Elizabeth, an educationist, and Sunil, a highly successful business person, joined hands to contribute to the well-being of urban poor to make a difference to their lives. Elizabeth and Sunil presented a proposal to impart education for “the children of the community, by the teachers drawn from the community” to the residents of the slums in central Mumbai. With a humble beginning of running a small pre-school, Muktangan now manages seven schools with 3,400 children and 500 teachers, and a teachers’ training centre with a capacity to train 100 teachers a year. Muktangan won acclaim for its unique pedagogy and a very effective child-to-teacher ratio. Over the years, Elizabeth and Sunil led Muktangan with a strong passion and a “hands-on” approach. Of late, Elizabeth and Sunil faced questions from their donors about the sustainability of Muktangan with respect to leadership and management succession. Elizabeth and Sunil had a vision for Muktangan for self-directed growth with an empowered team. Muktangan embarked on the journey to create a leadership for self-directed growth. Sunil, Elizabeth and team Muktangan conceptualized and implemented a change management intervention with help from an external consultant to build the desired organization. Expected learning outcomes Outcomes are understanding issues involved in the leadership, organization design and management of change, particularly of those organizations engaged in social change and development in developing societies. Supplementary materials The Muktangan Story: Part A – An Organizational Study; The Muktangan Story Part B – Winds of Change; Teaching Note;

Life-space foam: A medium for motivational and cognitive dynamics

General stochastic dynamics, developed in a framework of Feynman path integrals, have been applied to Lewinian field-theoretic psychodynamics [K. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1951; K. Lewin, Resolving Social Conflicts, and, Field Theory in Social Science, American Psychological Association, Washington, 1997; M. Gold, A Kurt Lewin Reader, the Complete Social Scientist, American Psychological Association, Washington, 1999], resulting in the development of a new concept of life-space foam (LSF) as a natural medium for motivational and cognitive psychodynamics. According to LSF formalisms, the classic Lewinian life space can be macroscopically represented as a smooth manifold with steady force fields and behavioral paths, while at the microscopic level it is more realistically represented as a collection of wildly fluctuating force fields, (loco)motion paths and local geometries (and topologies with holes). A set of least-action principles is used to model the smoothness of global, macro-level LSF paths, fields and geometry. To model the corresponding local, micro-level LSF structures, an adaptive path integral is used, defining a multi-phase and multi-path (multi-field and multi-geometry) transition process from intention to goal-driven action. Application examples of this new approach include (but are not limited to) information processing, motivational fatigue, learning, memory and decision making.

The role of theory in the psychophysiology of personality: From Ivan Pavlov to Jeffrey Gray

Psychophysiological approaches to personality have made significant progress in recent years, partly as a spin-off of technological innovation (e.g., functional neuroimaging) and partly as a result of an emerging theoretical consensus regarding the structure and biology of basic processes. In this field, Jeffrey Gray's influential psychophysiological theory of personality – now widely known as Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) – owes much to Pavlov, who devoted a large proportion of his later life to personality differences and their implications for psychiatry. In this article, we trace the influence of Pavlov on Hans Eysenck's and Jeffrey Gray's work, and then provide a brief description of RST in order to highlight some of the central problems – as well as some tentative solutions – in the psychophysiology of personality. Specifically, the importance of theory in personality research is stressed by the contrast of Gray's theoretically driven model with less fertile atheoretical (i.e., exploratory–inductive) approaches. The fecundity of RST, which has been in continual development over a period of thirty years, is discussed in the light of Karl Popper's views on the nature of science, especially the formulation of the ‘problem situation’, which sets up the theoretical and operational conditions under which hypotheses may be challenged and tested to destruction. In this respect, we see the truth of Lewin's [Lewin, K., 1951. Field theory in social science: selected theoretical papers. In: Cartwright, D., (Ed.). Harper & Row, New York] famous phrase, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory”.

No going back: A review of the literature on sustaining organizational change

Why do some organizational changes persist, while others decay? The sustainability of change can be defined broadly as the process through which new working methods, performance goals and improvement trajectories are maintained for a period appropriate to a given context. However, sustainability has received limited attention, although the concept reflects Lewin's concern with ‘refreezing’ (Lewin. K. 1951. Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers by Kurt Lewin, UK edition published 1952, ed. D. Cartwright, London: Tavistock). In an uncertain environment, working practices that fail to adapt are targets for change, and stability has been regarded not as a condition to be achieved, but as a symptom of inertia, a problem to be solved. This paper reviews the emerging literature, seeking to develop a provisional model of the processes influencing change sustainability and decay, as a platform for further research. This review suggests that sustainability is dependent on multiple factors, at different levels of analysis: substantial, individual, managerial, financial, leadership, organizational, cultural, political, processual, contextual and temporal. The relative significance of those factors cannot be determined a priori, raising questions concerning the properties of the sustainability process with regard to different types of change in different contexts.

Youth Civic Development: Implications of Research for Social Policy and Programs

Youth Civic Development: Implications of Research for Social Policy and Programs

Sciences of the Artificial and Knowledge Production: The Crucial Role of Intervention Research in Management Sciences

Translated from the French by Mary Sweeney Over the past thirty years a number of European researchers have questioned the epistemological status of their respective scientific disciplines. Works like J. Piaget edited essays in the Encyclopedia de la Pleiade dated 1967, or A. C. Martinet's Epistemologies of Management can be considered landmarks, together with the symposium Constructivism and Management Science held in Lille, France, October 1997. New references, introduced by the constructivist paradigm in particular, have led to the reconsideration of research methods, and to the study of the role and place of researchers in this type of setting. idea of researchers as neutral and objective observers is being more and more contested. On the one hand, their values, beliefs, and other goals and plans are likely to influence the representations which they construct from the phenomenon under inquiry. On the other hand, their mere presence in the field can influence the evolution of this phenomenon. The interaction between observer and observed is an inescapable problem-but rather than viewing this as an obstacle to knowledge, it should be considered the opposite, as a means of knowledge and perhaps the only means, wrote M. Berry in this regard.' Publications appearing in the past ten years, preceded by the pioneering works of K. Lewin2, the Tavistock Institute of the 1950s, B. Glaser and A. L. Strauss3, and E. Thorsud4 demonstrate the interest that has arisen in management science about the problem of knowledge production for and by organizations. Whether called clinical research5, action research methods,6 intervention research,7 or engineering research, these transformative fieldwork methods (as opposed to contemplative methods) tend to develop, after having demonstrated their potential fertility for the researcher as well as for the practitioner. All seem to have the same intention, an intention Lewin8 calls dual, which consists in succeeding in an intentionally change-inducing project and, in doing so, advancing fundamental knowledge in the human sciences. In thinking about a theory of researchers' intervention in a company, it is a new understanding of action which may be offered to us, explained Hatchuel.9 However, it is important to be vigilant regarding the status of knowledge produced by this type of research. Taking the 1 M. Berry, Logique de la connaissance et logique de I'action: reflexions a partir de 1'exp6rience des recherches en gestion menees a l'Ecole des Mines de Paris et a l'Ecole Polytechnique, in Audet, M. and Malouin, J. L., eds., La production des connaissances scientifiques de l'administration (Quebec: Presses Universitaires de Laval, 1986), 200. 2 K. Lewin, Field Theory in Social (New York: Harper and Row, 1951). 3 B. Glaser and A. L. Strauss, Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago: Adline Publishers, 1967). 4 E. Thorsrud, Complementary Roles in Collaborative Action Research, International Conference on the Quality of Working Life, Sept. 24-29 (New York: Harriman, 1972). 5 E. H. Schein, Clinical Perspective in Fieldwork(Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987). 6 K. Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science. 7 C. Argyris, Knowledge forAction. A Guide to Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993). 8 K. Lewin, Frontiers in Group Dynamics I, Human Relations 1:5 (1947): 41. 9 A. Hatchuel, Les savoirs de l'intervention en entreprise, Entreprises et Histoires 7 (1994): 74.

Review of Resolving Social Conflicts: Field Theory in Social Science.

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 1997, Vol 42(8), 756. Reviews the book, Resolving Social Conflicts: Field Theory in Social Science by Kurt Lewin (1976). This valuable text combines Lewin's 1948 book Resolving Social Conflicts and his 1951 work, Field Theory in S

Integrating Theory and PracticeA Review of Kurt Lewin's Field Theory in Social Science, CartwrightDorwin (Ed.), New York: Harper & Bros., 1951.Resolving Social Conflicts, LewinGertrud Weiss (Ed.), New York: Harper & Bros., 1948.

Academy of Management ReviewVol. 14, No. 1 Book ReviewsIntegrating Theory and PracticeChris ArgyrisChris ArgyrisHarvard Business SchoolPublished Online:1 Jan 1989https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1989.4279008AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail View articleAbstractThe article presents reviews for the books “Kurt Lewin's Field Theory in Social Science,” edited by Dorwin Cartwright and “Resolving Social Conflicts,” by Gertrud Weiss Lewin.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 14, No. 1 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 1 January 1989 Published in print 1 January 1989 Information© Academy of Management ReviewKeywordsBOOKS -- ReviewsNONFICTIONDownload PDF

A Review of Kurt Lewin's Field Theory in Social Science

A Review of Kurt Lewin's Field Theory in Social Science

Barriers to technology transfer and their elimination

An analogy between the flow of technology and the flow of electricity is used as a method to analyze technology transfer. This effort is expanded by an analogy to the Lewin's field theory in Social Science. An effort is then made to understand better the types of barriers to technology transfer. Several classes of barriers are identified and are then discussed in detail.

Force fields and emergent phenomena in sociotechnical macrosystems: Theories and models

It is proposed that further qualitative progress in the computer simulation modeling of complex societal systems is dependent on incorporation of field-theoretic constructs embodying truly behavioral and social forces. A number of separate developments are reviewed in the context of the revitalization of field theory in social science. These are: field theory in sociotechnical systems theory, hierarchy theory, critical phenomena, and catastrophe theory. It is argued that the sociotechnical macrosystem can best be viewed as a field of interacting forces which manifests certain unique phenomena. The phenomena emphasized are: slow, continuous change followed by sudden, discontinuous or catastrophic jumps; incipient changes in the field; hierarchical restructuring; emergence of new properties at successive hierarchical levels; and turbulence of the environmental field. Examples of these phenomena, taken from the dynamics and evolution of societies, are given. Two important contemporary advances in the computer simulation modeling of societies, the Systems Dynamics National Model of the United States socioeconomic system and Mankind at the Turning Point, are discussed with regard both to reflecting field-theoretic interpretations of the dynamics of the macrosystem and to the nontrivial incorporation of behavioral and social factors. Both modeling approaches are found wanting. It is argued that these models therefore lack fidelity, the faithful capturing of real world phenomena.

Adjustment Process in a System: A Behavioral Model of Human Movement*

Adjustment Process in a System: A Behavioral Model of Human Movement*

Contemporary Political Science: A Survey of Methods, Research and Teaching. A Symposium Developed by UNESCO. (Paris: UNESCO. 1950. Pp. 714. $5.00.) - Social Science Research Methods. By Wilson Gee. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. 1950. Pp. vii, 391. $4.00.) - Field Theory in Social Science. Selected Papers by Kurt Lewin, edited by Dorwin Cartwright. (New York: Harper and Brothers. 1951. Pp. xx,

Contemporary Political Science: A Survey of Methods, Research and Teaching. A Symposium Developed by UNESCO. (Paris: UNESCO. 1950. Pp. 714. $5.00.) - Social Science Research Methods. By Wilson Gee. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. 1950. Pp. vii, 391. $4.00.) - Field Theory in Social Science. Selected Papers by Kurt Lewin, edited by Dorwin Cartwright. (New York: Harper and Brothers. 1951. Pp. xx,

Field Theory in Social Science

Field Theory in Social Science

Review of Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers.

Review of Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers.

Field Theory in Social Science

Field Theory in Social Science

Book Review: Field Theory in Social Science

Book Review: Field Theory in Social Science

Review of Field theory in social science.

Review of Field theory in social science.

Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers by Kurt Lewin

(1951). Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers by Kurt Lewin. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy: Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 388-389.