Change Management and Complexity: The Case for Narrative Action Research

Abstract

Post-modern theorists have challenged the totalizing and unifying ambitions of change management practices. This paper explores how a narrative action research approach may be used to combine our modernist commitment to facilitate change and collaboration in the land management context with a post-modern sensitivity to complexity and difference. It critically examines the way in which this approach was implemented within a Victorian state government project that attempted to instigate a collaborative approach to land management. The narrative action research approach problematized the project team's representations of the project and brought into view the way in which these erased the space for genuine participation by the broader community. However, while the narrative action research approach highlighted some of the ambiguities that existed within the project, it did very little to change the course of the project. The paper identifies ways in which the approach needs to be modified and concludes that it warrants further research and development.