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Ethics of change initiatives
De Klerk, J.J.
De Klerk, J.J.
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Abstract
Over the last three decades, increasing pressures for competitiveness triggered continual change and improvement interventions in most organizations. The effect of such interventions on employees is often traumatic as people experience loss and trauma when their personal work spaces are infringed on. The experience of such extreme emotions seem to be somewhat unnecessary as research has shown that change interventions have a poor track record to deliver on the anticipated financial goals. The procedural fairness of how change interventions are conceived, announced, implemented and executed also leaves much room for improvement. These behavioral aspects put a huge question mark behind the ethicality of change interventions in general. From this background, the paper provides some suggestions towards more ethical behavior during change interventions. It suggests steering away from large-scale change interventions whenever possible. When a change intervention is unavoidable, it must be from the premise to do no harm; it must be done according to a moral code, approached from a virtuous perspective and lead by compassionate leaders.
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Preprint
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2008
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With permission of the license/copyright holder