Change Management

This section discusses the scientific and structural approach on which this case study is based.
1.1 Scientific Approach
Several researchers have noted that all social scientists approach their subject via explicit or
implicit assumptions about the nature of the social world and the way in which it may be
investigated. For example, Burrell et al. (1979: 1) argued that “all theories of organization are
based upon a philosophy of science and a theory of society”.
Burrel et al. (1979) developed a useful framework that can help to clarify these fundamental
assumptions. The authors identified two extreme positions that they termed “German
idealism” and “sociological positivism”. The framework explains the two extremes along four
dimensions (see Table 1). [...] The ontological assumptions concern the essence of the phenomena under investigation. The
nominalist position revolves around the assumption that the social world is made up of names
and labels that are used to structure reality. On the other hand, realism postulates that the
social world is made up of hard, tangible structures (Burrel et al. 1979: 1-4).
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The epistemological assumptions concern the grounds of knowledge. The anti-positivist views
the social world as essentially relativistic. On the other hand, the positivist position seeks to
explain what happens in the social world by searching for regularities and causal relationships
between its constituent elements (Burrel et al. 1979: 1-5).
A third set of assumptions concern human nature. The voluntarism position maintains that
man is completely autonomous and free-willed. At the other extreme, the determinist position
views man as being completely determined by the environment (Burrel et al. 1979: 2-6). [...]