Session

Organization design is both a description of strategies, structures, and processes and a process for creating and aligning these features.   Design and change become the same thing when the pace of technological and social change and the frequency of reorganizations increases. At the same time, organization agility and culture change remain two of the big ideas begging for real-life applications.

Despite the increasing agreement on the definition of organization agility, there is much less clarity about how to become an agile organization. Specifically, culture’s role in becoming agile remains confusing in practice. Is culture the target of change? Is culture a constraint to transformation? Could culture be a facilitator of change? In this presentation, I will share practical insights and experiences on how design and change work together and with culture to help organizations become agile.

Bio

Dr. Christopher Worley is the Research Professor of Management at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business. He is a recognized leader in the field of organization agility, organization development, and organization design. Prior to Pepperdine, he was the founding Strategy Director at the Center for Leadership and Effective Organizations at the NEOMA Business School in France, a Senior Research Scientist at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, Chair of the Academy of Management’s Organization Development and Change division, and Director of the Master of Science in Organization (MSOD) program at Pepperdine University. He received the McGregor Award from the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and Pepperdine University’s Luckman Distinguished Teaching Fellowship. Dr. Worley is co-author of The Agility Factor, Becoming Agile, Management Reset, Built to Change, Integrated Strategic Change, co-editor of two volumes Organizing for Sustainable Effectiveness series, and co-author of seven editions of Organization Development and Change.