Patrick Dawson is Professor of Organizational Change at the University of Northumbria and Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen. He holds a PhD in Industrial Sociology from the University of Southampton and during his early career, worked at the University of Surrey and the University of Edinburgh. He moved to Australia in the 1980s and took up a lectureship at the University of Adelaide. In 1997, he took up the Salvesen Chair in Management at the University of Aberdeen, where he undertook senior administrative roles including Director of Graduate Studies and Head of the Business School. After a sabbatical in 2005, Patrick reduced his time at Aberdeen and took up a professorial appointment at the University of Wollongong (2006-2016) and the University of Adelaide (2017-2019), regularly travelling between the two countries. He has held visiting professorships at Roskilde University, Lund University and the Danish Technical University, as well as an adjunct professorship at Monash University.In extended case study research in the UK and Australia, Patrick has been actively engaged in longitudinal studies on innovation and change for over forty years in a range of organizations, including Pirelli Cables, British Rail, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, the CSIRO and Micro-X. Many of these funded projects were collaborations with scholars from other universities, resulting in the publication of over 60 refereed journal articles, 14 books, 50 book chapters and numerous conference papers.
Understanding Organizational Change: - offers an overview of change management - brings new case studies to help students understand organizational change - provides a concise overview of the developments in change management with new critical case study material for the use of advanced undergraduate and masters level management students; - presents the contemporary experience of change for people in work and employment, - considers alternative strategies and practical lessons on living with change. Offering a critical analysis of change, Patrick Dawson resists the hype of popular management books which formulate simple change recipes, but uses the views and experience of people holding positions from shop floor operator to chief executive officer to further our understanding of complex change processes. In using the insights and views of those who promote, implement and experience the effects of change, this book moves beyond simple determinist arguments based on economic imperatives to a greater appreciation of the sociological dimensions of change. The integration of theories of change with processes of organisational adaptation is central to the objective of understanding organizational change both for its academic value and its practical worth. Understanding Organizational Change will be essential reading final year undergraduates and postgraduates (MBA/MSc) taking organizational change and change management modules across business and management studies.
