Researching the roles of internal-change agents in the management of organizational change

There has been relatively little empirical research on the roles played by internal-change agents in the processes of developing and managing organizational and cultural change, or on their learning needs. There is a particular dearth of research on these issues in the public-service sector. This paper discusses an innovative methodology for studying the work of internal-change agents within local government. It describes an action-research project, the learning laboratory, which the authors piloted with a small group of senior managers involved in developing programmes of corporate organizational and/or cultural change in their own local authorities. Using a variety of action-research and action-learning techniques within the laboratory, together with before and after interviews with the participants and their line managers in their authorities, the project was able to explore the roles, perceptions and learning needs of these internal-change agents. The research makes a contribution to the study of internal-change agents in their organizational context, and draws attention in particular to the implications for change agents of the political context of public-service organizations. The value of the learning-laboratory methodology for assessing the learning needs of internal-change agents is also assessed.