Sameness, Otherness? Enriching organizational change theories with philosophical considerations on the same and the other
Abstract
Our objective is to discuss, in the organizational change literature, the recurring use of what we call the "sameness principle," along with another principle, inspired by contemporary philosophy and somehow present in the organizational ethics literature. called "otherness." We review four classic organizational change approaches, underscore the limitations of the sameness principle, and position otherness relative to current organizational ethics literature. We then emphasize the role of powerful agents within the organization as potential conveyors of otherness and deduce propositions that relate these agents' posture to the observable type of organizational change processes