Abstract
Richard (Dick) W. Woodman is a unique contemplative scholar who built his name in the field with his scholarship as well as his charming personality and satirical nature. The following chapter covers Dick’s personal history starting with growing up in rural Oklahoma, followed by his service in the US Army, and then his extended contributions to the profession. We discuss his life experiences and some of his lasting influences on the field. Early in his career, Dick helped popularize the concept of creativity in the field of management and organizational behavior by publishing one of the most highly cited and still actively researched theories on organizational creativity (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, Acad Manag Rev 18:293–321, 1993). This was followed with several other important streams of scholarship including an emphasis on bridging scholars and practitioners as well as a focus on strengthening methodologies in organizational change research. In addition to this scholarship, Dick has also directly shaped the direction of research and practice in organizational change and development over the last 30 years as editor of two of the most influential publications: The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and Research in Organizational Change and Development. We end this essay with a discussion of his lasting legacy in the change arena. Although recently retiring from a 38-year career as an endowed professor at Texas A&M, Dick continues to write and contribute to change scholarship. He encourages us to strengthen change research methodology, and his legacy of scholarship on creativity and change provides the conceptual basis for ongoing research with the interactionist model of creativity. He also challenges the field with two fundamental issues/questions: (1) individual changeability – how does the organization affect, and how do individuals change during and following episodes where an organization attempts to change? and (2) a temporal model of change – how might the field better incorporate an understanding of temporality and change in order to extend beyond the Lewin model by creating a more dynamic process model of change?
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Woodman, R. W., Bingham, J. B., & Yuan, F. (2008). Assessing organization development and change interventions. In T. G. Cummings (Ed.), Handbook of organization development (pp. 187–215). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Yuan, F., & Woodman, R. W. (2010). Innovative behavior in the workplace: The role of performance and image outcome expectations. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 323–342.
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Further Reading
Bartunek, J. M., & Woodman, R. W. (2012). The spirits of organization development, or why OD lives despite its pronounced death. In K. Cameron & G. Spreitzer (Eds.), Handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp. 727–736). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bartunek, J. M., & Woodman, R. W. (2015). Beyond Lewin: Towards a temporal approximation of organization development and change. In F. P. Morgeson, H. Aguinis, & S. J. Ashford (Eds.), Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 157–182). Palo Alto: Annual Reviews.
Chakrabarty, S., & Woodman, R. W. (2009). Relationship creativity in collectives at multiple levels. In T. Rickards, M. Runco, & S. Moger (Eds.), The Routledge companion to creativity (pp. 189–205). London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Kilbourne, L. M., & Woodman, R. W. (1999). Barriers to organizational creativity. In R. Purser & A. Montuori (Eds.), Social creativity in organizations (pp. 125–150). Cresskill: Hampton Press.
Lau, C. M., & Woodman, R. W. (1995). Understanding organizational change: A schematic perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 537–554.
Lau, C. M., Kilbourne, L. M., & Woodman, R. W. (2003). A shared schema approach to understanding organizational culture change. In W. A. Pasmore & R. W. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 14, pp. 225–256). Oxford: Elsevier Science.
McMahan, G. C., & Woodman, R. W. (1992). The current practice of organization development within the firm: A survey of large industrial corporations. Group & Organization Management, 17, 117–134.
Pasmore, W. A., Woodman, R. W., & Simmons, A. L. (2008). Toward a more rigorous, reflective, and relevant science of collaborative management research. In A. B. Shani, N. Adler, S. A. Mohrman, W. A. Pasmore, & B. Stymne (Eds.), Handbook of collaborative management research (pp. 567–582). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. (2001). Studying organizational change and development: Challenges for future work. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 697–713.
Rubinstein, D., & Woodman, R. W. (1984). Spiderman and the Burma raiders: Collateral organization theory in action. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 20, 1–16.
Sutton, C. D., & Woodman, R. W. (1989). Pygmalion goes to work: The effect of supervisor expectations in a retail setting. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 943–950.
Thach, L., & Woodman, R. W. (1994). Organizational change and information technology: Managing on the edge of cyberspace. Organizational Dynamics, 23(1), 30–46.
Woodman, R. W. (1979). A devil’s dictionary of behavioral science research terms. Academy of Management Review, 4, 93–94.
Woodman, R. W. (1989a). Evaluation research on organizational change: Arguments for a ‘combined paradigm’ approach. In R. W. Woodman & W. A. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 3, pp. 161–180). Greenwich: JAI Press.
Woodman, R. W. (1989b). Organizational change and development: New arenas for inquiry and action. Journal of Management, 15, 205–228.
Woodman, R. W. (1995). Managing creativity. In C. M. Ford & D. A. Gioia (Eds.), Creative action in organizations (pp. 60–64). Newbury Park: Sage.
Woodman, R. W. (2008a). Creativity and organizational change: Linking ideas and extending theory. In J. Zhou & C. Shalley (Eds.), Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 283–300). New York: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Woodman, R. W. (2008b). Discourse, metaphor, and organizational change: The wine is new, but the bottle is old. British Journal of Management, 19, 33–37.
Woodman, R. W. (2013). The interactionist model of organizational creativity. In E. H. Kessler (Ed.), Encyclopedia of management theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Woodman, R. W. (2014a). The role of internal validity in evaluation research on organizational change interventions. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50, 40–49.
Woodman, R. W. (2014b). The science of organizational change and the art of changing organizations. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 50, 463–477.
Woodman, R. W., & Bartunek, J. M. (2013). Commentary: Change processes and action implications. In S. Oreg, A. Michel, & R. By (Eds.), The psychology of organizational change: Viewing change from the employees’ perspective (pp. 301–323). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Woodman, R. W., & Dewett, T. (2004). Organizationally relevant journeys in individual change. In M. S. Poole & A. H. Van de Ven (Eds.), Handbook of organizational change and innovation (pp. 32–49). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Woodman, R. W., & King, D. C. (1978). Organizational climate: Science or folklore? Academy of Management Review, 3, 816–826.
Woodman, R. W., & Pasmore, W. A. (2002). The heart of it all: Group- and team-based interventions in OD. In J. Waclawski & A. H. Church (Eds.), Organization development: A data driven approach to organizational change (pp. 164–176). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Woodman, R. W., & Schoenfeldt, L. F. (1989). Individual differences in creativity: An interactionist perspective. In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 77–91). New York: Plenum.
Woodman, R. W., & Schoenfeldt, L. F. (1990). An interactionist model of creative behavior. Journal of Creative Behavior, 24, 279–290.
Woodman, R. W., & Sherwood, J. J. (1980a). Effects of team development intervention: A field experiment. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 16, 211–227.
Woodman, R. W., & Sherwood, J. J. (1980b). The role of team development in organizational effectiveness: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 88, 166–186.
Woodman, R. W., & Tolchinsky, P. D. (1985). Expectation effects: Implications for organization development. In D. D. Warrick (Ed.), Contemporary organization development: Current thinking and applications (pp. 477–487). Glenview: Scott Foresman.
Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18, 293–321.
Woodman, R. W., Bingham, J. B., & Yuan, F. (2008). Assessing organization development and change interventions. In T. G. Cummings (Ed.), Handbook of organization development (pp. 187–215). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Woodman, R. W., & Wayne, S. J. (1985). An investigation of positive-findings bias in evaluation of organization development interventions. Academy of Management Journal, 28, 889–913.
Yuan, F., & Woodman, R. W. (2007). Formation of expectations regarding change outcomes: Integrating information and social effects. In W. A. Pasmore & R. W. Woodman (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development (Vol. 16, pp. 81–104). Oxford: Elsevier.
Yuan, F., & Woodman, R. W. (2010). Innovative behavior in the workplace: The role of performance and image outcome expectations. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 323–342.
Zhou, J., & Woodman, R. W. (2003). Manager’s recognition of employees’ creative ideas: A social-cognitive model. In L. V. Shavinina (Ed.), International handbook on innovation (pp. 631–640). Oxford: Elsevier Science.
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Thundiyil, T.G., Manning, M.R. (2017). Richard W. Woodman: Creativity and Change. In: Szabla, D.B., Pasmore, W.A., Barnes, M.A., Gipson, A.N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52878-6_64
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