The call comes after Victoria’s Professor of Strategy Stephen Cummings, School of Management senior lecturer Todd Bridgman, and Kenneth Brown from the University of Iowa, pored over original sources of pioneer psychologist Kurt Lewin’s much hailed three-step approach to change management.
What they discovered was the version of Lewin’s theory, widely cited by management textbooks and still a popular tool in management interventions today, is a much simplified version of the psychologist’s actual words. It is based on a small summary statement by Lewin, buried in one of his last articles published in 1947.
Over time the ‘unfreeze-change-refreeze’ model of change was built around this fragment by others and attributed to Lewin.Professor Cummings says: “The misinterpretation of Lewin may be harmful because it blinkers us from seeing his other, more substantive insights.”
This research is part of Professor Cummings’ and Dr Bridgman’s ongoing study into the history of early management theory. Their discoveries draw attention to the dangers of contemporary research patterns where research outputs are encouraged.
“It’s been shown that citation patterns in research outputs are broader (more references), but shallower (more recent). In other words, there’s greater immediacy, but less depth. We argue that it has consequently become less likely people go back and look at primary sources, making misinterpretations, or forgetting what was originally written, more likely.”
This is known as ‘attention decay’, and as the three researchers argue, this type of research behaviour not only potentially deforms the original idea, over time it stymies thorough analysis and discussion, which can limit the scope for innovation.
“It propagates simplistic understanding of the history of ideas, which makes it less likely that we can robustly assess what has gone before, debate views and make true progress, rather than just enjoy the illusion of progress,” he says.
Professor Cummings and Dr Bridgman’s purpose is to encourage greater historical research into management’s foundational authors.
“While there is often an assumption that historical research like this is the opposite of innovation, we argue that looking back can actually help people think more critically about management and what the subject is about and that this is a useful spur to innovation,” Professor Cummings says.
Their findings were published recently in a special issue of the international social sciences journal Human Relations.
The journal has just announced theirs was the second most downloaded article in October, only beaten by Lewin’s original 1947 article. Dr Bridgman says this is especially pleasing “because the aim of the research is to encourage people to look again at foundational papers like Lewin’s”.
Professor Cummings and Dr Bridgman are currently co-authoring a new book that sets out to rethink management history, commissioned by Cambridge University Press.