New resource available for students, scholars to conduct organizational change and development research

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Western Michigan University's Dr. David Szabla will soon be releasing a new tool to expose students to methods available for conducting research in the field of organizational change.

Szabla, chair of the Department of Educational Leadership, Research and Technology, will soon be releasing his "Handbook of Research Methods in Organizational Change." The handbook was written by a collective of international experts in the field of organizational development and change and offers innovative and practical information to aid in the successful implementation of research methodologies.

The idea for an organizational change handbook spawned from a conversation between Szabla and the publishing company, Edward Elgar, at an academic conference. While visiting their exhibit booth, he noticed the publisher had a huge collection of handbooks on topics related to management and research.

"I saw books like 'Handbook of Methods in Leadership Research' and 'Handbook of Methods in Human Resource Management.' Whatever the academic discipline was, they had a whole rack of them," says Szabla. "I talked with the woman in charge of the exhibit, and I said, 'You know, we should do one on organizational change.'"

After follow-up conversations and getting the green light from Edward Elgar, Szabla reached out to colleagues, Dr. William Pasmore from Columbia University, Dr. David Coughlin from Trinity University and Dr. Jennifer Kim from Tufts University. The four of them agreed that there was a need for an organizational change handbook on research methods and started to plan the chapters.

"We sent out a call for chapters on various websites to engage interest among people, and then things just kind of took off," explains Szabla. "You know, one or two people will say, 'I want to write on this method,' and then they'll say, "So-and-so should write on this method.' So it was kind of a snowballing effect."

With contributions from international industry experts the handbook presents traditional, modern, and emerging research methods within the field of organizational change. And according to Szabla, the handbook will be a huge benefit to students studying organizational change, including those enrolled in Western's organizational change leadership Ph.D. program.

"As students think about putting together their dissertation research, it'll be a great resource because they will become familiar with all of the methods available to them for conducting research in the field of organizational change," says Szabla.

For more information about "Handbook of Research Methods in Organizational Change" and the upcoming release date, visit the Edward Elgar Publishing website. 

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