Abstract: The existence of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in current business environment raised concerns among corporates to establish good risk governance. Previous literature has failed to explore link of risk with the requirement of strategic change. The research presents a cross country comparative case study highlighting five emerging Enterprise Risk Management strategies based on different state of development and maturity of companies – ‘Rudimentary’, ‘Anticipatory’, ‘Resilient’, ‘Transformation’ and ‘Blended’ strategies. The case study provides insights into two insurance companies having different sets of problems associated with internal and external environment in novice and mature markets. Before adoption of blended strategy, both companies require a fundamental understanding of strategic change that eventually can pave way to good risk governance.

Abstract: This research explores a merger between an Art & Design and Architecture faculty in a UK university. The merger was tracked in real-time over two years through observation and interviews. We explore the strategizing work of the Dean as he attempts to manage the merger in a way that leads to the development of a new (shared) organisational identity. We adopt a sensemaking perspective consistent with other studies on organizational identity change, but focus on more than the Dean’s discursive practices, also looking at the impact of new work practices, physical and material changes to the work environment and the recipient response. We use our findings to develop a process model of how identity change can be facilitated during an organisational unit level merger.

Abstract: Social movement activism is posing increasing challenge to organizations which may be pressured on decisions on strategy execution. In this paper we examine the role of individual middle managers’ involvement in collaborations with social movements. The effectiveness of strategy execution by middle managers through early collaboration with social movements measured as higher firm performance is examined in this research. We test this theory in the context of the oil and gas industry. The results of the study will help to address whether middle managers who collaborate early with social movements outperform peer managers that are later movers. These findings, based on data collected from 150 managers across 10 organizations, will contribute to the research on first-mover advantage, role of middle managers, collaboration and strategic fit.

Abstract: This paper examines some theoretical underpinnings of distributed leadership and its ability to serve as change leadership during the process of major organizational changes in healthcare organizations. It reviews a wide range of literature on change leadership, distributed leadership and distributed change leadership. The paper clarifies the relationship between distributed leadership and change leadership, and more specifically, the characteristics of distributed leadership in the change leadership process. It puts forward a distributed change leadership model précising the construct that permits further development of research design and empirical studies. On a more general side, with this paper we shed more light on some aspects of leadership patterns in healthcare, where there is a distinct gap.