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Building change leadership capability: ‘The quest for change competence’
Abstract
While the literature highlights the continuing, and indeed growing, significance of the challenge of implementing change effectively (eg Kotter, 1994; Carnall, 1999) and explores reasons for failures (eg Kotter, 1996) there seems to be little agreement on a way forward. The seeds for potential progress appear to lie within the examination of change competencies and the building of capability for managing significant and continuing change. This paper examines the literature relating to change competencies and capabilities and presents a case study which demonstrates how a competence-based approach has been applied in practice. The process of identifying critical competencies is explored, and a specific change competency framework is examined. In exploring the case, qualitative evidence is presented which suggests that the competency framework, and its application in practice, has had a real impact on the development of change capability in an organisation. This research is seen as being exploratory, however, and providing a stimulus for further research streams which are described towards the end of the paper. The paper concludes that it is focusing on what is involved in implementing change which will lead to a real understanding of the critical competencies required and of a means of building change capability with an organisation.
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“It has been asserted that the role and behaviors of leaders in a change context per se has been an area that is lacking in empirical research”
From What Does It Take to Implement Change Successfully? A Study of the Behaviors of Successful Change Leaders (2011) · cites this paper as Higgs & Rowland, 2000
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Metadata
- Authors
- Higgs, M., & Rowland, D.
- Affiliations
- Henley College (GB)
- ORCID
- Higgs, Malcolm
- Venue
- Journal of Change Management
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2000-07
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 116-130
- ISSN
- 1469-7017 (ISSN-L)
- 1479-1811
- OpenAlex
- W1977050921
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 12
- FWCI
- 5.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Change Management (publishedVersion)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Organizational Change and Leadership
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Competency Development and Evaluation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Organizational Management and Change
- Keywords
- change leadership, change competence, change capability, competence-based approach, organizational change, change management, critical competencies
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