Coordinating Change at a Scale of the Whole: Relational Alliances from Whole Systems Perspectives

Why do relationships matter for organizational change in collaborative contexts? This question sets the premise for this presenter symposium, which brings together four empirical scholarly papers that examine social change from whole systems perspectives. Each presentation explores relational theories and approaches that contribute to the complex task of coordinating at team, organizational, or systemic levels. A common theme across the papers centers on the importance of relational and sociostructural dynamics in implementing critical policies that affect broad social change, particularly within multi-stakeholder collaborative contexts. The studies represent a range of industries and organizations, levels of analysis, methodologies, and contexts, yet each is grounded in relational theories to explore mechanisms of organizational change within and across institutional boundaries, interagency collaboratives, and broader sectors. This session's topic strongly reflects this year's AOM All-Academy Theme, “At ...