Agents of Change

This work focuses on the transition faced by business organizations and their stakeholders as they move from protected markets to open competition, and it explores how these changes can be facilitated by outside interveners/agents. The four authors - two from Europe and two from the United States - have worked separately as consultants with leaders of many companies and unions facing these challenges, including AT&T, Lucent, Electricite de France, and the Italian State Railways (Ferrovie dello Stato). The reader is thus afforded an unusual insight into the process of change in a large organization - not only close-up accounts of what happened, but understanding of the relationship between the researcher/consultant and different groups within the organization - senior managers, HR people, unions, and ordinary employees.