IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2017 - 60

TABLE 1. Mapping of Insights from Change Management to Participatory Self-Organizing
Socio-Technical Systems.
Insight from Change Management

Application in Participatory Self-Organizing Socio-Technical Systems

Identify the need for change

Give all levels of the system the ability to observe the environment, identify issues, and
escalate them to the necessary actors.

Communicate the need for change
Formulate and communicate a vision

Enable all agents to assess the situation for themselves, and make a decision based on that
assessment. Techniques from argumentation (see, e.g., [32]) might be useful here.

Create awareness and participation
Create a sense of self-interest
Establish a sense of urgency

Prepare larger change efforts with communication to users. Use non-monetary incentives
and short-term advantages, e.g., using gamification techniques [7]. Make the purpose of the
organization and its fitness for purpose evident to all agents and users. Use value-sensitive
design to ensure that overarching values are achieved and upheld [24].

Form coalitions for change
Empower action

Don't target all agents in the systems, but only those acting as hubs in the social network
[27]. Give individual agents the ability to make necessary changes within their environment.

Institutionalize successful changes

Provide provisions to maintain a stable equilibrium that is fit for purpose, e.g., by detecting
and sanctioning non-compliance [5].

organization, whereas a continuous change can impact
the organization as a whole.
These types of changes can be mapped to technical
self-organizing systems or socio-technical systems as
well. Episodic changes occur whenever a drastic stimulus inside or outside of the organization forces a strong,
potentially reformative reaction. The intervention focuses on bringing change about on a relatively short timescale and is directed towards a specific goal [31]. Such a
change can occur due to external stimuli, e.g., if new
legislation changes the organization of markets or
strong new players enter the market, or due to internal
stimuli, such as expansion or changes in leadership.
Continuous change, on the other hand, is a process of
adapting to relatively small stimuli and does not change
the structures or rules of the system fundamentally within a short period of time. Such changes are present in a
smart grid scenario when, e.g., new small consumers or
producers join or prices adapt due to changes in season.
Many modern theories of organizational stewardship
embrace continuous change and see it as something normal and expected [28], as well as a way to ensure the
"long-term adaptability" of an organization [31]. At the
same time, small continuous changes can have a strong
effect when accumulated over longer periods of time, but
do not necessarily follow defined goals [31].
Once the actual episodic change process is underway,
it is structured in three distinct phases according to Lewin
[3], [16]. First, the organization needs to be unfrozen, i.e.,
the need for change needs to be identified and communicated
in the organization to create awareness and participation.
Then, a phase of transition occurs in which the changes
are implemented. These changes are then solidified in the
freezing stage to prevent regression.

This is similar to what happens during a self-organization phase in a socio-technical system. The internal
and external pressures on the system force the system
to unfreeze, i.e., leave its equilibrium, and change its
structure or its rules to deal with these pressures.
Once a suitable structure or rule set has been found,
i.e., the system has found a new equilibrium, the selforganization process stops and the changes become
permanent. In the power management example, e.g.,
such an external pressure could be a change in the
legislation that determines the prices for renewable
resources. As the prices change, some power plant
owners might be forced to leave a consumer group
while others have an incentive to join. The organization therefore needs to reconstitute and the influx of
new members might make it necessary to change
internal governance and policy.
Issues can, of course, occur in all of these phases.
Identifying the need for change can be a problem in
itself, especially if the problem is detected on a level in
the system where no actual power to make the necessary changes is placed. Communicating the need for
change is then of the essence, but only possible if the
required communication channels are established, and
if superiors are willing and able to pick up the information and process and forward it as required. It is also
crucial to select the right people to act as information
disseminators and as change agents [27]. The final step
of this phase, to create awareness and participation, can
then be stifled by the many factors and kinds of resistance discussed above. However, it is necessary to avoid
situations in which few decide the faith of the organization and others need to follow blindly. This can cause
resistance during the transition phase in which the changes

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