This partial bibliography provides some examples of research "at SoL" or "through SoL" (defined in the following six categories). It is biased towards reports available on the web. Several of these resources are books, available for purchase at amazon.com. SoL, a nonprofit corporation, receives a portion of all purchases made through this page from amazon.

Several of these resources are available to Organizational Members Only. Learn more about the benefits of SoL membership.

Current Categories

1. Research Funded by or through SoL or its predecessor, the MIT Center for Organizational Learning
2. Research on Learning and Change at Member Organizations involving SoL Members as Researchers and/or Consultants
3. Research within SoL Consortia
4. Research by SoL Members with Direct Relevance to the Purposes of SoL
5. Reports on SoL Partnerships and Projects
6. Research Methods
Notes for the Further Development of this Resource

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1. Research Funded by or through SoL

• The Ecology of Leadership
  Katrin Kaeufer, Joyce Fletcher, and Peter Senge
  Results found in The Dance of Change, Senge, Peter M., Charlotte Roberts, Rick Ross, George Roth, Bryan Smith, and Art Kleiner, New York: Doubleday, 1999.
• The Assessment Project (funded by Shell)
  Stella Humphries, Tom Johnson, and others
• Assessing to Learn and Learning to Assess: the first ten months
• Assessing to Learn & Learning to Assess: Reflections of a Recovering Management Accountant
• Assessment-Improvement-Learning and Business Results at DTE Power Generation
  Susan Hull & Barry Sugarman. Presented at SoL Annual Meeting 2001
• Assessing to Learn and Learning to Assess Organizational Members Only
• Unexpected Connections: Considering Employees' Personal Lives Can Revitalize Your Business
  Lottye Bailyn, Joyce Fletcher, and Deborah Kolb
  Sloan Management Review, Summer, 1997, pp. 11-19.
  Available for purchase at: http://smr.mit.edu/past/1997/smr3841.html

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2. Research on Learning and Change at Member Organizations involving SoL Members as Researchers and/or Consultants

• The Improvement Paradox. National Science Foundation Grant on understanding why most quality improvement initiatives later collapse after their initial success, involving studies in several SoL member organizations: Harley-Davidson, ATT-Lucent, Ford.
  by John Sterman, Nelson Repenning, Rogelio Oliva, Elizabeth Krahmer Keating, Andrew Jones, and Scott Rockart.
  Three reports from this project are:

1. Overcoming the Improvement Paradox
   E. K. Keating, R. Oliva, N. P. Repenning, Scott Rockart, J. D. Sterman, European Management Journal, 1999, 17(2), 120-134
2. Getting Quality the Old-Fashioned Way: Self-Confirming Attributions in the Dynamics of Process Improvement
   Nelson R. Repenning and John D. Sterman, National Research Council, 1997.
3. Drive Out Fear (Unless You Can Drive It In): The role of agency and job security in process improvement
   Nelson Repenning. Management Science, 1998, vol. 46, no.1.
   

• "Mighty Motors" learning history
  Marty Castleberg and George Roth
• Learning for Operational Excellence: A manager's story
  David Berdish, in Reflections, vol. 1, no. 1. A case study of transformation at Ford's EFHD Division.
• Understanding Organizations as Learning Systems Organizational Members Only
  Edwin C. Nevis, Anthony J. DiBella and Janet M. Gould
• A Learning-Based Approach to Organizational Change: Some Results and Guidelines.
  (Based on secondary analysis of fine change initiatives from the MIT OLC.)
  Sugarman, B., ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS, Vol. 30, no.1, (August, 2001), pp. 62-76.
  Available for purchase at http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/621045/description#description
• Character and the Corporation
  Bill O'Brien's personal account and reflections on 20 years of transformation at Hanover Insurance.
  Available for purchase at http://shop.store.yahoo.com/society4organizationallearning/bilobcharman.html

BOOKS on this subject available at amazon.com

• Car Launch: The Human Side of Managing Change
  George Roth and Art Kleiner. Published by Oxford University Press, 2000.
  Purchase Car Launch Today
  The original learning history of this early MIT/OLC change initiative can be found at: http://www.solonline.org/repository/download/index-full.html?item_id=357501
• Oil Change: Perspectives on Corporate Transformation
  Art Kleiner and George Roth. Published by Oxford University Press, 2000.
  This is the learning history of one of OLC or SoL's rare total-organizational change initiatives.
  Purchase Oil Change Today
• The Power of Collaborative Leadership
  Bert Frydman, Iva Wilson, and Joanne Wyer, Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann, 2000.
  Purchase The Power of Collaborative Leadership Today

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3. Research within SoL Consortia

• KINSoL, The Knowledge and Innovation Network of SoL, maintains its own website at www.kinsol.com.
  One of their "research gems" is this case study: Social Action Research at BEKSA (Izmit, Turkey, January, 2003)
• "Building the SoL Sustainability Consortium: Emerging Applications of System Dynamics regarding Language, Leadership, and Decision Making"
  Peter M. Senge, International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Bergen, Norway, July 30, 2000
• Proposal to National Science Foundation by SoL Sustainability Consortium Organizational Members Only
  Hilary Bradbury, John Carroll, John Ehrenfeld, Peter Senge, 2000

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4. Research by SoL Members with Direct Relevance to the Purposes of SoL

• Leadership in the Context of Emerging Worlds: Illuminating the Blind Spot
  W.Brian Arthur, Jonathan Day, Joseph Jaworski, Michael Jung, Ikujiro Nonaka, C.Otto Scharmer, Peter M. Senge
• For the original interviews of outstanding thinkers on leadership on which this research in based see
  http://www.dialogonleadership.org/
• Leading in the Digital Economy: Sensing and Seizing Emerging Opportunities
  Joseph Jaworski, Otto Scharmer. 2000
• Learning in Performance: How a Dutch Company Transformed Itself
  Philip H. Mirvis, Karen Ayas, and George L. Roth, Reflections, vol. 2, no. 4, Summer, 2001.
• Driving Organizational Change in the Midst of Crisis. A Study of Millstone (CT) Nuclear Power Station Organizational Members Only
  John Carroll and Sachi Hatakenaka. MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2001, Volume 42, Number 3.
• Twenty Years of Organizational Learning at Hanover: a case study in ethics and organizational transformation Organizational Members Only
  B. Sugarman, REFLECTIONS, vol. 3, no. 1 (Fall, 2001), pp. 7-17.
• Heartland Refinery's Continuous Improvement Story, a learning history Organizational Members Only
  Hans Hartshower et al. This page on the SoL website also gives access to other materials on the Operations Excellence Game and its use in BP and other oil companies.
• Personal and Organizational Transformations
  Dalmar Fisher and William R. Torbert,
  New York: McGraw Hill, 1995 (out of print).
  Available for purchase at: http://www.solonline.org/communities/SoLMembers/library/url?item_id=443401
• How Can Organizations Learn Faster? The Challenge of Entering the Green Room
  Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Winter, Management Review, 1993 33-40
  Available for purchase at: http://www.mit-smr.com/past/1993/smr3428.html

BOOKS on this subject available at amazon.com

• The Corporate Culture Survival Guide: Sense and Nonsense About Culture Change
  Edgar H. Schein, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1999.
  Purchase The Corporate Culture Survival Guide Today
• Process Consultation Revisited: Building the Helping Relationship
  Edgar H. Schein, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1999
  Purchase Process Consultation Revisited Today
• Profit Beyond Measure: Extraordinary Results Through Attention to Work and People
  H. Thomas Johnson, and Anders Broms, New York: Free Press, 2000.
  Purchase Profit Beyond Measure Today

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5. Reports on SoL Partnerships and Projects

• A Collaboration between SoL and Four Agencies of the U.S. Federal Government with The High-Performing Federal Agencies Committee
  Jeff Clanon and B. Sugarman (12/1999)
• The Dialogue Project, Annual Progress Report, 1993-94
  Bill Isaacs. It includes the current model and theory of dialogue as well as outcomes of the project and future plans.
• A Learning-Based Approach to Leading Change
  Barry Sugarman. Three case studies from SoL's partnership with several federal government agencies through the High-Performing Federal Agencies Committee, published by the PriceWaterhouseCoopers (now IBM) Endowment.

BOOKS on this subject available at amazon.com

• Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together
  William Isaacs. New York: Doubleday, 1999.
  Purchase Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together Today

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6. Research Methods

• Complexity Research - Approaches and Methods: The LSE Complexity Group Integrated Methodology Organizational Members Only
  by Prof. E. Mitleton-Kelly, London School of Economics & Open University, 2003
• After-Action Reviews: Linking Reflection and Planning in a Learning Practice Organizational Members Only
  Marilyn J. Darling and Charles S. Parry, 2001
• Creating a Learning History Organizational Members Only
  George Roth and Art Kleiner, 1995.
  A more recent article by these authors on a similar subject has appeared in Harvard Business Review.
• Reflective Note-Taking: A New Tool for Capturing Learning Organizational Members Only
  Marty Castleberg. Reflective Notes as a "real time" tool to help facilitate dialogue.

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Notes for the Further Development of this Resource

Please suggest other items and categories that should be included to our webmaster.

The Current Categories used above arise from thinking about where to draw the boundaries of inclusion. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review of research in OL, but only that part which is associated with SoL. So what does "associated with SoL" mean?

If we organize this list on the basis of content or research methodology, rather than funding or sponsorship, would this provide a more useful list? what categories would then be appropriate? for example:

• case studies based on change initiatives
  - single cases
  - two or a few cases
• comparative descriptions (comparing how things are done in certain orgs.)
  - two or a few cases
  - ten or more cases, chosen to meet strict criteria
• reflections and theorizing at a "higher" level (more cases, greater distance, less detail)

Then again... Single topic collections might be more useful. We invite members to compile their favorite resources (mainly available on-line) on a favorite topic and contribute that page to the library. Please contact SoL staff if you have questions about uploading your document.