This book explains how change encompasses many different phenomena, occurs in a variety of ways, and can have widely divergent causes and driving forces. It also helps to develop a constructive theory dealing with planned organizational change. 

The book is divided into two main sections. Part 1 discusses how organizations can tackle change actively in order to meet the new challenges they are facing. The author provides an analysis model based on four elements: driving forces, the content and scope of change, the process of change and the context of change.

Part 2 addresses how an organization can implement a planned change. Emphasis is placed on how those who are responsible for implementing the change the change agents can apply various change strategies, and how planned change processes can be managed. The author shows how various change strategies and different ways of managing change can be equally effective, but in different situations.

The book uses an interdisciplinary outlook, and it is based on research in the fields of psychology and sociology as well as political science and economics. The extensive references to source materials also mean that it is useful for anyone who would like to study organisational change in more depth.

The point of departure for this book is that organizations are characterized by predictability, and that change conflicts with this predictability. This does not mean that we should equate stability with a static or stagnant state of affairs. No organization or any other social system is ever completely stationary.

Dag Ingvar Jacobsen is the author of several books in the fields of organization and management, political science and methodology. He is co-author of the book Hvordan organisasjoner fungerer (How Organisations Function), which is one of the most frequently read books in Scandinavia about organization theory. Jacobsen is a professor at the University of Agder, and is a very popular speaker.