Coping Strategies of Professionals in Emerging Change Processes: An Empirical View

The overarching theme of this special issue is the study of organizational change processes from the perspective of the individual participant of change. This type of study is particularly relevant because of the increasing awareness of the crucial role played by professionals in current society. Three different studies show how and why individuals cope with change processes imposed upon them in different sectors (media, employment programmes, schools) and different countries (Sweden, Ireland, Italy). The professionals in these studies either re-worked (Norbäck et al.), re-constructed (Mulhall) or re-activated (Cicotto et al.) their altered work contexts in a manner that is acceptable, useful and often even profitable to the professional workers. Our special issue shows that flexibility and coping strategies are important and dynamic mechanisms that play a crucial role in the current organizational change research.