Annotated Bibliography - American Psychological Association

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Thompson, T., Purdy, J. & Summers, D. (2008). A Five factor framework for coaching middle managers. Organization Development Journal, 26 (3), 63-71.
The article discusses a five factor framework to understand the work of middle managers based on who they interact with and the purpose of that interaction. The article is a result of the authors' research and is aimed to help middle managers coaches to be more effective and efficient. Moreover, the article is also important for human resource managers and practitioners in designing coaching and training courses for middle managers.

The unique feature of the authors' work is that they based their five factor model based on established knowledge made by other researchers. The concepts comprising the model are not unique to the authors.

All authors are well versed in organizational development and change as all of them are academicians and teach the subject.
The authors concluded, which I agree with, that "[a] major concern of those seeking coaching services is the lack of structure and consistency in coaching" (Thompson, Purdy & Summers, 2008, p. 70).

Gibbons, P. (1992). Impacts of Organizational Evolution on Leadership Roles and Behaviors. Human Relations, 45 (1), 1-18.
Patrick Gibbons (1992) attempted to reconcile the strategic choice and the environmental determinism views of organizational adaptation to change with top level management and aspiring corporate leaders as the intended audience. The topic and the article are relevant in spite of the fact that it was written more than 15 years ago. Organization and human resource evolution still impacts the roles and behaviors leaders have.

Truly, the strategic choices that a firm makes and the environmental determinism views of organizational adaptations are further proof that organizations do not operate in a vacuum and that more often than not; their actions are determined and significantly affected by external factors. However, Gibbons (1992) emphasized that one of the key success factors in organizational change is "the ability of the leader to identify and initiate change" (p. 18).

Lastly, the author wrote the article while he was earning his doctoral degree in Strategic Planning and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Ryan, N., Williams, T., Charles, M. & Waterhouse, J. (2008). Top-down organizational change in an Australian Government agency. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 21 (1), 26.
According to the authors, the purpose of the paper is "to assist public sector organizations to carry out better change management strategies and thus achieve better change processes and also to provide a critique of top-down change strategies, especially when employed by public sector agencies" (Ryan, Williams, Charles & Waterhouse, 2008, p. 26). Although the paper was intended for public sector leaders and mangers, I believe that the private sectors can also learn a thing or two.

What is interesting and unique about this article is it tackles organizational development and change management for the public sector. To be honest never before this article was I involved in the analysis of public sector human resource management concepts. Another special feature is that the ...