Exploring feelings about technology integration in higher education: Individuation and congruence
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to utilize two key psychoanalytical concepts – individuation and congruence – in order to analyze individual responses to organizational change and to propose a tentative framework for considering psychoanalytical dynamics when organizational change is proposed, or underway.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyzed 146 responses to an open‐ended survey, which focused on respondents' attitudes to the introduction of learning technology in a higher educational context. The authors asked organizational members to share their views about the proposed organizational change, and clustered these anonymous responses into meaningful categories, based on the psychoanalytically relevant notions of congruence and individuation.
Findings
As well as generating a proposed list of archetypes associated with individual responses to organizational change, the authors emphasize how strongly their own tentatively generated categories align with the notion of authentic individuation as an important aspect of motivated organizational behavior.
Originality/value
This tool could provide a useful analytical backdrop for organizational change in general, and it could help to focus organizational attention on the importance of a psychoanalytically informed discussion on change by paying attention to privately held views, and partially articulated feelings about change.
Keywords
Citation
Risquez, A. and Moore, S. (2013), "Exploring feelings about technology integration in higher education: Individuation and congruence", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 326-339. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534811311328371
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited