Abstract:
The planning and management of change has tended to be directed towards the
achievement of end states. Adaptive procedures are generally undertaken when it is felt
that these end states will not be reached and intervention is necessary. This intervention
is usually determined by the technical and organizational criteria of the management
system.
This thesis argues, using the land-use planning system as a central example, that such
an approach to change management fails to acknowledge the diversity of the process.
Two points are considered to be fundamental to this argument. Firstly, that diversity is
the generator of change, and not merely an inconvenient constraint upon its
management Secondly, change follows multi-dimensional pathways (through time,
across space, and between themes), that do not conform to technical, linear.
management criteria.
Failure to recognise these points inevitably hinders the ability of management systems
to adapt to the uncertainty of the environment for which they have assumed
responsibility. One measure of this failure is the mis-match between the agenda set by
the managers of change, and that which is desired by the consumers of the process. The
thesis supports the need for integrated management systems that are cognizant of, and
driven by, the variety which is identified within the consumer agenda.
The field work for the study considers ways of identifying the nature and extent of this
variety. It will be argued that individuals interpret, negotiate, and effect change
interactively with the wider social system. This interaction combines with the social
and physical environments encountered by individuals in their daily lives, to define a
'sense of place'.
A multi-method approach is developed which uses the demographic attributes of the
. study village as bench marks that will allow comparison with other localities, and place
it on an urban - rural continuum. This quantitative data also provides a means by which
the variety of qualitative data can be assessed, and upon which provisional
classifications about how particular groupings respond to change can be based. An
interview and questionnaire instrument will be introduced. This will enable
respondents to construct their own cognitive pathways of how changes which are
pertinent to the local environment have evolve~. These pathways are then compared
with the criteria Identified In land-use planning documentation, and the level of
congruence between the two examined.
