Kurt Lewin: Organizational Change
I cover the life, career, and contributions of the German-born and trained psychologist Kurt Lewin, whose primary contribution to management thought was describing the process of organizational change. I argue that Lewin, despite the time in which he live
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Jeffrey Muldoon
Contents Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lewin’s Contribution to Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lewin and Other Management Thinkers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Abstract
I cover the life, career, and contributions of the German-born and trained psychologist Kurt Lewin, whose primary contribution to management thought was describing the process of organizational change. I argue that Lewin, despite the time in which he lived, was a deeply committed idealist and democrat. I argue that these values permeated his work. The merits and weaknesses of his work are discussed. Keywords
Lewin · Organizational change · Taylor · Mayo
Kurt Lewin was a natural-born democrat both in his private and professional life (Marrow 1969). Democracy was an article of faith and scientific fact to Lewin. He believed that democratic societies would, in the end, overcome autocratic societies.
J. Muldoon (*) Emporia State University, Emporia, KS, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 B. Bowden et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Management History, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62114-2_32
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This was not a popular viewpoint during his lifetime. His native Germany elected Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933 despite his avowed totalitarian views. Even in the United States and Great Britain, there were those who no longer believed in democracy – preferring various types of authoritarian arrangements (fascism, communism, etc.). Lewin was born in 1890 at a time where humanities’ hope in progress remained high; he died in 1947, after 30 years of bloodshed and destruction with the potential of more to come. Yet, despite the bloodshed (even within his own family), Lewin still believed in democracy (Lewin 1992). Lewin never stopped believing that man was inherently good (Bargal et al. 1992). The idea that people can change their attitudes based on inter
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