Stand When Your Number is Called: An Empirical Attempt to Classify Types of Social Change Agents

Abstract

Interviews and questionnaires were administered to a varied group of professional social change agents. A four-category typology of change agent types was developedfrom an inductive analysis of the data. The categorization scheme best accounted for differences in the following areas: personal characteristics, values relative to social change, conceptualizations about what mediates change, change technologies employed, and the settings in which change work is carried out. The four types of change agents which emerged were: (1) the Outside Pressure Type who works to change systems from outside through the application of pressure using such tactics as mass demonstration, civil disobedience, and violence; (2) the Analysis for the Top Type who works primarily with business and government units to improve efficiency and output and employs analytic procedures to develop expert advice; (3) the Organization Development Type who works to improve a system 's problem-solving capabilities through applied behavioral science techniques; and (4) the People Change Technology Type who works to change individual functioning in organizations through such techniques as behavior modification and need achievement.

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