Edgar Schein on Change: Insights Into the Creation of a Model

Abstract

This article explores Edgar Schein’s sociopsychological model of change by relating Schein’s reflections on how he derived it from and extended Lewin’s model and how it informs contemporary change theory. Schein’s accounts of how he created his change model provides something of a mirror into his process of theorizing. The aim of this article is to reflect on Schein’s change model as to how he created and understands his formulation of his change model, with a view to drawing lessons for practices of creating models or theorizing in the field of organization development and change.