Role
Richard is a Co-investigator on the Catalyst team, responsible for guiding the project's approach to working with organisational and cultural change, and the use of action research approaches for achieving change. He is based within the Department for People and Organisations within the Faculty of Business and Law.
Research
Richard has wide experience of leading collaborative research projects concerned with bringing about significant changes in how organisations and social systems function. Over the last twenty years, he was worked in a highly engaged way with practitioners on action research projects in a number of different sectors, including manufacturing, construction and healthcare. He has used social science inquiry approaches to help people develop new understandings of complex organisational and inter-organisational issues facing them, and then supported them in implementing and evaluating potential solutions. His most recent research has been funded by the NHS and concerns the role of clinicians in bringing about significant redesign of how multi-agency care is organised and delivered for conditions such as dementia. The final report was published by the Department of Health in early 2013. His contributions to the literature are hosted on Open Research Online. He has supervised a number of postgraduate research students within the Faculty of Business and Law, to complete their PhDs, and is currently supervising Clare Mumford.
Profile
Richard is senior lecturer in organisational change and development at the Open University Business School, where he has also recently served as Associate Dean.
He has played a leading role in developing postgraduate curriculum concerned with the management of change and organisational innovation. He is currently the academic lead on a partnership between the OU and BMJ Learning providing leadership education for doctors and other clinicians.
He joined the OU in 2001, after 18 years as a social scientist and then Programme Director at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. There he was a member of the Core Faculty on the Programme for Advanced Organisational Consultation, where he has acted as mentor and supervisor to people with senior organisational change responsibilities in large private, public and third sector organisations. He has a BA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University, and an MSc and PhD in organisational sociology from Imperial College, London.
Contact
Dr Richard Holti
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business Law
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
Telephone: +44(0)1908 653039
Email: Richard.Holti@open.ac.uk
Website: http://www8.open.ac.uk/business-school/people/dr-richard-holti