Changewashing in action? It's also a lot of work to find out.
I’m maybe better than average at coming up with project ideas, but definitely poor at coming up with names for them. (Doubtless, this is one of the reasons most of my work has been collaborative.) But over lunch with Mark Kuznicki a couple of weeks ago I had a rare brainwave: I came up with a term! (A portmanteau, as Wikipedia likes to say.) Changewashing. Organizations recognize that there’s value in being perceived as innovative. But innovating is, um, hard. Harder, certainly, than marketing. Hence, changewashing.
Am I one of those people who tries to claim a word through a blog post, just in case someone else publishes something using it before I finish my thesis? Yes.
[Ok, fine, I admit that I did find one prior use of the term through Google. But it was in a comment forum.]
I have been using this term, as an extension of “greenwashing”. My definition is related to change efforts an organization that take about change but do not affect the deeper structural challenges about governance, power and control. I like to think that this behavior is an indication of interest/readiness and not just a pretend on purpose action.
Cynthia Scott