Over the past few decades there has been considerable transformation of the organisational
arrangements for public service provision and advocacy across most Western democracies not
least in Australia. Waves of ideologically driven reforms have reshaped organisations ways of
organising and systems particularly those in the third sector. Each wave has produced specific
synergies and contradictions that contribute to the need for further reshaping. As artefacts
local organisations ways of organising and systems hold historic meaning that can guide
practitioners as they seek to understand past change transverse existing landscapes question
the utility and soundness of current meaning and seek to create new landscapes that respond to
different value-sets. The studies present here were undertaken by the authors over two decades
in partnership with local practitioners to respond to their expressed need for new maps and
compasses to understand and transverse the rapidly changing organisational landscapes in which
they practice. The authors draw on practitioners lived experiences of micro-change in
particular sites to construct synthesised stories develop organisational typologies
articulate principles and logics of organising and construct paradigmatic maps.
