101 CHAPTER 7 Change Management Education in Social Work Degree Programmes in Germany: Bridging the Gap Between Management Science and Professional Practice Maik Arnold Since the 1990s, change management has received considerable attention as the new paradigm for the management of organisational transformations as well as behavioural and motivational changes within both for-proft and non-proft organisations. As a result, change management has been included in most bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes in social work and ped- agogics in Germany, either as additional courses or as an area of specialisa- tion. However, its interdisciplinary and intersectional nature has, so far, not been thoroughly considered in the development of managerial and social competences. In particular, the relationship between management science and professional practice was not given much attention, even though the develop- ment of change strategies in Human Service Organisations (HSO) must be based on research fndings from both social sciences and management studies. In addition, management research and education need to draw conclusions from experiences gained in professional practice (e.g. Raelin, 1997). Research on the theory of transfer in the feld of change management has not kept pace with the practice of leading change. So far, existing research has failed to develop a satisfactory concept of theory-practice transfer and ignored the relationship of the justifcation and development of change strat- egies as part of the management of social organisations. A number of impor- tant questions for researchers, educators, practitioners, consultants, etc. are © The Author(s) 2021 S. S. M. et al. (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39966-5_7 M. Arnold (*) University of Applied Science, Dresden, Germany