The International Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change (OTSC) is timely in its appearance in that there is now a general awareness in both societies and organisations that change is endemic. In the 1980s, the Business guru, Tom Peters, wrote a book in which he examined the nature of enterprise excellence, and he listed the top ten companies ranked according to their profitability. He later realised that it was more adaptability than profitability but that was important. This, perhaps coupled with positive and proactive perspective, can come under the heading of the learning/intelligent organisation. The two are connected, but while learning organisations are more associated with knowledge management, intelligent organisations are more concerned with viability and draw on cybernetics and systems. These subject areas are close to the interests of this Journal. The Journal looks to research on the shaping of organisational theory - through more traditional areas like human resource development and management systems - that has led to some interesting changes in recent years. Organisational theory has at its base the sociological ideas that concern the interests of societies. Interestingly, as the subject has developed, ideas are now being fed back into sociology that have impact upon the way we see societies. The distinction between societies and organisations is now expressible in terms of scale and focus or level. The population of an entire nation state might see culture at a macroscopic level just as the population of an organisation might see the same at a microscopic level. In this way, societies can be seen as macroscopic organisations and common principles can be applied: the Journal encourages such a perspective.