One complementary resource for this project was Carol McKenzie's participant booklet entitled Mastering Change (2000), which was part of a workshop she facilitated for Literacy Link South Central. Although the booklet itself did not address specific issues within literacy, McKenzie does cover a number of relevant topics, presumably tailored to meet the needs of Literacy Link South Central. The workshop topics included:

• The impact of change
• Acting and reacting to change
• Challenges and opportunities (associated with change)
• Methods and tools for responding to change
• Developing an action plan

At the third level of research, the number of resources was seemingly infinite. For example, a search of the expression "organizational change" on one Internet search engine yielded 149,000 hits, including the Journal of Organizational Change Management web site. Clearly, it was not within the scope of this project to adequately investigate the different change and stress management resources at the most generic levels.

With assistance from the reference committee, the focus of the remainder of the literature review changed to a narrower examination of two main areas:

1. The impact of external change pressures on the organization
2. The impact of change from the individual's perspective

Impact of external change pressures

According to several sources (Martin, 2001; Scott and Jaffe, 1995; Seita and Waechter, 1991), the pace of change has been steadily increasing over the past several decades. The impacts of globalization, corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, and technology have contributed to the sense of constant change. In their 'how to' book for managing change, Scott and Jaffe (1995) argue "Today there are no longer any rest periods; change is continuous and enormous."

Martin (2001) has argued that forces eliciting change within an organization can be classified as either internal or external sources of change. Several of the external change pressures he highlights include:

• Market demand — a decline (or increase) in demand for products or services
• Market supply — the availability of companies/organizations to meet the demand
• Economy — changes to the local, domestic or international economic climate
• Demographics — the number, age, background of people within the community
• Society — changes in public perception and interests
• Technology — advances affecting the way we work and live