Internal and External Change Agents

Abstract

A survey questionnaire was designed and distributed to samples of internal and external change agents which measured the extent to which they professed values traditionally associated with the field of OD. The survey also included questions concerning the types of interventions utilised in the change programmes that respondents had been associated with in the previous five years as well as how these programmes had been evaluated. As predicted, external change agents were more likely to profess traditional OD values and to be associated with change programmes which included human processual interventions. Contrary to expectations, internal change agents were less likely than external change agents to be associated with the utilisation of technostructural interventions. Support was also generated for the prediction that internal change agents are more likely to carry out extensive programme evaluations.