Field Of Organization Development Research Articles

Improving the Quality of Childcare Provision Through Self‐Assessment: Organizational Characteristics of Nurseries as Predictors of the Ability to Plan and Implement Change

Raising standards of provision in childcare services is a priority of the UK government's National Childcare Strategy. Self‐evaluation, a key element of several successful school improvement initiatives, has been used with some early years service providers. Results have been equivocal. Developing self‐assessment as an effective tool for raising standards in early years settings may require greater understanding of organizational processes typical of service providers in this sector. Building on research evidence from the field of Organizational Development, this study investigated the use of standardized questionnaires to establish organizational characteristics of group day care providers. It also set out to describe processes by which nurseries establish priorities for change, develop action plans, and subsequently implement change. Eight group day care providers participated in a developmental study over a period of approximately twenty weeks. Results identified several self‐report measures of organizational characteristics that could be used to evaluate group day care settings. In addition, the results raise issues of how the effectiveness of self‐assessment procedures, as a means of improving standards of group day care provision, might be enhanced.

Planned change: Kurt Lewin's legacy

Discusses German‐born psychologist Kurt Lewin's work in the field of organizational development and change and how he influenced those two. Pinpoints two of his ideas ‐ a force field and change as a three‐point process, and examines these in detail. States there is much still to be obtained from Lewin's ideas ‐ especially with regard to motivation of people.

UK Higher Education at a Crossroads: Reflections on Issues and Practice in Teaching and Learning

SUMMARY Further to the release of the UK report, Higher Education in the Learning Society(Dealing et al.,1997), this paper examines some of the main institutional challenges impacting on the relevance and quality of teaching and learning in higher education. Selected concerns include underfunding of higher education, mass education and quality, the demand for enhancing student employability or key skills, and the relative status of teaching within research intensive environments. In the light of these external pressures, which seem to be shared by many universities in the English‐speaking world, specific recommendations are made, largely from the field of organizational development, with a view to moving the rhetoric of ‘vision’ into the reality of people involvement, specific action and consequence.

Organization Development in the Entrepreneurial Firm

Theories and methods in the field of organization development have historically been based on the experience of researchers and practitioners studying and consulting with large organizations. However, the vast majority of firms in the world today are small, entrepreneurial ventures. Thus the purpose of this article is to articulate an alternative framework for diagnosis and intervention in these kinds of organizations.

Three Faces of Eden: The Persistence of Competing Theories and Multiple Diagnoses in Organizational Intervention Research

Recently, three noted scholars in the field of organizational development and action research, Edgar Schein, Peter Senge, and Chris Argyris, decided to collaborate on research at the newly formed Center for Organizational Learning at MIT. This article presents an analysis of factors impeding this collaboration, drawing from the literature and from the author's experiences as a researcher at the center. The article compares the three strategies for intervention research, and explores the theories of organizational effectiveness implied by each. Core challenges for each approach are identified, followed by theoretical and temperamental factors that may contribute to the persistence of separate approaches. Finally, options for collaborative research are reviewed, along with a recommendation for an integrative approach.

Women in organization development

Focuses on women in the field of organization development (OD), their consulting practices, motivators, values, and intended directions for the future. Reviews the current state of the field – focusing on both the inherent tension in values that is endemic to the practice of OD today and the increasing presence of women doing OD. Presents the results from a recent survey of 148 contemporary women OD practitioners. Discusses intervention preferences, perceptions of primary motivators and values in the field today, and idealized motivators and values for the future of OD. Also addresses implications of these results for the field.

Responses to the Alpha, Beta, Gamma Change Typology

This article examines the manner in which the field of organization development has responded to the alpha, beta, gamma change typology of Golembiewski, Billingsley, and Yeager (1976a). The work of researchers investigating the concept is reviewed, and forces acting to limit its widespread application are identified. Finally, practical implications of the discipline's resistance to the concept are considered.

Integrating Organizational Development Skills with Community Organization Practice: The Key to Successful National Health Care Programs

The article describes the developmental stages of a health care project from the inception as a demonstration project until its establishment as a large scale national program. The skills and competencies required of a project administrator during the demonstration stage are more related to the practice of community organization. However, in expanding a demonstration project to a large scale national program, these administrators are confronted with a multitude of bureaucratic and organizational constraints. The skills and competencies required of a program manager at this stage are best grouped under the field of organizational development. The failure of many large programs can be traced to the lack of organizational development skills among those involved in managing them. The implications for organizational development training within the curriculum of instruction in health education are also discussed.

In Search of the Right Consultant

With increasing frequency the field of organizational development (OD) is being dominated by debates over the success or appropriateness of different intervention approaches. This fable of an executive's search for an OD consultant cautions us that it is not the "technical" aspects, but the humanistic values of OD that must remain critical.

Common Behavior Changes in Successful Organization Development Efforts

Finding that the field of organization development (OD) suffers from a lack of a unifying theory ofplanned organizational change and the difficulty of integrating research based on diverse methods and models, the authors propose a model in which on-the-job behaviors of organization members act as important mediating variables of organizational change. The article discusses a study seeking to identify and specify common behavior changes characteristic of successful change efforts. The authors surveyed 42 of the top scholars and practitioners in the field, using telephone interviews and open-ended questions. The participants nearly unanimously reported behavior changes common to their interventions and showed at least moderate agreement as to what those changes were. Furthermore, the participants' theoretical orientations and professional affiliations did not cause them to differ as to the behaviors they reported.

Planning for growth

An effective method employed by some consultants in assisting managers is referred to as process consultation, an intervention technique in the field of organization development. The present manuscript describes a consulting project in which the consultants applied a process consultation intervention in designing and implementing an aggressive growth strategy for a well-established family owned chemical company. The project encompassed four phases. In the first phase, the diagnosis, the consultants analyzed the data collected from the managers via the management practices diagnostic model. The feedback of the data, the second phase, energized the managers to develop solutions for overcoming the deficient management practices. The third phase was a series of work sessions, often referred to as team building, in which the managers developed a management action plan. The last phase was adoption and implementation of this plan. The consultants present anecdotal evidence that the process followed not only enhanced the managers' effectiveness in executing their responsibilities but also facilitated (1) consensus and commitment to the plan, (2) client learning and (3) organizationwide solutions.

It's Just a Phase We're Going Through: A Review and Synthesis of OD Phase Analysis

This article identifies the description of OD phases as one of the fundamental theoretical problems in the field of organization de velopment. Although phase models have been proposed for over 30 years, consensus has not emerged regarding the model most ap propriate for OD. This article articulates seven key criteria for evaluating phase models in OD and uses these criteria to evaluate over 30 past phase models as well as the phase model proposed in this article. Three approaches to OD phase analysis-the theoreti cal approach, the historical approach, and the intervention approach—are identified and specific models and examples are re viewed within each approach. Because no previous phase model satisfies all seven criteria, a phase model is developed that approxi mates as closely as possible the optimal solution to the phase prob lem. This four-phase model of exploration, planning action, and integration satisfies all seven criteria. The validity, generality, and utility of the model are supported by demonstrating that pre vious phase designations can be meaningfully subsumed under this four-phase model. Finally, the article demonstrates that phase analysis has important implications for OD case studies. The four- phase model presented here can be used as a standard yet flexible structure for reporting and integrating case studies of OD. The useof standard phase designations provides a foundation for accumulating knowledge across multiple OD case studies and for testing theories and hypotheses of OD using rigorous statistical methodology.

The Field of Organization Development

The Field of Organization Development

Toward friendly user MIS implementation

Recent management information systems (MIS) and computer science literature advocates the development of “user-friendly” systems as a means of overcoming implementation problems. However, implementation research suggests that it is not enough that the technology be friendly to the user. The user must also be friendly to the system. In formulating solutions to implementation problems, the field of organization development (OD) may serve as a knowledge base for practitoners and researchers. OD and MIS share common goals, common theoretical foundations, and common problems. Consequently, OD techniques may be useful in alleviating certain behavioral problems encountered in MIS implementation. OD concepts and techniques such as planned organizational change, survey feedback, group diagnostic meetings, communication training, role negotiation, and training labs may be used when implementing or changing systems. The premise is that use of these measures will lead to more successful MIS projects.

Organizational Termination as an Organization Development Issue

This article addresses the subject of organizational termination, suggesting that it is an appropriate concern for the field of organization development. The author's consulting experience with one dying organization and the intervention strategies with which he experimented are described. Also described are the behavioral reactions of the staff to their organization's termination, which are categorized into conceptual patterns: paralysis, catastrophic fantasizing, exag geration of organizational hierarchy and power, language shifts, personal disaffiliation with the agency, and so on. It is concluded that (a) organizational termination is an important, challenging issue for organization development; (b) that present OD methodologies are inadequate for the task of consulting an organization undergoing termination; (c) that OD, if it is to be successful in these circumstances, must find practical focal issues and (d) that it is the con sultant's responsibility to become expert enough to develop these answers.

The od consultant: What is the right stuff?

Abstract In the new and evolving field of organization development the role of the OD consultant is still emerging. This paper looks at several of the major issues, including role boundaries and the need to maintain marginality. The author discusses the various personal characteristics that are essential and the primary abilities needed for success as an OD consultant. The different entry routes or career paths to becoming an OD consultant are multitudinous and may include a combination of academic and non-academic preparation.

Organization development: Unanswered questions

AbstractThe field of organization development, although full of promise, is an emerging field still suffering from growing pains.

Organization Development and Management Information Systems.

While in modern organizational life much effort is expended in the design and implementation of computerized management information systems, there is much evidence to suggest that the process of implementation seldom goes smoothly. The problem is a natural target for the concepts and techniques from the field of organization development. However, given the rational paradigm of systems designers, it is very difficult for practitioners of organization development, who employ an entirely different paradigm, to even initiate a relationship. In this paper an experiential technique is proposed for solving the communication problem.

A Structural Approach to Organization Development in a University Professional School

Accounts of organization development interventions typically deal with business or industrial organizations, stress the significance of an external consultant, and use group-centered educational or attitudinal change methods. This study departs from tradition in all three instances. The client system in this study was a professional school within a major western university. The primary change agent was an interim director of the school; thus, he held line authority over the business of the school as well as the nature of the change process. The intervention technique was almost entirely the manipulation of the school's structural properties. The conceptual framework for the change process stressed two primary elements: (1) the appropriateness of the Lewinian model of social-system change, and (2) the necessity to recognize the "systemness" of the inter vention process. The study reviews literature in the field that is important in understanding the nature of this intervention, presents the background of the client system, discusses the specifics of the intervention methodol ogy as well as the results of the project, and, finally, summarizes the implications of this project for the field of organization development.

Implementation of OR/MS In Government and Industry: A Behavioral Science Perspective

Little attention has been paid by OR/MS researchers to implementations of findings and to implementation as a research topic in itself. A review of the OR/MS literature shows that the field typically ignores human variables, both as components of models and as they affect the implementation of projects. As a result, the success of OR/MS in organizations has been less than originally anticipated. In comparison, the field of Organization Development (OD) places greater emphasis on human variables and on the relationship between the client and “change agent” and has a greater emphasis on applications. OD is weaker than OR/MS in its systems and interdisciplinary orientation. Both fields take for granted the system structure as it is. The success record of OR/MS will be improved by the field retaining its own strengths in comparison to OD, moving closer to OD in its weak areas, and seeking to be aware of power issues which impact on its efforts.