Organizational Development Activities Research Articles

Impact of organizational redesign.

Little in-depth objective information is available about the outcomes of restructuring or reengineering. One reason for this is the difficulty of conducting traditional research within the context of dynamic organizational development activities. The authors describe an alternative program evaluation approach that proved successful for assessing and enhancing large-scale organizational change in an acute-care medical center. Sample results are presented and recommendations made for increasing an evaluation's usefulness by tailoring reports to the user.

Organizational development in the Arab world

The Arab world has been a centre of international attention since the discovery there of oil in the early 1990s. Issues related to Arab management styles, practices and work orientations are neither known nor understood outside the region. Cross cultural negotiations and organization development activities are therefore carried out less effectively than they otherwise could be. Addresses the application of organizational development (OD) in the Arab world, specifies the peculiarity of the change process in the Arab world, and identifies certain societal qualities and their implications for OD practitioners/consultants.

Product flow, breadth and complexity of business processes: An empirical study of 15 business processes in three organizations

Describes an empirical study of 15 business processes in three organizations. Business process data were collected in the context of action research projects where the researcher was involved in organizational development activities. Suggests that business processes tend to cut across different departments owing to a contemporary phenomenon ‐ the specialization of knowledge. This leads to the specialization of work with the multiplication of functions and departments in organizations. Also suggests that 70 per cent or more of the product flow through business processes in organizations is made up of information. Discusses organizational implications of these results as regards organizational design and business process redesign focus.

The impact of downsizing on organizational career development activities and employee career development opportunities

While most of the human resource management research on downsizing has focused on the short term impact on laid-off workers and survivors, the long term, systematic impact of downsizing on organizational career development activities and employees' career development opportunities has received much less attention. This article argues that the rationale for downsizing the workforce, the goal of the downsizing and the rate, size and scope of the downsizing differ dramatically across organizations shrinking their workforces. Consequently, this article presents a theoretical framework for understanding when organizations are likely to pursue different strategies for reducing their core workforces, why downsizing organizations are likely to pursue different strategies for changing the emphasis of their career development activities and which employees are most likely to experience deteriorating career development opportunities as a result. Hypotheses to guide future theory development and empirical research in this area are discussed as well.

Identification of managerial behavior dimensions in a federal health-care agency.

Understanding the behavior of managers provides an opportunity to assess congruencies between organizational needs and managerial skills. This assessment is critical in federal health-care wherein the environment is rapidly changing. In the current investigation, dimensions of managerial behavior for 267 managers in a federal health-care agency were identified. Recommendations are provided with respect to the relevance of using these dimensions for organizational training and development activities.

Accreditation of Prior Learning in Business Schools

Discusses the strategic and political issues associated with Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL) in consideration of its potential contribution to the staff, curriculum and organizational development activities of business schools. In recognizing that APL is not an autonomous process but an integral part of competence‐based assessment, political pressures exist to shift vocational curricula to an outcome‐based assessment model, with these new forms of competence‐based qualifications leading, rather than following, education and training. This means that business schools will need to develop the specificity of their curricula offering to an extent previously considered unnecessary and to respond proactively to potential benefits emerging from acceptance of, and commitment to, the ongoing structural revision of the vocational, educational and training system.

Participation, Individual Development, and Organizational Change: A Review and Synthesis

The purpose of this review is to identify and explore issues associated with the use of participation in conjunction with Organization Development activities. We maintain that the misunderstanding of participative processes places significant limitations on the success of Organization Development interventions and upon acceptance of the field as a whole. To remedy this situation, we suggest that practitioners pay more attention to combining individual and organization development efforts and that researchers devote more energy to exploring the effects of mediating variables on participation outcomes. We recommend the concept of organizational citizenship as a more inclusive frameworkfor research and practice concerning participation in organization development activities. "Progress for democracy lies in enhancing the actual freedom, initiative and spontaneity of the individual, not only in certain private and spiritual matters, but above all in the activity fundamental to every man's existence, his work." Eric Fromm, 1941. "If there were a nation of gods, it would be governed democratically. So perfect a government is unsuited to men." Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 176211967.

The Current Practice of Organization Development within the Firm

The 500 largest industrial firms in the United States were surveyed with regard to their internal organization development (OD) activities. Usable data were obtained from 110 of these organizations, including 61 of the largest 200 firms. Survey results are presented and implications of these results are discussed.

A Model of New Product Development: An Empirical Test

This paper reports on the culmination of a four year study of high technology product innovation. During the course of this research, we examined over 330 new products in the electronics industry in order to better understand the factors that differentiated successful from unsuccessful product development efforts. This paper presents the conclusions from the final phase of the research. In this study we empirically test a model of product development that incorporates our findings from the earlier exploratory survey and case study phases of our research. The model identifies the critical organizational subunits, development activities and communication channels that influence product outcome, as well as, external factors such as characteristics of the product and the competitive environment. Our findings suggest the following key factors affect product outcome: (1) the quality of the R&D organization, (2) the technical performance of the product, (3) the product's value to the customer, (4) the synergy of the new product with the firm's existing competences, and (5) management support during the product development and introduction processes. Also important but less significant were the (6) competence of the marketing and manufacturing organizations and market factors, such as the (7) competitiveness and the (8) size and rate of growth of the target market.

The Dispositional Approach To Job Attitudes: A Lifetime Longitudinal Test

This research was supported in part by grant AG 4178 from the National Institute of Aging to the Institute of Human Development (John Clausen, principal investigator) and by a University of California faculty research grant to Barry Staw. Correspondence regarding this paper should be sent to Barry M. Staw, School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. Recent debates between the job enrichment and socialinformation-processing perspectives have led to a trend toward greater situationalism in organizational research. This paper, however, argues for a more dispositional approach in which the role of the person is emphasized. Using a longitudinal sample, measures of affective disposition from as early as adolescence were used to predict job attitudes in later life. Results showed that dispositional measures significantly predicted job attitudes over a time span of nearly fifty years. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of both theories of job attitudes and organizational development activities that attempt to alter employee job satisfactions

THE USE OF CYBERNETICS IN ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT: AN ILLUSTRATION WITHIN AIR FORCE LOGISTICS COMMAND

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to show how cybernetic concepts can be used to guide organizational design and development activities. The intent of the paper is to demonstrate how a cybernetic model of a viable organization can be used to diagnose potential problems in existing organizations and serve to guide organizational development activities, For illustrative purposes, a case study of the Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) is used to demonstrate how the cybernetic organizational model can be made operational in the “real world.” The paper is designed to show how this methodology can be used as a road map for integrating and guiding several initiatives which are underway to make AFLC more responsive in meeting potential wartime scenarios. This paper is organized in sections which: (1) describe AFLC mission responsibilities and organization; (2) identify current major problems; (3) describe and use a cybernetic organizational model to diagnose causes of current problems; and (4) develop some ob...

Towards a strategy for fish farming in the UK

The UK's fish farming industry, though not yet making a significant contribution to the national food supply, appears to be developing towards an annual production level of about 20 000 tonnes by the mid 1980s. The author discusses the prospects and constraints for the different farmed species, legal and organizational problems, the market, and research and development activities. The role of the industry in creating new wealth and widening consumer choice is stressed.

Work Group Types and Intervention Effects in Organizational Development

Abstract : The present report explores the organizational development uses of survey data. In form, the problem is one of testing the feasibility of developing an instrumented prescriptive capability for organizational development activities in the Navy. The strategy involved: (1) Determining whether there are relatively few 'pure' types of groups present in the civilian data bank which accompanies the Survey of Organizations questionnaire (the parent instrument of the Navy's Human Resource Management Survey); (2) determining (from the Navy data collected in the course of this Present contract) the extent to which these pure types exist in the Navy as well; and (3) examining the effect of different development activities upon the pure types thus identified.

An Interview with Roger Harrison

Roger Harrison was trained as a psychologist at the University of California (Berkeley). He spent four years as an internal consultant with Proctor & Gamble, at the conclusion of which he left, motivated partly by the desire to gain broader experience, and partly by a youthful and unrealistic impatience with the rate of change in a large organization. He next taught for six years in the Department of Industrial Administration at Yale University, where his deep involvement in outside organization development and sensitivity training activities interfered seriously with what had at first seemed a promising academic career. After leaving Yale, he was briefly with NTL, which he left in 1967 for independent practice. Since 1969, Roger Harrison has been the sole overseas representative of Development Research Associates, Inc., a group of applied behavioral scientists devoted to the creation and application of methods for releasing human potential in organizational, educational, and community systems. He lives in London where he currently divides his time-with difficulty-among the development of educational programs, the practice of organization development, and his family.

The names of games managers play

Human Resource ManagementVolume 7, Issue 4 p. 33-39 Article The names of games managers play Curtis J. Potter, Curtis J. Potter Curtis J. Potter as director of Personnel Development for the Payne Company, a division of Camer Corporation is responsible for organization planning and development activities for supervisory and management positions. He coordinates colle e relations activities and administers employee ekcational programs. Mr. Potter has taught seminars for such groups as The Bureau of Industrial Relations, University of Michigan and the American Management Association.Search for more papers by this author Curtis J. Potter, Curtis J. Potter Curtis J. Potter as director of Personnel Development for the Payne Company, a division of Camer Corporation is responsible for organization planning and development activities for supervisory and management positions. He coordinates colle e relations activities and administers employee ekcational programs. Mr. Potter has taught seminars for such groups as The Bureau of Industrial Relations, University of Michigan and the American Management Association.Search for more papers by this author First published: Winter 1968 https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.3930070406 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume7, Issue4Winter 1968Pages 33-39 RelatedInformation