Page 11 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Organization Change and Development

Notes transferring knowledge gained from these “stranger labs” to the actual situation “back home”.
This required a transfer between two different cultures, the relatively safe and protected
environment of the T-Group (or training group) and the give-and-take of the organisational
environment with its traditional values. This led the early pioneers in this type of learning to
begin to apply it to “family groups” — that is, groups located within an organisation. From this
shift in the locale of the training site and the realization that culture was an important factor in
influencing group members (along with some other developments in the behavioral sciences)
emerged the concept of organisation development.
Systematic organisation development activities have a recent history and, to use the analogy of
the mangrove tree, have at least four important trunk stems. They are as follows:
 Laboratory Training Stem: Laboratory training began to develop about 1946 from various
experiments. It is importantly involving unstructured small group situations in which
participants learn from their own actions and the group’s evolving dynamics. The major
contributions to this concept were from behavioural scientists Kurt Lewin followed by
experts Robert Tannebaum, Chris Argyris, Douglas Mc Gregor, Herbert Shepard, Robert
Blake, Jane Mouton and Richard Beckhard.
 Survey Research and Feedback Stem: It is the second major stem in the history of
Organisation development. It involves a specialised form of organisation research. The
research was conducted for years by staff members at the Survey Research centre of the
University of Michigan.

The effectiveness of these studies were more than the traditional training courses as it
involved the system of human relationships as a whole and deals with each manager,
supervisor, and employee in the context of his own job, his own problems, and his own
work relationships.
The major contributors were Rensis Likert, Floydd Mann and others.

 Action Research Stem: Action research is the third stem which is a collaborative, client
consultant inquiry. The scholars and practitioners who have invented and utilized action
research in the evolution of OD were William F. Whyte and Hamilton. Kurt Lewin also
conducted several experiments in the mid 1940’s and early 1950’s. This approach, today is
as one of the most important methods for OD interventions in organisations.
 Socio Technical and Socio-clinical Stem: This is the fourth stem in the history of OD to
help groups and organisations. The major contributions were made by W.R. Bion, John
Richman, Eric Trist and others. The socio technical approach focussed on the non executive
ranks of organisations and especially the redesign of work.

1.3.2 Modern Development – Second Generation OD

In recent years, serious questioning has emerged about the relevance of OD to managing change
in modern organisations. The need for “reinventing” the field has become a topic that even
some of its “founding fathers” are discussing critically. Since the environment is becoming
turbulent the context of OD has dramatically changed throughout 1980’s and 1990’s. The second
generation OD has focus on the Organisational Transformation, Organisation culture, Learning
organisations, intensified interest in teams, Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality of
work life, etc.

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