Page 16 - DMGT520_ORGANIZATION_CHANGE_AND_DEVELOPMENT

Unit 1: Introduction to Organisation Development

 An evolutionary model of development consists of a repetitive sequence of variation, Notes
selection, and retention events among entities in a designated population. Competition
for scarce environmental resources between entities inhabiting a population generates
this evolutionary cycle.

Life Cycle Theory

Many management scholars have adopted the metaphor of organic growth as a heuristic device
to explain development in an organisational entity from its initiation to its termination. Witness,
for example, often-used references to the life cycle of organisations, products, and ventures, as
well as stages in the development of individual careers, groups, and organisations: start-up
births, adolescent growth, maturity, and decline or death.

Notes The life cycle theories include developmentalism, biogenesis, ontogenesis and a
number of stage theories of child development, human development, moral development,
organisational development, group decision making, and new venture development.
Next to teleology, life cycle is perhaps the most common explanation of development in
the management literature.
Life cycle theory assumes that change is immanent: that is, the developing entity has within it an
underlying form, logic, program, or code which regulates the process of change and moves the
entity from a given point of departure toward a subsequent end that is already prefigured in the
present state. What lies latent, premature, or homogeneous in the embryo or primitive state
becomes progressively more realized, mature, and differentiated. External environmental events
and processes can influence how the immanent form expresses itself, but they are always mediated
by the imminent logic, rules, or programs that govern.

Life cycle theory parallels the approach of the gross anatomist in biology who observes a
sequence of developing fetuses, concluding that each successive stage evolved from the previous
one. Hence, it is claimed that development is driven by some genetic code or prefigured program
within the developing entity.
Life cycle theories of organisational entities often explain development in terms of institutional
rules or programs that require developmental activities to progress in a prescribed sequence.

Example: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulate a sequence of steps that all
firms must follow to develop and commercialize a new drug or biomedical product.

Teleological Theory

Another school of thought explains development by relying on teleology, or the philosophical
doctrine that purpose or goal is the final cause for guiding movement of an entity. This approach
underlies many organisational theories of change, including: functionalism, decision-making,
epigenesis, voluntarism, social construction adaptive learning, and most models of strategic
planning and goal setting.

Teleology assumes that development proceeds toward a goal or end state. It assumes that the
entity is purposeful and adaptive; by itself or in interaction with others, it constructs an envisioned
end state, takes action to reach it, and monitors its progress. Thus, this theory views development
as a repetitive sequence of goal formulation, implementation, evaluation, and modification of
goals based on what was learned or intended by the entity. The theory operates in a single

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