Lecture 1
Defining OD (Organization Development)
- OD is a planned process of change in an organization’s culture through the utilization
of behavioral science, research and theory (Warner Burke).
- OD is a long-range effort to improve an organization’s problem-solving abilities and
ability to cope with change in its external environment, with the help of external or
internal behavioral-scientists consultants (change agents). (Wendeli French)
- OD is a system-wide application and transfer of behavioral science knowledge to the
planned development, improvement and reinforcement of the strategies, structures,
cultures and processes that lead to organizational effectiveness. (Thomas
Cummings).
You are doing OD if you are…
1. Bringing planned change to align the structure, culture, strategy, and individual jobs
of people in an entire organization (not accidental)
2. Applying behavioral science knowledge to diagnose, to facilitate and to evaluate
organizational change (evidence- based)
3. Analyzing the effectiveness of an organization and how to improve that by involving
members of the organization (interviews, focus groups): Gather evidence on the
change needed and the course to take (not intuitive)
4. Supporting increase of organizational effectiveness on all levels (high quality and
productivity, financial performance, optimizing teamwork, improving
well-being/health of workers)
5. Facilitating organizations’ response to change in a flexible, adaptive and often
participative way
6. Developing sustainable change that continues (not tactics or short-term)
Environment
General environment: affects all type of organizations (covid crisis)
Specific environment: specific to organizations (energy crisis)
Important trends in the general environment
- Economic
o Globalization
- Demographic
o Diversification of labor force
- Technological
o IT revolution
o Increased automation
- Political/Legal
o Tightened (financial) supervision
o Governmental changes (taxes, regulations)
- Sociocultural
o Increased focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (people, planet, profit)
,Types of change
1. Magnitude of change: incremental fundamental
2. Degree of organization: over organized ‘loosen up’ underorganized ‘tighten up’
3. Setting of the change: local global
Different models of planned change:
A: Good but simplistic
B: Good but still focusses on problems
C: What is already going well, and what would be your dream?
Commonalities
Planned change has phases
Three phases are similar (diagnose, action, close)
Application of behavioral science
Involvement of organization is necessary to achieve change
Differences
Lewin’s model is holistic/simplistic, Action & Positive more concrete implement OD
activities
, Lewin & Action: OD consultant is most involved in the diagnosis /evaluation part, less
so in the change process itself; Positive: OD consultant and organization are ‘co-
learners’
Lewin & Action: Focus on ‘fix problems’; Positive: ‘leverage strengths’
Diagnosing change: an open system model to understand input and output in the
organization.
This is the organizational culture.
Organizational culture:
Culture is the pattern of artifacts, norms, values, and basic assumptions which describes how
the organization solves problems and teaches newcomers how to behave.
We can understand organizational culture by the onion model of Schein (1992):
Artifacts: clothing and language, design
features
Norms: example: wearing suits
Values: beliefs
Basic Assumptions: example: if we dress
formal, we will be taken seriously
Why do we study it?
- It is highly predictive of...
o (financial) performance (Homburg & Pflesser, 2000)
o employee well-being (Gregory et al., 2009)
o organizational effectiveness (Zheng, Yang, & McLean, 2010)
, o innovation (Hogan & Coote, 2013)
- And more important than formal control systems, procedures, structure, and
strategy (O’Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991)
Two types of culture:
1) An ethical culture is the shared belief that one should behave morally sound
2) An inclusive culture is the shared belief that everyone should be included irrespective of
their communalities or differences
Different, but overlapping. Why these forms?
- Urgent: Adapt to environmental trends
- Important: Highly predictive of well-being and effectiveness
Course overview:
Unethical behavior is defined as any organizational member action that violates widely
accepted societal moral norms.
An example of illegal but not unethical behavior: passing the speed limit with 2 km/hour.
Predictors of (un)ethical behavior:
- Individual characteristics (apples)
- Intensity of the moral issue (cases)
- Organizational environment (barrels)
Five types of ethical cultures
- Instrumental: ethical decisions are made based on egoistic concerns
- Caring: based on overarching concern for the well-being of others
Defining OD (Organization Development)
- OD is a planned process of change in an organization’s culture through the utilization
of behavioral science, research and theory (Warner Burke).
- OD is a long-range effort to improve an organization’s problem-solving abilities and
ability to cope with change in its external environment, with the help of external or
internal behavioral-scientists consultants (change agents). (Wendeli French)
- OD is a system-wide application and transfer of behavioral science knowledge to the
planned development, improvement and reinforcement of the strategies, structures,
cultures and processes that lead to organizational effectiveness. (Thomas
Cummings).
You are doing OD if you are…
1. Bringing planned change to align the structure, culture, strategy, and individual jobs
of people in an entire organization (not accidental)
2. Applying behavioral science knowledge to diagnose, to facilitate and to evaluate
organizational change (evidence- based)
3. Analyzing the effectiveness of an organization and how to improve that by involving
members of the organization (interviews, focus groups): Gather evidence on the
change needed and the course to take (not intuitive)
4. Supporting increase of organizational effectiveness on all levels (high quality and
productivity, financial performance, optimizing teamwork, improving
well-being/health of workers)
5. Facilitating organizations’ response to change in a flexible, adaptive and often
participative way
6. Developing sustainable change that continues (not tactics or short-term)
Environment
General environment: affects all type of organizations (covid crisis)
Specific environment: specific to organizations (energy crisis)
Important trends in the general environment
- Economic
o Globalization
- Demographic
o Diversification of labor force
- Technological
o IT revolution
o Increased automation
- Political/Legal
o Tightened (financial) supervision
o Governmental changes (taxes, regulations)
- Sociocultural
o Increased focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (people, planet, profit)
,Types of change
1. Magnitude of change: incremental fundamental
2. Degree of organization: over organized ‘loosen up’ underorganized ‘tighten up’
3. Setting of the change: local global
Different models of planned change:
A: Good but simplistic
B: Good but still focusses on problems
C: What is already going well, and what would be your dream?
Commonalities
Planned change has phases
Three phases are similar (diagnose, action, close)
Application of behavioral science
Involvement of organization is necessary to achieve change
Differences
Lewin’s model is holistic/simplistic, Action & Positive more concrete implement OD
activities
, Lewin & Action: OD consultant is most involved in the diagnosis /evaluation part, less
so in the change process itself; Positive: OD consultant and organization are ‘co-
learners’
Lewin & Action: Focus on ‘fix problems’; Positive: ‘leverage strengths’
Diagnosing change: an open system model to understand input and output in the
organization.
This is the organizational culture.
Organizational culture:
Culture is the pattern of artifacts, norms, values, and basic assumptions which describes how
the organization solves problems and teaches newcomers how to behave.
We can understand organizational culture by the onion model of Schein (1992):
Artifacts: clothing and language, design
features
Norms: example: wearing suits
Values: beliefs
Basic Assumptions: example: if we dress
formal, we will be taken seriously
Why do we study it?
- It is highly predictive of...
o (financial) performance (Homburg & Pflesser, 2000)
o employee well-being (Gregory et al., 2009)
o organizational effectiveness (Zheng, Yang, & McLean, 2010)
, o innovation (Hogan & Coote, 2013)
- And more important than formal control systems, procedures, structure, and
strategy (O’Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991)
Two types of culture:
1) An ethical culture is the shared belief that one should behave morally sound
2) An inclusive culture is the shared belief that everyone should be included irrespective of
their communalities or differences
Different, but overlapping. Why these forms?
- Urgent: Adapt to environmental trends
- Important: Highly predictive of well-being and effectiveness
Course overview:
Unethical behavior is defined as any organizational member action that violates widely
accepted societal moral norms.
An example of illegal but not unethical behavior: passing the speed limit with 2 km/hour.
Predictors of (un)ethical behavior:
- Individual characteristics (apples)
- Intensity of the moral issue (cases)
- Organizational environment (barrels)
Five types of ethical cultures
- Instrumental: ethical decisions are made based on egoistic concerns
- Caring: based on overarching concern for the well-being of others
