PROBLEMS RELATED TO TECHNIQUES FOR ASSESSING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND DETERMINING INTERVENTION STYLE
| Pages | 176-186 |
| Date | 01 February 1976 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009752 |
| Published date | 01 February 1976 |
| Author | CARL R. STEINHOFF,ROBERT G. OWENS |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME XIV, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1976
PROBLEMS RELATED TO TECHNIQUES FOR
ASSESSING ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT
AND DETERMINING INTERVENTION STYLE
CARL R. STEINHOFF AND ROBERT G. OWENS
Organization Development, as widely practiced in schools, is characterised by a diagnosis
of organizational problems that is carried out collaboratively by facilitator and client. The
design of the Organization Development intervention is presumably based upon this
diagnosis. Since Organization Development is a planned, sustained effort to change the
organization's culture in significant ways one might expect the diagnostic procedures to
utilise systematic techniques for assessing organization culture. Further, these diagnostic
techniques should reflect a conceptually unambiguous understanding of the nature of
organizational culture and its elements. An enquiry of 83 American Organization Develop-
ment consultants with experience as facilitators in public schools indicated that only seven
reported using one or more of the recognised assessment techniques for which there are
published data concerning factor structure, reliability and validity. Others reported utilising
various combinations of interviews and paper-and-pencil techniques developed for local use.
The authors discuss the implications of their findings in terms of Organization Development
technology through scientific efforts.
INTRODUCTION
Our interest here is in (1) the various techniques being used by OD
(Organization Development) practitioners to assess organizational en-
vironments and (2) the
ways
in which the products of these assessments are
systematically utilised. Specifically, we are interested in the nature and ex-
tent of the impact of such assessments of organizational environments
upon the characteristics of the designs of the interventions developed by
the OD practitioner for use with the client system. The basis for our in-
terest lies in certain crucial defining characteristics of
OD,
at least insofar
as we understand and practice it. We shall very briefly recapitulate some
of these defining characteristics, because they suggest certain assumptions
which underlie our interest.
If
we
look for definitions, it soon becomes clear that OD developed an
identity crisis at an early age to which it has clung to the present time.
Definitions abound, and differ. As recently as 1973 a review of the defini-
tion problem listed five of the currently better-known definitions of OD
CARL R. STEINHOFF (Ph.D.Claremont) is Professor of Educational Administration at
New York University. His main areas of research and publication are change and
organizational climate. ROBERT G. OWENS (Ph.D.Connecticut) is Professor of Educa-
tion,
Brooklyn College, City of University of New York. Professor Owens is author of
Organizational Behaviour in Schools (Prentice-Hall, 1970) and, with Professor Steinhoff,
joint author of Administering Change in Schools (Prentice-Hall, 1976).
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