Organizational Development: An Assessment with Implications for Clinical Sociology

This paper examines organizational development (OD) as a clinical sociological strategy. OD techniques are diverse and include interventions ranging from stress management to quality-of-work-life programs. Strengths and weaknesses of OD approaches and reasons for the recent reemergence of interest in organizational and human resource development are explored. Four specific criticisms of OD are discussed: (1) lack of congruence in values, cognition, and action; (2) failure to examine meta-assumptions and values of organizational problem solving and learning; (3) simplistic understanding of organizational politics; (4) inability to create internal changes that deal with external complexity and environmental turbulence. Three issues are raised: (1) the proper unit of analysis for clinical sociological action research; (2) the incorporation of macro-level concepts like culture and systems in conceptualizing organizational development and change; (3) the identification and explanation of learning co straints under which organizations and individuals operate