preview

Organizational Development : A System Wide Application And Transfer Of Behavioral Science

Satisfactory Essays

Organizational development or OD has several definitions that often times, individuals have their own opinions or ideas on what it actually means. Despite the many definitions that OD has, the overall idea of what it is supposed to do within an organization remains the same. Cumming and Worley (2015) define organizational development as “a system-wide application and transfer of behavioral science knowledge to the planned development, improvement and reinforcement of the strategies, structures, and processes that lead to organization effectiveness” (pg. 2). This definition is a great overall statement to define what organizational development generally is about. Businessdictionary.com (2016) gives an even more precise definition in stating that organizational development is the “theory and practice of planned, systematic change in the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the employees through creation and reinforcement of long-term training programs”. This indicates that results obtained from OD initiatives does not happen overnight and often takes a lot of careful planning and analyzing of current process in order to plan for future processes. These can include behavior modeling, sensitivity training, and other types of analysis that might foster a better environment within the organization (Organizational Development, 2016).
Organizational Development as Defined by the Author Simply put, organizational development is the course that an organization takes to generate

Get Access