To provide a model of organizational performance and change, at least two lines of theorizing need to be explored-organizationalfunctioning and organizational change. The authors go beyond description and suggest causal linkages that hypothesize how performance is affected and how effective change occurs. Change is depicted in terms of both process and content, with particular emphasis on transformational as compared with transactional factors. Transformational change occurs as a response to the external environment and directly affects organizational mission and strategy, the organization 's leadership, and culture. In turn, the transactionalfactors are affected-structure, systems, management practices, and climate. These transformational and transactional factors together affect motivation, which, in turn, affects performance. In support of the model's potential validity, theory and research as well as practice are cited.

Despite the proliferation of leadership research in the past 75 years, investigating the ways in which women and men leaders enact and experience leadership continues to surface unanswered questions. Through the framework of selection, development, leadership style, and performance, we report gender-related findings from a broad survey of existing literature from the past three decades. Findings include differential rates of selection for women and men leaders; leader development considerations that vary by gender; evidence in favor of general similarities in leadership style (with noted exceptions) between women and men leaders; and similar performance outcomes between women and men leaders. The importance of context, be it job type, group composition, organizational culture, or industry/sector, was also revealed. Implications for practitioners and academics alike are offered throughout this report.

No abstract

A mail survey was conducted to empirically measure respondents' perceptions of the values, motives, and interventions of today's organization development (OD) practitioners. The survey sample consisted of 1,500 names randomly selected from three different professional organizations. Overall, 416 practitioners (27.7%) returned the questionnaire. Data from each of the three content areas were analyzed through: (a) factor analyses to determine the underlying structure and to generate subscales, and (b) MANCOVAs to assess the degree of differences among various types of respondents (e.g., professional association membership, gender, internal vs. external status) across the respective summary scores. In terms of the values of OD, results indicated that practitioners perceive the field today to be focused more on business effectiveness and productivity issues than on the humanistic concerns and orientation of the past. Although respondents rated interest in social action and helping people as the most important motivators of OD work in the ideal, exercising personal power and reaping the rewards of the consulting relationship were considered to be the more dominant motivators for people in the field today. Regarding interventions, practitioners reported engaging primarily in activities aimed at long-term organizational change, action research methodologies, and management skills training.

Essentially, and perhaps arguably, there has been no innovation in the social technology of organization development (OD) since appreciative inquiry originated in 1987. It is as if the creative work of OD is done. Moreover, it is as if the mission of OD-to loosen tightly coupled systems, think large bureaucracies-has largely been achieved. Decentralization, involvement, and autonomy on the job are commonplace in many organizations. There is a paradox, however. The need for expertise in organization change has never been greater, and OD has so much to contribute, yet the failure rate for organization change efforts is around 70%, and for mergers and acquisitions the failure rate is even larger. The premise of this article is that there is much work yet to be done. We who identify ourselves with the field of OD have unfinished business. As research on the Zeigarnik effect showed, we tend to remember things undone more than we remember things that have been completed. A purpose of this article is to create a Zeigarnik effect. Four domains of unfinished business in the field are identified and explored. There are no doubt many other domains, but these four definitely need attention. We need to know much more than we now know about how to (a) work with loosely coupled systems, (b) change the culture of an organization, (c) identify and deal with perceived resistance to change more effectively, and (d) get leadership development right-it is not about training.

Analysis of past reviews helps define OD and critical issues: focus on structure versus behavioral process, and concern with performance versus people. A literature review shows how these conflicts are being resolved. Four major research issues are defined and discussed. The OD literature suggests (a) OD is now more a normal part of management, (b) the themes of structure and process have largely been integrated, and (c) focus on culture may help integrate conflicting values. OD is entering an exciting and productive new area of maturity and achievement.

Theories of transformational leadership imply that effective leaders should engage in a constellation of appropriate behaviours. Further, since an important component of transformational leadership is the leader's ability to create a consensus or a similar mindset among subordinates, attributions that the leader is transformational are likely to depend on both the leader's behaviours and the extent to which subordinates perceive the leader similarly. In the present study, these notions were tested using a multi-source data set comprising 68 focal managers, 285 subordinates, 495 peers, and 68 supervisors. Results indicated that leaders who engage in higher levels of appropriate leader behaviours are more likely to have followers who agree in their perceptions of the leader. In addition, significant interactions were found between leader behaviours and agreement among subordinates, suggesting that agreement moderates the relationship between leader behaviours and attributions of transformational leadership style.

In times of change, leaders need to be more agile than ever. Adapting to new business strategies, working across cultures, dealing with temporary virtual teams, and taking on new assignments all demand that leaders be flexible and agile. But what does being "agile" mean? Are some leaders better at this than others and, if so, how did they get to be that way? Researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL ®) and Teachers College, Columbia University investigated these questions resulting in some important conclusions for leaders who wish to thrive in today's turbulent times.