Organizational Development and Change Management

Abstract

In recent issues of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Farias and Johnson and Worren, Ruddle, and Moore have engaged in a dialogue about the validity of discarding organizational development as a profession in preference for creating a new one called “change management. ” The former say such a move is premature, whereas the latter advocate this shift. The article supports Farias and Johnson and suggests that it is inappropriate to cast aside a profession simply because business has failed to heed its counsel.

Organizational change and development.

“…Two decades ago, Beer and Walton (1987) pointed out that as OD approaches permeated general management practice in organizations, "the field no longer has professional boundaries" (p. 340). More recently, some authors (Worren, Ruddle, & Moore, 1999) have argued that OD should be subsumed into "change management," whereas others have objected to this approach (e.g., Farias & Johnson, 2000;Hornstein, 2001). Beckhard (2006) defines OD as a "planned change effort" that is "managed from the top" (p. 3) of an organization and is a systemwide initiative aimed at improving organizational effectiveness and health.…”