Organizational Development
and Theory
INP3004
Dr. Victoria L. Pace
We examine Organizational Development
and Theory, including
 Change agents
 Management by Objectives
 Survey Feedback
 Teambuilding
 Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Theory of
Organizations
 Bureaucracy Theory
 Theory X vs. Theory Y (and Theory Z)
 Open Systems Theory
 Sociotechnical Systems Theory
And we close with an overview of the
Employment Process
Today
OD is a family of techniques
designed to help organizations
change for the better
 Involves employees at all levels of an
organization
Change agent: Catalyst for
change within an organization
OD is a multiple stage process
 Employees learn change is necessary
 Specific form of change determined
and a plan is formed
 After initial resistance, become part
of how organization operates
Organizational
Development
(OD)
Employee acceptance of change
 Change can be stressful, leading to
negative emotions
 Individual factors (e.g., positive or
negative change experiences) can
influence the ease or difficulty of
acceptance
 Organizational factors (e.g., leadership
styles) can also influence acceptance
Management by Objectives (MBO)
 Is one OD technique that is based on
goal setting
 Interlocking goals are set across the
levels of an organization
 Top officials first set organization-wide
goals
 Each level sets goals to contribute to
achievement of the higher level goals
 Research suggests MBO leads to
productivity gains
Organizational
Change
Implementing a
Management by Objectives Program
Another technique of OD is through
surveying employees of an
organization on attitudes and
opinions
Results are shared with employees
as a basis for change
Method
1.
2.
3.
4.
Design and conduct survey
Produce report
Present results to organization
Hold meetings to discuss possible
actions
5. Implement change
Studies suggest increased job
satisfaction
Gives all an opportunity to
participate
Survey
Feedback
Team building: Actually, there
are many techniques designed to
enhance team functioning
 Can be task-related or
interpersonally-oriented
 An essential part of OD: An
organization in which work teams
do not function well will have a
hard time being effective. Work
teams are a critical component in
most of today’s workplaces.
Another
Organizational
Change Technique
Do these OD techniques really work?
 Difficult to determine because most
programs involve more than one type of
technique
 Research on an entire organization is
difficult to do
 What would be the control group?
 However, it appears that OD programs
can be effective if properly applied and
supported by top management
 Few reports of detrimental effects on
organizations
 Except for T-groups (these are no
longer recommended as initially
conducted)
Effectiveness
of OD
Organizational Development is
typically concerned with addressing
specific challenges in specific
organizations. But let’s think “big
picture” for a bit– Organizational
Theory.
Organizational theory describes the
structure and functioning of
organizations
 Distinguishing characteristics
 Structure
 Interrelationships among people
 Interactions of people with technology
Descriptive theory explains how
organizations actually work
Prescriptive theory indicates how
organizations should work
Organizational
Theory
Over time, several types of
organizational theory have been used
popularly.
Developed first by Max Weber in the
late 1800s is Bureaucracy Theory.
It applied rationality to improve
efficiency (getting maximum results
with minimum resources)
 Division of labor to minute (low scope) tasks
 These tasks required minimum skill, making
employee selection easy
 Shortened training time
 Easily achieved criterion (increased production)
 Delegation of authority
 Responsibility only for specific functions
 Span of control– number of subordinates
who report to each supervisor
 Line vs. staff functions– directly involved
with the organization’s primary purpose vs.
serving in a supporting position
Bureaucracy
Theory
There is a relationship between belief system of
supervisor and subordinate behavior (McGregor,
1960)
 Theory X
 Belief that employees are lazy and will avoid work unless
watched
 Hard vs. soft approaches (threatening vs. permissive)–
both lead to problems with employees and
performance, but both derive from Theory X thinking
 Focus is on control via rewards and punishments
 Theory Y
 Belief that employees seek challenge & responsibility
 Tends to lead to satisfied employees and effective
organizations
 Control is achieved via challenge, responsibility & trust
 Theorized that transition to Theory Y takes a long time
because most people are used to Theory X situations
 Theory Z (Ouchi, 1981)
 Based on Japanese practices– job security leads to greater
commitment, more effort helping the organization achieve
success (because the work identifies with the organization to a
greater degree– its success is his/her success)
Theory X/
Theory Y
Open System Theory
Views organization as interplay of
people and technology
Joint optimization
 User friendly designs
Unit control of variances
 Work problems should be handled at
the level encountered
 Encourages greater autonomy and
skill variety
Interventions based on STS theory has
positive effects most of the time
 Improved attitudes, productivity,
and safety
Sociotechnical
Systems Theory
Several theories have commonalities
 Bureaucracy and Theory X
 Theory Y and STS
Can you see why these are linked?
Some theories are broad, others
specific
Some are more easily applied
Comparing
Various Theories
Overview of the
Employment System
Let’s quickly summarize the semester by thinking about the
following components and how they link to one another (it’s
really one big interactive system!)
 Job Analysis and Job Evaluation
The Employment
 Workforce Planning
Process
 Recruitment
 Initial Screening
 Selection
 Training and Development
 Performance Management
 Organizational Exit
Job
Analysis &
Job
Evaluation
Recruitment
Workforce
Planning
Training and
Development
Screening &
Selection
Organizational
Exit
Performance
Management
Job analysis is
fundamental to all else.
Determine tasks required,
KSAOs needed

Job Analysis and
Job Evaluation
Consider strategy of organization
Anticipate staffing needs
 Inventory current employees’ KSAOs and
experience
 Retirement
 Promotions
 Transfers (overseas and otherwise)
 Expansion
 New Products, Services
 Special needs such as technical skills
 Labor market supply and demand
(forecasting over time)
Workforce
Planning
Finding the applicants you need
 Where (source) depends on the job
 Initial impressions, public relations
 Balancing
 Cost of recruiting
 Selection ratio (low = many apply,
but few are chosen)
Recruitment
First stage of selection, each stage tends
to get more expensive (money and
time, employer’s and applicant’s)
 Important to eliminate clearly
unqualified applicants from the pool
early in the process
Initial Screening
 What system components are
currently in place?
 How effective are they? (current
success rate of hires)
 Can you do better? (a low selection
ratio makes this more likely)
 If so, how much will it cost to add or
replace selection components?
 What will be gained with new or
additional component(s)? (we call
that incremental validity)
Selection
 What do you need to know about
applicants? (typically their KSAOs)
 How can you get this information as
efficiently as possible?
 What is most important? (relative
weights of various information and
how to combine the information to
arrive at a selection decision)
Selection
(continued)
 Being competent– what does
it mean in a particular job or
company?
 Competency models– Clusters
of KSAOs: Where are the gaps
between what is needed and
the present state (what you
currently have)?
 Addressing gaps through
Training (or future improved
Selection)
Training and
Development
 Performance Appraisal– (usually)
yearly meeting with supervisor to
discuss performance, including areas
needing improvement and areas of
exceptional strength; typically is tied
to pay incentives
 Performance Management– ongoing
assistance, encouragement, correction
(i.e., feedback) to enable individual
employees, teams, other units to
achieve organizational goals (staying
on track)
Performance
Management
 Involuntary
 Employee should be able to “see it
coming” and should have
opportunities to correct problems
 Regular feedback, training
opportunities, other interventions
(EAP- employee assistance
programs)
 Warnings, documentation, etc.
 Layoffs and their fallout
 Voluntary
 Personal reasons
 Sense of contribution
 Sense of personal career growth
 Social reasons (poor supervision,
incivility of coworkers, doesn’t fit
in, etc.)
 Financial reasons
Organizational
Exit
Chapters 10, 13, and 14 (~10 exam items
from each)
Chapter 10 (Productive and
Counterproductive Employee Behavior)
 Personal and environmental predictors
of Task Performance
 Organizational Citizenship Behavior
(OCB)– What is it? Why do we do it?
 Counterproductive Work Behavior
(CWB)– What does it include? What
are the personal and environmental
predictors of it?
Exam Review
Chapter 13 (Leadership and Power in
Organizations)
 Power defined and bases of power
 Abusive supervision
 Leadership theories:
 Traits
 Behaviors
 Fiedler’s Contingency Theory
 Path-Goal Theory
 Leader-Member Exchange
 Transformational Leadership
 Vroom-Yetton Model
Exam Review
Chapter 14 (Organizational Development
and Theory)
 Change agents
 Management by Objectives
 Survey Feedback
 Teambuilding
 Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Theory of
Organizations
 Bureaucracy Theory
 Theory X vs. Theory Y (and Theory Z)
 Open Systems Theory
 Sociotechnical Systems Theory
Exam Review
Today
We focused on several types of Organizational
Development initiatives and reviewed several
Organizational Theories
This Week,
 Service Learning Project Presentation Due
 Rate your group members’ participation
(confidential survey)
 Discussion Due
 Exam 4
Next Week,
 Cumulative Exam 5 (Remember you are allowed
to drop one of the five exams, so if you have four
exam grades that you like, you can opt out of this
one. However, it can’t hurt your grade to take it–
you might improve a score and it’s a great
review.)
 View and rate other groups’ Project
Presentations
Summary