8/8/2019 OD !! APUNTES

1/4

Action research in OD.

A procedure or procedures to solve real life problems in real life settings.

The following drawing shows a model of action research used in OD.

1. Entry: beginning of the process. Identify the problem. Make an observation,interviews, etc. take notes of any crisis situation in the organization. , rawmaterial. Sociotechnical problems.

2. Start up: initial proposals and implementations. Proposals are tentative, theyare subject to change.

3. Assessment and feedback: test the porposed solutions, the feedback , lets orenable the consultant to modify plans.

4. Intervention: here the chosen interventions is implemented.5. Evaluation: the performance of the organization is evaluated after being

applied.

6. Adaptation: the organization adapts to new change7. Separation. When everything finally works out : the consultant and

organization part with each.

Activity: think of a problem of an org. and propose an intervention using research.

Model of a large system.

Which is useful in OD.

(Hojita)

1. Environment strategy. Here the resources, competitors, economics, politics,have to be considered.

2. Structure. Organization chart, hierarchies, salaries, departments, positions, etc.3. Technology.4. Culture.5. Performance management systems.6. Organizational feedback systems.7. Organizational effectiveness. Pedir apuntes!!!

Large scale intervention characteristics.

1. They are triggered by environmental and internal disruptions. Environmentalfactors include economic changes (crises), technological changes (advances),

political changes, legal changes social (wars, conflicts). Internal disruptionsinclude: not enough profits/resources, changes of top executives, the company

changes owner, mergers (fusion of 2 or more companies), acquisitions (another

org. buys the present company), change of premises, elimination of a big

part/section of the org. these are very drastic internal changes.

2. They provoke a revolutionary change.

8/8/2019 OD !! APUNTES

2/4

3. They incorporate new organization paradigms= term used by Kuhn(philosopher on the teory of knowledge) to refer to the framework upon which

a way of working is based.

4. They are driven by senior executives and line managers when this happens wehave what we call a cascade effect. Decisions taken at the top flow easily to

lower hierarchies.

5. They require an org. learning system. This means that a way for the org, toacquire the change has to be found.

Examples of large scale interventions.

Open systems planning. This implies the following steps:

1. Identify environmental domains that affect the org. strategy: economics,technological, social, political, legal.

2. Asses how the org. currently responds to the environmental demands. Here,one focuses on what the org is doing trying to adapt to the environ mental

demands.

3. Help org. members identify the org purpose, underlying purpose and itsdistinctive competencies. Or. Purpose= explicit purpose

Underlying purpose= implicit purpose.

4. Create a realistic future cenario of the org. environmental demands and org.responses. Here the org may propose something like:

5. Create an ideal future scenario of environmental demands and org. responses.Ideal implies perfection

6. Compare the org. present with the ideal future and prepare an action plan torealize the ideal future

(pedir apunte clase que no vine)

Transorganizational development.

This is the effort of the org. under question and another one or other owes. Exam:

y Joint ventures: here, we have 2 or more organizations getting together toimprove. This implies the fusion of assets, expenses.

y Research and development consortia: here, 2 or more companies get togetherin order to conduct research and development that will benefit them.

y Public-private partnerships: government enterprise and private org. workingtogether in association.

y Consumer supplier networks: here, the efforts of the consumers and itssuppliers are joint in order to facilitate the logistics among them.

Four sequential steps in transorganizational dev elopment.

1. Identification. Indetify potential members of a transorganizational system2. Convention. Assess the feasibility (viabilidad) of forming a transorganizational

system

8/8/2019 OD !! APUNTES

3/4

8/8/2019 OD !! APUNTES

4/4

This type of intervention is used almost everywhere. However, it is to be combined

with other interventions due to the fact that people get used to it.

Another factor to consider is that rewards are different for different p eople. In some

companies, they use the cafeteria scheme of rewards. The worker choose the

rewards among different alternatives.

Conciliatory interviews.

1. Mediation: here, the mediator propuses course of solution. These proposalscan be accepted or rejected bye the 2 parts. The mediator only works as a

facilitator to solve the conflict.

2. Conciliation: here, a conciliator also makes proposals, however, these proposalsare direct than these of a mediator. Yet they do not oblige bthe conflicting

parts to direct than those of a mediator yet they do not oblige the conflicting

parts to them, thus the conciliator is more than a facilitator.

3. Arbitration: here, the arbiter proposes a solution to the proble m, but this onebinds the 2 conflicting parties. That means that they have to accept it. This is

much stronger than meditation and stronger than concillation. Arbiters have

the legal power to come to decisions which have to be followed by the parts in

trouble, if they are not followed, the next stop is a sue.

4. Sue: here a judge gives a verdict on what is to be done. This verdict is of coursecompulsory. Unfortunately in some countries, meditation, conciliation and

arbitration are not as widely used as in other countries. This happens becausemexico legal system is in most cases handled by judges. Therefore, since they

do not want to relinguish the power they have, they do not promote these

methods.