Theory Orientations of Organization Development (OD) Practitioners
Abstract
Although an emerging literature reports on the values, motives, competence, and activities of organization development (OD) practitioners, little is known about the explicit or implicit theories they bring to their client settings. This study attempts to shed light on OD practitioners' theoretical choices while bringing conceptual clarity and empirical refinement to an existing instrument. Practicing OD professionals responded to a theory orientation questionnaire. Data reveal practitioner preferences for humanistic theory sets (e.g., Herzberg and Maslow) and aversions to theory sets with a system-level focus (e.g., Likert, Lawrence and Lorsch, Levinson). Four meaningful factors proved more reliable and parsimonious an explanation of response patterns. The derived Components—Psychodynamics, Structure, Incentives, and Conflict—were conceptualized as practitioners' implicit model of organization. Limitations of this implicit model drive the authors' suggestion that a uniform, core knowledge base inform OD practice. Future uses of the reformulated scale are discussed.
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1.
1. Although factor analysis and PCA are statistically different procedures, both extract the underlying factors or components that explain patterns of variation in the data. These terms are used interchangeably in the text.
2.
2. T test for mean reliabilities used the Welch-Satterthwaite solution to estimate degrees of freedom for the Behrens-Fisher problem of independent means with heterogeneous variance.
3.
3. Comrey (1973) posited loadings greater than .71 as excellent, and .63 as very good, because variance overlap at these loadings is 50% and 40%, respectively.
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Article first published: September 1997
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