Organization development is an effort
- planned,
- organization-wide and
- managed from the top, to
- increase organization development and health through
- planned interventions in the organization's "process", using
behavioral science knowledge.
Beckhard, R. Organization Development:
Strategies and Models (1969)
Interesting recursion in that definition, no? At any rate,
organization development or just OD is the term used to
describe a wide range of techniques, or interventions, designed
to improve individual development and organizational effectiveness.
These techniques include:
Criticism of OD includes the charges that its methods are too vague and
its effects too long-term and difficult to measure. The
traditional activity-centered OD paradigm has recently been
challenged by the result-centered approach, which sets out to
correct these by setting significant, measurable, short-term
improvements using the OD techniques.
back to organizational behavior
References
Buchanan, David and Andrzej Huczynski. Organizational Behaviour,
3rd ed. | 
