An Analysis Of Corporate Organizational Development Experience And Its Implications For The Future Of The Armys Organizational Effectiveness Program

The fundamental purpose of this study was to study the experience of select Organizational Development user corporations and compare the results with the Army experience in Organizational Effectiveness. Data was gathered from a literature search, through interviews with corporate personnel and academicians well known in this field. The recent Army effort, to the extent that it has developed, compares favorably with the corporate early experience and has the capacity built into its process to manage the change of the process itself. The Army is not yet doing two pertinent levels of OD which the corporations visited are doing. The Strategic OD, accomplished to systematically address the organizational future in a participatory way, and the Socio-Technical areas of OD which are executed to enhance jobs, redesign work, and increase organizational productivity at the worker level are not done in the Army at this time. Recommendations follow that the Army should expand its process; change the role of the OESO and the content of the OETC; educate manager/commanders at all levels and develop a survey feedback system in order to accomplish Strategic and Socio-Technical functions to vertically integrate the OE process in the Army.