Dynamics of Organizational Change and Learning
Chapter One
Organization Development and Change
Foundations and Applications
Thomas Cummings
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
Organization development (OD) applies behavioral-science knowledge and practices to help organizations
change to achieve greater effectiveness. It seeks to improve how organizations relate to their
external environments and function internally to attain high performance and high quality of work life.
OD emphasizes change in organizations that is planned and implemented deliberately. It is both an
applied field of social practice and a domain of scientific inquiry. Practitioners, such as managers, staff
experts, and consultants, apply relevant knowledge and methods to organization change processes,
while researchers study those proces ... read full excerpt from Dynamics of Organizational Change and Learning ebook
