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Organization development as sense-making: An interpretive perspective
Abstract
The dominant paradigm used in the literature to describe Organization Development (OD) has had limited success in fully representing OD-in-practice. The widespread reliance upon functionalist conventions to describe OD practice limits opportunities for insights and understanding obtainable through the use of alternative ontologies. Attempts to offer alternative conceptualizations are discouraged by the need of academicians to publish articles consistent with dominant perspectives and the lack of incentive for practitioners to publish at all. However, some initial efforts have been made to identify this problem and offer different ways of thinking about OD. The purpose of this study was to add to these efforts by offering a metaphor for considering organization and OD practice which reflects the more subjective assumptions of an interpretive paradigm. This study first reviewed the four most often used texts in OD graduate training programs across the continental United States. Texts were viewed as the repositories of conventional thinking, and Burrell and Morgan's (1979) multiparadigmatic framework served as a foil to explicate the assumptions of traditional views. This review suggested some oscillation between the image of organization invoked and descriptions of OD practice and practitioner role. Secondly, an elaboration of the interpretive perspective was offered, and examples of applications to organization theory reviewed. This served as a foundation for re-thinking organization and organization development as sense-making. Once a rudimentary framework of OD as sense-making was developed, seven practitioners were interviewed to ascertain whether the offered perspective either reflected or informed their descriptions of practice. Interestingly, practitioners offered perspectives along a continuum, with some consultants describing their work in fashions highly consistent with conventional views, and other invoking the more precarious notions of the social world consistent with interpretive assumptions. A final contrasting of conventional and alternative views of OD was developed, informed by insights gained as a result of the views practitioners shared.
Subject Area
Business education|Management
Recommended Citation
Ploof, Dianna L, "Organization development as sense-making: An interpretive perspective" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9022732.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9022732