City Research Online

Abstract

We contend that the dominant focus within the OD discourse is on organizations and their success (i.e. a preoccupation with ‘organizational effectiveness’) at the expense of wider responsibilities and obligations, and that the framing of ‘organizational health’ is overly narrow and partial (i.e. what is healthy for the organization rather than what is ‘healthy’ at an individual or societal level). We offer some support for our assertion that OD initiatives focus too much on organizational effectiveness and organizational health and we discuss the scope for embracing a wider set of change imperatives. This involves distinguishing between ‘self-ish’ and ‘self-less’ behaviour and drawing a distinction between distributive and generative forms of change activity Finally, we conclude by briefly sketching out how this could take shape in terms of what we have chosen to call ‘soulful interventions’.

MAD statement: This opinion piece seeks to Make a Difference (MAD) by challenging the focus on organizational effectiveness and organizational health in organization development (OD) interventions. In doing so, we make a case for utilizing a wider set of change imperatives (e.g. increasing sustainability, enhancing social responsibility, addressing community needs) and set out how this should take shape in terms of a more inclusive and socially-informed bundle of approaches to OD.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Change Management on 26 Mar 2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2020.1746684
Publisher Keywords:	Organization development, philanthropy, CSR, soulful interventions, organizational effectiveness
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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