Product Description

This is the third book in the Jossey–Bass Reader series, Organization Development: A Jossey–Bass Reader. This collection will introduce the key thinkers and contributors in organization development including Ed Lawler, Peter Senge, Chris Argyris, Richard Hackman, Jay Galbraith, Cooperrider, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Bolman & Deal, Kouzes & Posner, and Ed Schein, among others.

"Without reservations I recommend this volume to those students of organizational behavior who want an encyclopedia of OD to gain a perspective on the past, present, and future...."
Jonathan D. Springer of the American Psychological Association.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135700 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1088 pages

From the Back Cover
Organization Development is a one–stop guide to the world of planned change. Newcomers to the field can read the book cover to cover and explore organization development′s foundation, scope, focus, purpose, and methods. Experienced consultants and change agents will find chapters that capture best thinking on key topics—resources for fine–tuning skills, learning about intervention options, envisioning organization development′s future, or reflecting on the larger issues in growth and change. Leaders and managers will find the resources they need to understand the route to organizational health and effectiveness, and to develop, launch, and nourish successful change efforts. Organization development has a powerful and influential heritage, solid core, evolving applications and approaches, and a vital role to play in today′s global, fast–paced world of constant change. This volume immerses readers deeply in organization development′s power and possibilities.

Contributors include Billie Alban
Chris Argyris
Ron Ashkenas
John R. Austin
Jean M. Bartunek
Franklin Becker
Richard Beckhard
Beth Benjamin
Peter Block
Gene Boccialetti
Lee G. Bolman
David L. Bradford
Barbara Bunker
W. Warner Burke
Bernard Burnes
Jay Conger
David L. Cooperrider
Terrence E. Deal
Linda Dickens
Peter F. Drucker
Jane E. Dutton
Peter J. Frost
Marshall Goldsmith
Jay Galbraith
Joan V. Gallos
Marc S. Gerstein
Louis "Tex" Gunning
Phil Harkins
Stuart L. Hart
Todd Jick
Jason M. Kanov
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Steve Kerr
John Kotter
James Kouzes
Edward E. Lawler
Jacoba M. Lilius
Sally Maitlis
Robert J. Marshak
Keith Merron
Philip H. Mirvis
Howard Morgan
David A. Nadler
Glenn M. Parker
Barry Posner
Joseph A. Raelin
Michael J. Sales
Edgar H. Schein
Roger Schwarz
Leslie E. Sekerka
Peter M. Senge
Fritz Steele
David A. Thomas
William R. Torbert
Dave Ulrich
Karen Watkins
Marvin Weisbord
Alan Weiss
Monica C. Worline

About the Author
Joan V. Gallos is professor of leadership at the Henry W. Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.

Customer Reviews

Process "is as important as content, and sometimes more important." Edgar H. Schein

The scope and depth of coverage of an especially important business subject in this volume are unsurpassed by any other single source of which I am familiar. (There are 952 pages of material provided within 47 entries, followed by References, Name Index, and Subject Index.) I acknowledge that I have not read all of the entries selected and edited by Joan V. Gallos, who also provides an excellent Introduction and contributed an article, "Reframing Complexity: A Four Dimensional Approach to Organizational Diagnosis, Development, and Change" (Pages 344-362). Rather, I carefully reviewed the table of contents and selected those of greatest interest to me, some of which I had read previously. I suspect that many others will take the same approach.

Gallos organizes the organization development (OD) material within eight Parts.

The OD Field: Setting the Context, Understanding the Legacy
The OD Core: Understanding and Managing Planned Change
The OD Process: Diagnosis, Intervention, and Levels of Engagement
OD Consulting: leading Change from the Outside
OD Leadership: Fostering Change from the Inside
OD Focus: Organizational Intervention Targets
OD Purpose and Possibilities: Seeing the Forest for the Trees
OD And the Future: Embracing Change and New Directions

Here are several of the articles I had read previously:

"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" John P. Kotter
"Enlist Others" James Kouzes and Barry Posner
"Business Strategy: Creating the Winning Formula" Edward E. Lawler
"The Leader's New Work: Building learning organizations" Peter M. Senge
"Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge" Peter F. Drucker

Here are other articles I read for the first time:

"What Is Organizational Development?" Richard Beckhard
"Teaching Smart People How to Learn" Chris Argyris
"Team Development" Glenn M. Parker
"Emerging Directions: Is There a New IOD?" Robert J. Marshak

I share these merely to indicate my own interests but also to suggest the variety of perspectives among the business thinkers. Of course, it remains for each reader to select those entries that are of greatest relevance to her or his own needs and interests.

Credit Joan V. Gallos for making excellent selections and then for organizing the material so well. To repeat, the scope and depth of coverage of an especially important business subject in this volume are unsurpassed by any other single source of which I am familiar. Bravo!

Breadth of coverage and range of contributors is not matched by other books in this field.
This book covers the entire field of organisation development and provides you with a comprehensive resource. The best use of the book is as source of ideas to help you progress a project/initiative that you are handling. Also worth considering are:

* A field guide to Consulting and Organisational Development, by Carter Mcnamara - provides plenty of models, tools and techniques.

* Organisational Development and Change - CIPD toolkit - 2008. By James Cameron and Rita Mcgee. Provides 119 tools to use in this field.

Stan Felstead - Interchange Resources UK.

Fantastic account of the field
I work in the OD field but i'm fairly new to it and wanted to broaden my knowledge base of past and present theory and practise. I recognised quite a few of the authors (Senge, Argyris, Schein etc) before buying this but i've been equally if not even more impressed by the pieces by authors i didn't know. I've found this book to be a fantastically rich, practical and digestible account of what's out there and it's given me a lot of useful ideas and techniques to learn more about or try out. I'd recommend this to anyone wanting 1000 pages of good grounding in where the OD field sprang up from, what its landmark developments have been, who the key contributors have been / are, and what the central ideas and techniques are. If I had to offer a criticism it would be that it focuses quite a bit (not wholly) on US contributors and developments more than other parts of the world. This didn't matter a great deal to me as it covered all the relevant content and, besides, a lot of the leaders in the field have been / are in the US. Also, because it's an aggregation of many contributors, style and structure varies quite a bit and some chapters are less accessible. Nothing's impenetrable though. It also pushes towards the boundaries of where thinking is presently going and offers useful insights on contemporary challenges. I'm pleased that i bought it.