If one were to take the question posed by the title of this paper literally, a record for the brevity ofa presentation could
be within one's grasp. The fact is that despite the (presumed) considerable direct and indirect costs of organisation
development (OD) programmes within Australian organisations, there seems to be little evidence of interest in
evaluating the benefits of interventions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Academy of Management Newsletter, Winter 1978.
2.
Armenakis, A.A., "Evaluation Guidelines for the OD Practitioner ", Personnel Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, 1975, pp. 99-103.
3.
Armenakis, A.A., Feild, H.S. and Holley, W.H., "Guidelines for Overcoming Empirically Identified Evaluation Problems of Organisational Development Change Agents ", Human Relations, 1976, vol. 29, No. 12, pp. 1147-1161.
4.
Armenakis, A.A. and Smith, L., "A Practical Alternative to Comparison Group Designs in OD Evaluations: The Abbreviated Time Series Design", Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1978, pp. 499-507.
5.
Bradshaw, R.W. and Allison, P.R., "Organisation Development at the BHP Co Ltd, Whyalla, SA". Paper presented at Fifth Annual Conference of the Australian Institute of Training and Development, Adelaide, May 1980.
6.
Burke, W.W. and Schmidt, W.H., "Management and Organisational Development ", Personnel Administration (March 1971), p.45. Cited in Ivancevich, J.M., Szilagyi, A.: Jr: and Wallace, M.J. Jr., Organisational Behaviour and Performance, Goodyear Publishing, Santa Monica, Cal., 1977, p.477.
7.
Campbell, D.T. and Stanley, J.C., Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research, Rand McNally, Chicago, III., 1966.
8.
Evans, M.G. , "Opportunistic Organisational Research: The Role of Patch-up Designs", Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, 1975, pp. 99-108.
9.
Gavin, J.F. and McPhail, S.M., "Intervention and Evaluation: A. Proactive Team Approach to OD", Journal of Applied Behavioual Scienee, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1978, pp.175-
10.
Goldstein, I. , Training: Program Development and Evaluation , Brooks/Cole, Monterey, Cal. , 1974.
11.
Golembiewski, R.T. and Billingsley , K., "Measuring Change in OD Panet Designs: A Response to Critics", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1980, pp.97-103.
12.
Golembiewski, R.T., Billingsley, K. and Yeager, S., "Measuring Change and Persistence in Human Affairs: Types of Change Generated by OD Designs", Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, Vol. 1,2, 1976, pp. 133-157.
13.
Huse, E.F., Organisation Developnwnt and Change, West Publishing, Boston, 1975.
14.
Kahn, R.L. , "Organisational Development: Some Problems and Proposals", Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, Vol.10, No. 4, 1974, pp.485-502.
15.
Kirkpatrick, D.L., "Evaluating Training Programs: Evidence Vs Proof", Training and Development Journal, November, 1977, pp. 9-12.
16.
Lindell, M.K. and Drexler, J.A. Jr., "Equivocality of Factor Incongruence as an Indicator of Type of Change in OD Interventions", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1980, pp. 105-107.
17.
Nadler, D.A. and Pecorella, P.A., "Differential Effects of Muiltiple Interventions in an Organisation", Journal of Applied Behavioural Science , Vol. 11, No. 3, 1975, pp. 348-
18.
Nielson, W.R. and Kimberley , J.R., "Designing Strategies for Organisation Development", Human Resource Management, 1976, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 32-39.
19.
Onto, J.G., "Management Training: The Costs, An Academic View" (unpublished), MELC Conference, Mt Eliza, 1977.
20.
Oncken, W. Jr., "The Training Director cannot meet the Challenge unless...", American Society of Training Directors, 14th Annual Conference , May 1958. Cited in People and Profits, July 1978, pp. 5-7,34.
21.
Pfeiffer, J.W. and Jones, J.E., "A Current Assessment of OD: What it is and Why it often fails", in Pfeiffer , J.W. and Jones, J.E., The 1976 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators, University Associates Inc., La Jolla, Cal., 1976.
22.
Randall, L.K., "Evaluation: A Training Dilemma", Journal of the American Society of Training Directors, 1960 , Vol. 14, P.29-35.
23.
Robbins, S.P., "Reconciling Management Theory with Management Practice", Business Horizons, February 1977 , pp.38-47.
24.
Terborg, J.R., Howard, G.S. and Maxwell, S.E., "Evaluating Planned Organisational Change: A Method for Assessing Alpha, Beta and Gamma Change", Academy of Management Review, Vol 5, No. 1, 1980, pp. 109-121.
25.
Varney, G.H. , "Developing OD Competencies", Training and Development Journal, April, 1980, pp. 30-35.
26.
Warwick, D.D. and Zawacki, R.A., "Organisational Development in Business Education", Training and Development Journal, August 1977, pp. 31-34.
27.
White, S.E. and Mitchell, T.R., "Organisation Development: A Review of Research Content and Research Design", Academy of Management, Review, April 1976, Vol. 1, No.2, pp.57-73.
28.
Zmud, R.W. and Armenakis, A.A., "Understanding the Management of Change ", Academy of Management Review, Vol. 3, 1978, pp. 661-669.
