A Systems Model of Organization Development Careers

Abstract

The authors bring together empirically based information on organiza tion development careers and their personal knowledge of the field to synthesize a systems model of the OD career milieu. The OD professional system is shown to overlap the university system and the organizational or client system. Three main OD practitioner roles are identified: the internal OD role, the full-time external OD role, and the university faculty/part-time external OD role. Mitchell's concept of consultant burnout is combined with Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation to create a predictive model of career change in OD practitioners. New empirical findings are reported on significant differences between inter nal and external OD practitioners in age, education, experience, and proportion of time spent in OD.