1. Enacting Values-Based Change: Organization Development in Action

As a field, organization development (OD) is deeply grounded in a set of core values and principles of practice about how one should work with and in organizations. These perspectives are based on a wide range of theoretical influences on the evolution of the field, including social psychology, group dynamics, psychotherapy, industrial-organizational psychology, participative management, and sociology. Early OD also operationalized new management and behavioral science research that provided evidence of better ways to treat people and run organizations (see Jamieson & Gellermann, 2014, for an overview). It is also the result of a number of external forces including the social milieu of the 1950–1960s, and a response to many of the troubling organization, management, and Human Resources (HR) practices that dominated in the industrial age. At that time, overtly negative, oppressive, bureaucratic, inhumane, and unfair practices were commonplace, and OD practitioners were developing interventions and processes to drive positive changes and instill more empowering and developmental ways of managing organizations and their people. It was an uphill battle early on in the field and still is in many places; however, the values and practices of the field are a key differentiator of OD, particularly when compared to other types of management consulting and change approaches (Church & Jamieson, 2014).