ABSTRACT
Organizational Development (OD) can be defined in several ways but all explanations contain common elements. OD pays particular attention to organizational processes or the way things are done, not just what is done. The emergence of OD closely parallels the evolution of management thinking during the twentieth century. The unparalleled success of mass production methods in turn-of-the-century America is appropriately credited to the contribution of Frederick Taylor's scientific management, the classic set of ideas used to rationalize work. Kurt Lewin's work comes together in the idea of Action Research, which can be characterized as the core technology of OD. It embodies all the values of OD and is the basis of most "interventions" used by change agents. Systems theory envisions organizations and their employees open to and influenced by their environments. It is posited that organizations gather input from their environments and transform them into output.
