ABSTRACT
The central question raised by Organizational Development (OD) is whether organizations can promote conditions of work that are developmental and beneficial for both individuals and the organization. The studies of administration have always had a strong leadership and managerial component and a search for the best way to organize and create conditions for high performance in organizations. OD is implicitly and explicitly part of public administration practice. Third-party peacemaking is a common type of OD intervention. It is typically a mediation process where a third party works with interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup disputes. The persistence of the field of OD has contributed much to establishing some measure of balance between the dominance of the idealism at the beginning of the last century and the real needs and experiences of people at work. OD ideas found their way into the discipline of public administration mainly through the work of Robert T. Golembiewski.
