ABSTRACT
The evaluation literature severely challenges the validity of three basic propositions in the common wisdom about organization development (OD), often espoused by ODers themselves: OD success rates in business organizations, OD success rates in government, and public-sector obstacles to OD. OD evolved in "developed" economies with quite specific features —high tech and high touch, to select convenient labels. OD activities can be costly and longer-range, in addition, and they might seem more applicable to "sophisticated" work forces. "Undeveloped" countries do not seem hospitable hosts for OD efforts, then. The overall success rates are substantial, although lower than for a large panel of applications with a strong bias toward Western and developed settings. Say what about the common wisdom of the success rates in non-Western and Third-World settings? Those rates seem an even better kept secret than the rates for more common settings.
