ABSTRACT
With Chapter 7 having set the outlines of the case for “responsible freedom” as the foundation for OD, the question becomes whether or not that basic idea has been put to a real test. Here, that task involves four components: to sketch the value-loaded OD work ethic that can be said to constitute a reasonable normative framework for some halfcentury of theory and application; to suggest that a Judeo-Christian work ethic can be said to characterize North American management; to draw a convincing, if hardly complete, picture of reasonably good fit between the major features of those two ethics; and to present the rationale for substantial success rates characterizing that reasonably good fit.
