ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the wider context of the major schools of thought, movements, or "paradigms" of organizational change since the end of World War II. One of the most important approaches to organizational change is organization development (OD), which was born around the end of the 1950s in the United States. OD can be seen as a variant of applied behavioural science. It of course has strong links with the areas of organizational psychology and organizational behaviour. An OD intervention involves first defining a strategic plan for improvement, intended to achieve a pre-defined "ideal" organization, and then mobilizing the members of the organization to carry out the plan. Organizational transformations are a more radical break with the former organization than is transition management and stand in total contrast to the incremental approach of OD. Chaos theory, or the science of complexity as it is sometimes known, introduces yet another paradigm into organizational change theory.
