Practicing Organization Development: A Guide for Leading Change: A Third Edition

GLOBAL OD

As the world “shrinks,” the practice of OD has spread across the globe. Global OD begins with the same definition of OD that has to do with the application of behavioral science knowledge yet makes it explicit that there are additional cultures beyond those where the roots of OD have been located (USA and Great Britain). Therefore, Global OD faces the challenge of changing individual, group, and organizational behavior without having the usual and anticipated “rate of predictability.” According to Eric Gaynor (personal communication), “the challenge has to do with the fact that—at present—there is an incomplete and insufficient body of knowledge in behavioral science for the diversity of existing cultures and sub-cultures, and we ...