JAB39086

4
JAB

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

Organizational
47(1) 8­–32
© 2011 NTL Institute
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DOI: 10.1177/0021886310390864
Interventions: An http://jabs.sagepub.com

Artifaction Perspective

A. Georges L. Romme1

Abstract
Given the highly instrumental nature of the literature on organizational interventions,
this article explores and defines key elements of an artifaction theory of organizational
development (OD) interventions. Four dimensions of artifaction are distinguished:
ascription, fabrication, displacement, and reinterpretation. This framework then serves
to develop a number of propositions regarding the nature and background of OD
interventions, the ability to create alternative purposes and values, the involvement
of stakeholders in the intervention process, the deliberate incompleteness of the
intervention approach adopted, as well as its standardization and codification. Finally,
the article discusses how an artifaction perspective on OD intervention may serve to
develop an OD science that is theoretically as well as practically significant.

Keywords
intervention, practice, organizational development, organizational change, artifaction,
displacement, ascription

Introduction
There is an increasing concern among organizational change and development res­
earchers with producing knowledge that is relevant to practice (e.g., Mohrman, Gibson,
& Mohrman, 2001; Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001; Van Aken, 2007; Van de Ven &
Johnson, 2006). In this respect, Starbuck (2006) suggests that organization research
should emerge from its adolescence by engaging in applied research by means of

1
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Corresponding Author:
A. Georges L. Romme, Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences,
Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, Netherlands
Email: a.g.l.romme@tue.nl
Romme 9

experiments and interventions in real-life organizations. Hence, we may not be able

to understand an organizational system without trying to develop and change it, because
the latter tend to uncover backstage realities that are critical to the processes and out­
comes involved (Argyris, Putnam, & McLain Smith, 1985; Schein, 1987).
Organizational development (OD) refers to any practice that serves to deliberately
improve problem solving and renewal processes in organizations (see French & Bell,
1998). Intervening in complex and dynamic organizational settings is thus essential to
OD. Theories of these OD intervention processes, however, are largely absent. An
exception is, for example, the work of Argyris and coauthors (e.g. Argyris, 1970; Argyris
et al., 1985). In this respect, intervention-oriented work appears to have moved from
academia to a number of other sites—for example, management and human resources
(HR) consulting firms—where it is viewed as more respectable and can expect larger
direct economic rewards (Baldwin & Clark, 2000; Romme, 2003a). As such, most work
on intervention methods and strategies is instrumental in nature, and is largely decou­
pled from mainstream organization science (e.g., Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Cooperrider
& Whitney, 1999; French & Bell, 1998; Garrety & Badham, 2000; Shani, Adler,
Mohrman, Pasmore, & Stymne, 2008). Moreover, the mainstream literature on organi­
zational change and development strongly privileges the conceptual independence of
theory from practice, and as such largely ignores the potential contribution that can arise
from scholar–practitioner collaboration (Hay & Heracleous, 2009; Mohrman, 2007).
Why is it problematic not to have a sound theory of OD intervention? First, scholars
need a strong theoretical basis for their research, because inductive reasoning is fun­
damentally incomplete (Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010). Second, practitioners in OD need
a solid body of theory, grounded in research findings, that informs and guides their
efforts in increasing professional performance and effectiveness—for example, by
avoiding mistakes that other practitioners have made in the past. In this respect, other
disciplines, such as architecture and medicine, have been connecting theory and practice
much more systematically. Moreover, compared to the medical and other disciplines,
the organization (development) discipline is almost invisible in the broader academic
community as well as the society at large.
A theory of OD intervention therefore needs to be of interest to practitioners as well
as scholars looking for ways to conduct academic–practitioner projects that enhance
the human, social, and economic outcomes of interventions. To develop a preliminary
theoretical framework, an artifaction perspective is adopted here. This perspective
draws on the idea that organizations are artifacts, that is, socially constructed vehicles
of meaning (Bechky, 2008; Elsbach, 2004). Scholars cannot stand outside organiza­
tions, as dispassionate observers trying to observe and explain interventions and other
organizational phenomena (Mohrman, 2007; Simon, 1996). If organizational research­
ers wish to effectively theorize about interventions, they need to get close to where the
action is and possibly participate in these actions themselves (see Mohrman, 2007; Romme,
2003a; Schein, 2001).
In particular, I will explore the role of intervention in authentic organizational set­
tings from the perspective of artifaction, that is, the process of creating organizational
10 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

artifacts. The main research question addressed in this article therefore is as follows:
What are key elements of a theory of OD interventions, inspired by the artifaction idea?
Accordingly, the main contribution of this article to the literature is to develop OD
theory that privileges the reciprocity between theory and practice and as such chal­
lenges the received wisdom in the organizational change and development literature
(emphasizing the conceptual independence of theory from practice).
The remainder of this article is structured as follows. First, I will discuss the litera­
ture on organizational intervention. Subsequently, the artifaction perspective is intro­
duced. Drawing on this perspective, I then develop a theoretical framework of how
OD interventions are ascribed, fabricated, displaced, and reinterpreted. The last section
discusses the implications and limitations of this framework.

Intervening in Organizational Settings

Intervention involves purposeful action by an agent to create and facilitate change in
a particular organizational setting or system (see Adelman & Taylor, 1994; Midgley,
2003). This definition acknowledges that emergent change is also likely to occur. The
combination and interference of emergent and purposefully designed processes may
or may not produce the intended outcomes. Moreover, it may produce results that
cannot be understood as positive or negative outcomes, but imply new understandings
and dimensions of the incumbent organizational system.
A key characteristic of intervening in organizational settings is that experimentation
in a strict (scientific) sense is not applicable to OD practice. Opportunities for random­
ized and controlled trials with intervention and nonintervention groups (as in psychol­
ogy and medicine) are rare, if not completely absent in OD. Moreover, controlled
exp­eriments are also completely absent in management and organization research,
because it is rather difficult (if not impossible) to create laboratory conditions that
resemble in a meaningful way those in authentic organizational settings (Starbuck,
2004). The exceptional lab experiment that does effectively create a highly authentic
setting (e.g., the famous Stanford prison experiment by Zimbardo) tends to run out of
control and produce highly unethical results. In this article, experimentation therefore
merely refers to the common sense notion of “trying out” an intervention before one fully
commits to it.
The literature on organizational intervention is highly instrumental in nature (e.g.,
Flood & Jackson, 1991; Shani et al., 2008; Van der Zwaan & De Vries, 2000), and
robust theories on this type of intervention are therefore not available. However, inter­
ventions in real-life organizations may serve to deepen and extend our understanding
of organizational processes and systems. Starbuck (2006) observes that organization
researchers put too much effort into producing and discussing meaningless findings
that may obscure discoveries that would be more useful. Hence, organizational res­
earchers can team up with practitioners engaging in organizational interventions (e.g.,
Mohrman et al., 2001; Starbuck, 2006). This active engagement may enable organiza­
tion researchers to make more substantial progress and weed out unproductive lines of
Romme 11

thinking (Dunbar, Romme, & Starbuck, 2008; Starbuck, 2006). It also serves to uncover
and locate empirical material that can motivate the construction of alternative interpre­
tations and theories (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007).
Argyris (1997) recommends that interventions in organizational settings draw
equally on three modes of research: explanation, interpretation, and intervention. He
argues that explanatory research, if used exclusively, is limited in view of its focus on
descriptions of the world as it currently is rather than on how subjects create the pat­
terns that they describe. Another self-limiting feature of explanatory research is that it
does not describe how the world as-is would react if it were challenged nontrivially
(Argyris, 1997; Argyris et al., 1985). To be able to describe these features, interven­
tions that challenge the status quo need to be conducted. Moreover, Argyris et al. (1985)
strongly recommend to build a theoretical basis for interventions by consultants and
managers. Similarly, Schein (1987) describes a clinical approach to organization
research that “begins with the assumption that one cannot understand a human system
without trying to change it” (p. 29). Without a clinical approach, he argues, backstage
realities that should inform research are not brought into the academic debate. Schein
(1987) also observes that organization researchers must acknowledge that inquiry itself
is an intervention that has implications not only for data validity but, more important,
for the relationship with people in the organization.
At a philosophical level, organizational systems and processes can be considered as
being too complex to be completely understood from an outsider–observer perspec­
tive. In this respect, inductive reasoning on the basis of empirical observations is fun­
damentally incomplete (Ketokivi & Mantere, 2010). Moreover, Bourdieu’s work on
praxeology suggests that researchers cannot fully access organizational systems and
processes—as “practices” that are socially shared and historically produced. Therefore,
Bourdieu emphasizes “reflexivity,” the need to consider one’s relation to the research
object (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Everett, 2002). Specifically, he argues that
researchers should attempt to address and overcome three key biases at each stage of
the research process: a social, field, and intellectualist bias. The first bias arises from
the social origins and coordinates of the individual scholar. The field bias arises from the
position the researchers occupies in the academic microcosm. Finally, the intellectual­
ist bias involves the neglect of practical logic that “entices the researcher to construe
the world as a spectacle, . . . to be interpreted rather than as concrete problems to be
solved practically” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p. 39).
Blumenberg (1967) defined the “principium rationiis insufficientis”—the principle
of insufficient reason—leading to the need to combine reason with practical experi­
ence and improvisation (p. 433). In view of the principle of insufficient reason, the
literature on organizational intervention has been demonstrating a growing interest in
the social construction of dialogue, conversation, and experimentation (e.g., Bushe &
Marshak, 2009; Cooperrider & Whitney, 1999; Gergen & Thatchenkery, 2004; Lüscher
& Lewis, 2008; Mohrman et al., 2001). This kind of intervention studies typically draws
on action research methods (e.g., Eden & Huxham, 1996). However, action researchers
tend to show little interest in connecting intervention and interpretation to explanation
12 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

and analysis (see Argyris, 1997; Dick, Stringer, & Huxham, 2009; Heracleous, 2006).
Scholarly work that deliberately engages in interventions is therefore exceptional—
examples of this rare type of work are Argyris et al. (1985), Flyvbjerg (2001), Lüscher
and Lewis (2008), and Van Burg, Romme, Gilsing, and Reymen (2008). The latter
publications illustrate that collaborative intervention and reflection may provide exc­
eptional access to, as well as a deep understanding of, the issues that surface in the con­
text of intervening in complex organizational settings. The literature, however, employs
the notion of intervention in a largely instrumental manner, and therefore this notion
is theoretically underdeveloped (e.g., Adelman & Taylor, 1994; Argyris et al., 1985;
Lüscher & Lewis, 2008). The following sections address this gap in the literature.
In sum, intervention in organizational settings may serve to bring (hidden) contextual
dimensions into the academic debate. In this respect, interventions resolve a fundamen­
tal limitation of explanatory and interpretive research (cf. the principle of insufficient
reason), by uncovering and describing how organizational entities respond if they are
challenged in nontrivial ways. As such, interventions in authentic organizational settings
may be essential in creating a body of knowledge that is both practically and theoreti­
cally significant. Given that intervention is an underdeveloped construct in the literature,
the remainder of this article theorizes about organizational interventions.

Artifaction Perspective
Organization researchers have adopted the notion of artifacts predominantly to study
tangible artifacts—such as symbols, logos, dress codes, business cards, product pro­
totypes, drawings, and meeting rooms (e.g., Carlile, 2002; Rafaeli & Pratt, 2006;
Tschang & Szczypula, 2006). However, an artifact can also be viewed more broadly,
as any tangible or intangible (e.g., cognitive, social, or cultural) “fact” created by human
beings. This implies that products, services, organizational structures, organizational
identities, business strategies, multiuser networks, management tools, projects, and
discourses can all be conceived as artifacts. Each of these examples can be “objects”
of attempts to design and create. Artifacts can thus be defined as socially constructed
vehicles of functional and social meaning (see Bechky, 2008; Beckman, 2002; Elsbach,
2004). Given our interest in intervention, this section draws on the notion of artifaction,
defined here as the process of creating artifacts.
Evidently, this definition of artifact(ion) is very broad. In this article, I thus employ
the notion of artifaction merely as a so-called “sensitizing concept.” A sensitizing
concept serves to demarcate the domain of observation in terms of specific behaviors
and processes (cf. interventions as socially constructed processes loaded with func­
tional and social meanings). As such, this sensitizing concept serves to develop more
specific empirical constructs that then put “flesh to the bones” of this concept (Strauss
& Corbin, 1998).
Beckman (2002) suggests that artifaction involves four elementary modes of arti­
faction: fabrication, displacement, reinterpretation, and ascription (see Figure 1). These
modes can be illustrated in terms of a well-known artifact: office dress (Elsbach, 2004).
Romme 13

Fabrication Displacement

Ascription Reinterpetation

Figure 1. Elementary modes of artifaction

Note. Adapted from Beckman (2002).

For example, imagine a new information technology (IT) firm being created, with pro­
grammers and other staff members recruited from a variety of other firms. Initially,
dress is a given entity—resulting from individual choices and backgrounds—that can
then be turned into a social artifact by rethinking and re-creating it. In the first few
months, a dress code gradually develops from the interaction between individual choices,
preferences, role models (e.g., the founder-entrepreneur), histories, and resources. In
other words, a dress code is fabricated and manifested in the clothing people decide to
wear; in the case of our IT firm, jeans and T-shirts become the norm. At some point,
particular employees in this firm displace their informal dress (code) to an entirely
new setting: for example, in sales pitches for potential clients. Displacement leaves the
properties of the dress intact, but transfers it to a new context in which another func­
tion or meaning may become operative (see Beckman, 2002).
Reinterpreting an artifact is a kind of conceptual displacement (Beckman, 2002).
For example, clients may signal that they feel a sales representative dressed informally
does not pay them enough respect. This may lead the firm’s management to evaluate
jeans and T-shirts as inappropriate dress in a commercial setting. Finally, ascription is
a kind of conceptual fabrication that deliberately changes the perceived properties. For
example, management can try to deliberately change the dress code to reflect a new set
of business values: “If we want to make money, our business value must be demon­
strated in terms of formal dress as well as other forms of décor.” In turn, this newly
ascribed property of dress will affect the way (the sales people among) staff members
dress during office hours, and so forth.
This example illustrates that reinterpretation and ascription are embedded in par­
ticular language frames (e.g., the “bottom line” business frame advocated by man­
agement) that Wittgenstein (1953) calls language games. As such, reinterpretation
and ascription acts do not have any intrinsic meaning by themselves, but derive
meaning from their use in a particular language frame adopted (see Lyotard, 1984;
Wittgenstein, 1953).
Generally speaking, artifaction in organizational settings tends to involve dynamic
combinations of fabrication, displacement, ascription, and reinterpretation. At each
point in time, the prevailing combination of artifaction modes produces an artifact that
14 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

is perceived as functional in some way, is being ascribed a meaning, and is spatially

and conceptually placed in the world of other artifacts and their meanings and func­
tions. The modes distinguished in Figure 1 are not mutually exclusive, they merely
serve to analyze and understand an artifaction process. Some or all of the four modes
of artifaction can coexist (spatially or temporally)—as is also evident from the office
dress example given earlier. The framework outlined in Figure 1 may therefore help
dissect artifaction processes into their constituent components, whereas these compo­
nents are largely complementary and interdependent.

Theoretical Framework
I now turn to developing an artifaction-based theoretical framework of organizational
interventions, by drawing on a variety of literatures. In particular, this framework
explores how ascription, fabrication, displacement, and reinterpretation processes in
organizational interventions interact. In this respect, I will focus on OD interventions.
Earlier in this article, intervention was defined as purposeful action to create change
in a particular organizational system. An OD intervention approach is defined here as
the set of assumptions, intentions, goals, strategies, tactics, and processes that motivates
the OD practitioner’s interventions and serves to reflect on these interventions.
Finally, I assume that OD practitioners can conduct interventions in multiple orga­
nizational settings (within the same organization or in different organizations). The
remainder of this section will draw on the OD literature, but also on a number of other
fields, to integrate ideas and findings from research into other artifaction domains (e.g.,
product design and development).

Background, Virtues, and Discourse of OD Practitioners

Practitioners view research results as useful when they are jointly interpreted with res­
earchers and are informative to self-design activities (Mohrman et al., 2001). In this
respect, Bartunek and Louis (1996) recommend engaging in joint insider–outsider
research that produces the quality of marginality, that is, being neither altogether inside
or altogether outside the system. Thus, in insider–outsider teams

the outsider’s assumptions, language, and cognitive frames are made explicit in
the insider’s questions and vice-versa. The parties, in a colloquial sense, keep
each other honest—or at least more conscious than a single party working alone
may easily achieve. (p. 62)

An important requirement for this quality of marginality to arise is a shift in the power
dynamic that characterizes many forms of social science research. Bartunek and Louis
(1996) therefore argue that any inquiry into organizational systems needs to involve
the human members of those systems as active participants in the research process
rather than merely as passive subjects and respondents.
Romme 15

However, incompatibility of problem-solving styles tends to lead to nonproductive

process conflict between insiders and outsiders and, in particular, cultural differences
between academics and practitioners can be the “culprits behind process conflict”
(Amabile et al., 2001, p. 428). The incompatibility of problem-solving styles largely
arises from so-called representational gaps between the frameworks that guide the way
an individual solves a particular problem (Cronin & Weingart, 2007). For example,
some participants may define any OD problem in terms of (lack of) motivation and
commitment, whereas others look at the same problem in terms of the broader systems
and processes. This leads to the first proposition:

Proposition 1a: “Inside” OD practitioners collaborating with “outside” experts

are more likely to improve organizational problem solving and renewal pro­
cesses than insiders (or outsiders) working alone, but only if (initial) dif­
ferences in problem-solving styles and the associated process conflicts are
overcome.

At a more fundamental level, any attempt to engage in organizational research and

intervention draws on at least one of the intellectual virtues defined by Aristotle: epis­
teme, techne, and phronesis. Following Flyvbjerg (2001), the virtue of episteme draws
on universal, invariable, and context-independent knowledge and seeks to uncover
universal truths about organization and organizing. Episteme thus thrives on the idea
that knowledge represents reality, and as such, on denotative statements regarding the
world as-it-is (Lyotard, 1984; Romme, 2003a).
Techne involves pragmatic, variable, and context-dependent knowledge that is
instrumental in making or managing organizations better (Flyvbjerg, 2001)—where
“better” is defined in terms of the values and goals of those to whom the OD practitio­
ner is accountable (e.g., the chief executive officer). This is the kind of virtue that is
strongly developed among management consultants, who get things done in a pragmatic
and goal-oriented manner.
The virtue of phronesis refers to questioning and deliberating about values, with
reference to ongoing praxis. Flyvbjerg (2001) argues that a key task of phronetic orga­
nization research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways
in which power and values work in organizations (including their consequences) and
to suggest how power and values could be changed. In the OD literature, the phronesis
virtue has also been defined as “dialogic” (e.g., Bushe & Marshak, 2009) in nature.
From Lyotard’s (1984) work, we can infer that the instrumental virtue of “techne”
in itself has no recourse to legitimation: The underlying assumptions and values of a
particular intervention are hardly ever (openly) questioned by participants and stake­
holders, because its legitimation is immediate within the pragmatic approach adopted
(e.g., “this organizational turnaround is necessary in view of the dramatic decrease in
operating results”). In contrast, the more scientific “episteme” and the dialogic “phro­
nesis” approach need to be explicitly legitimated by certain, fundamentally different,
16 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

criteria: for example, the reliability of measurements in the case of episteme and the
practical relevance in the case of phronesis (see Worren, Moore, & Elliott, 2002).
Regardless of their fundamental differences, Aristotle’s three virtues are essential and
complementary assets for research-based OD work (see Argyris, 1997). This integral
position follows from a pragmatic position (see Argyris, 1997) adopted here, imply­
ing that all human beings continually alternate between a representational “episteme”
mind set (e.g., we typically assume that product labels fairly describe the food we’re
buying), an instrumental “techne” approach (e.g., in getting our office work done, bring­
ing our kids to school, taking care of our garden), and a dialogic “phronesis” approach
(e.g., in debating complex issues in a team meeting or participating in online chat
rooms). If individual human life can only be comfortable and feasible if the individual
human being draws on all three virtues, any professional approach toward organiza­
tion and organizing (including OD) also needs to draw on episteme, techne, and phro­
nesis. Rather than considering episteme, techne, and phronesis as incommensurable
(see Czarniawska, 1998), these three virtues are highly complementary in crafting and
understanding interventions. Bushe and Marshak (2009) recently advocated a similar
position with regard to diagnostic and dialogic perspectives on OD.
In this respect, any OD intervention will benefit from understanding the genera­
tive processes and outcomes invoked by particular interventions in certain contexts
(cf. episteme), which desired situation needs to be created and how this can be done
(cf. techne), and what kind of dialogical processes can be organized to uncover and
discuss the values and power structures that inhibit or promote the intended changes
and/or alternative routes (cf. phronesis). This leads to the following proposition:

Proposition 1b: OD practitioners drawing on and combining the professional

virtues of episteme–techne–phronesis are more likely to improve organiza­
tional problem solving and renewal processes than those who draw on a more
exclusive set of virtues.

There is a body of evidence that suggests that a dialogic approach to OD tends

to increase the quality of outcomes (e.g., decisions) as well as the commitment to
these outcomes (e.g., Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Oswald,
Mossholder, & Harris, 1994). Mantere and Vaara (2008) analyzed strategy proce­
sses in 12 organizations and identified the discourses that appear to be associated
with nonparticipatory versus participatory approaches. Nonparticipatory approaches
appeared to be framed in terms of “mystification,” “disciplining,” and “technologi­
zation” (cf. techne). In contrast, discourses framed in terms of self-actualization, dia­
logization, and concretization promoted participatory approaches (cf. phronesis;
Mantere & Vaara, 2008). The study by Mantere and Vaara thus suggests that the way
in which practitioners think and talk about OD is strongly connected to the (non)
participatory nature of the approach adopted. More specifically, this leads to the fol­
lowing propositions:
Romme 17

Proposition 1c: OD practitioners predominantly drawing on discourse with

phronesis as its central virtue are likely to adopt a participatory approach.
Proposition 1d: OD practitioners predominantly drawing on discourse with
techne as its central virtue are likely to adopt a nonparticipatory approach.

Ascription–Fabrication Interface
The way in which professionals are trained and socialized into their occupation influ­
ences the structuration of work by these professionals in organizations (Lounsbury &
Kaghan, 2001). In particular, studies of architects and product designers suggest (some
of) these professionals are able to keep the process fluid for an extended period, by
investing time and other resources in creating alternative future states of the system
being (re)designed, before embarking on a particular design route (e.g., Lawson, 1990;
Yoo, Boland, & Lyytinen, 2006). Moreover, this type of professional is more likely to
engage in reflection on unexpected findings and observations (Michlewski, 2008).
In contrast, studies of managers and consultants suggest that they have typically not
been immersed in design skills (e.g., as students) and are therefore more likely to
directly engage in fabricating courses of action without first engaging extensively in
explorations of the perceived properties of these courses of action (e.g., Mintzberg,
1973). In turn, this tends to produce a substantial incongruence between what managers
say and believe they do and what they actually do (Argyris et al., 1985). This incon­
gruence, or gap, between espoused theory and actual behavioral patterns tends to arise
when managers are severely challenged and engage in defensive reasoning. Moreover,
this incongruence is a major source of organizational inertia, because it inhibits both
individual and organizational learning (Argyris et al., 1985).
This phenomenon has been observed in empirical studies of unsuccessful organiza­
tional change projects (e.g., Foss, 2003; Helfat et al., 2007). For example, the Danish
firm Oticon tried to delegate decision making to improve entrepreneurial capabilities
and motivation at local organizational levels (Foss, 2003). As such, Oticon’s senior
management deliberately attempted to build a credible commitment not to intervene in
delegated decision making (cf. espoused design rules in this case). Frequent manage­
rial meddling with delegated rights (cf. theory-in-use), however, led to a severe loss of
motivation and caused Oticon to return to a much more conventional type of organiza­
tion (Foss, 2003).
At the heart of these phenomena appears to be the difference between focusing on
the existing versus the desired situation. Many people in managerial and leadership
positions tend to focus on current problems and assume that the problem at hand drives
and determines the solution space. However, facing ill-defined situations and chal­
lenges, people with a design mind set tend to focus on the desired situation. They begin
generating conceptual solutions very early in the search and design process, because
an ill-defined problem is never going to be completely understood without relating it
to an ideal target solution that brings novel values and purposes into the design process
18 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

(Banathy, 1996; Romme, 2003a). According to Banathy (1996), focusing on the system
in which the problem situation is embedded tends to lock designers into the current
system, although the most effective solutions tend to lie outside of the existing system:

If solutions could be offered within the existing system, there would be no need
to design. Thus designers have to transcend the existing system. Their task is to
create a different system or devise a new one. That is why designers say they
can truly define the problem only in light of the solution. The solution informs
them as to what the real problem is. (p. 20)

Ascribing alternative purposes and values can be understood as an abductive pro­

cess. Compared with induction and deduction, abduction is the only form of reasoning
that serves to imagine and introduce new ideas, explanations, purposes, and so forth.
Locke, Golden-Biddle, and Feldman (2008) argue that a critical condition for abduc­
tion is the “living sensation of doubt” (p. 908). For example, when a manager of the
Dutch food business of Unilever was searching for a tested model to develop teams
and deepen the sense of community in his company, he initially wanted a “cookbook”
for building community—because that approach had worked for him in the past
(Mirvis, Ayas, & Roth, 2003). Thus, the project team he set up for this purpose strug­
gled for some time with the notion of a single model for building community, but then
decided to embark on a mixed approach of planning and improvisation that allowed
serendipity to work. The team’s ability to ascribe alternative purposes to their endeavor
was a critical success factor in bringing new spirit to, as well as creating growth for,
Unilever’s food business (Mirvis et al., 2003). In sum, this suggests the following
claim regarding the interaction between ascription and fabrication:

Proposition 2: The higher the abductive ability of the OD practitioner to ascribe

alternative purposes and values to interventions, the less likely it is that he or
she becomes locked into the current intervention approach (fabricated in the
past), and vice versa.

Fabrication–Displacement Interface
The literature on new product development emphasizes the importance of rapid pro­
totyping for effectively designing, developing, and commercializing new products (e.g.,
Rainey, 2005; Smith, 1999). That is, prototyping serves to facilitate the coevolution
between fabricating (early versions of) products and the alternative contexts in which
they can be used and adopted.
Garud, Jain, and Tuertscher (2008) explore this particular type of coevolutionary
process in terms of designs that are deliberately left “incomplete.” They examine the
development of the Linux operating system and the Wikipedia online encyclopedia to
assess how these designs benefit from an appreciation of the generative benefits of
Romme 19

keeping platforms and prototypes in a state of perpetual motion. As such, these plat­
forms and prototypes provide the basis for the development of extensions by many
different actors in many different settings (Garud et al., 2008).
In a longitudinal study at a German trading company, Sackmann, Eggenhofer-Rehart,
and Friesl (2009) demonstrate how intervention processes characterized by continuous
self-reflection and learning contributed to sustained change. Similarly, Rindova and
Kotha (2001) explore how Yahoo! continually adapts form and function, making the
firm highly responsive and proactive toward new challenges and opportunities.
By analogy, OD practitioners are likely to benefit from an appreciation of deliber­
ate incompleteness, which serves to connect the fabrication and displacement of their
OD interventions. That is, these practitioners must learn to theorize on the fly (cf. Garud
et al., 2008) by generating provisional workable solutions to emerging problems, in
the awareness that the intervention approach (platform) as well as the context will
change. In sum, this suggests the following proposition:

Proposition 3: The more the OD practitioner deliberately perceives and sustains

his or her intervention approach as being structurally incomplete, the more
effectively this approach will coevolve with its use in new settings (and vice
versa).

Displacement–Reinterpretation Interface
The purpose of many organizational interventions is to (understand how to) change the
behavior of people. For example, in developing new forms of primary health care,
involving users in pilot projects serves to define new kinds of health needs and deter­
mining the services that respond to these needs (Poulton, 1999). In this respect, a grow­
ing body of evidence across a variety of industries and organizations suggests that
involving users and other stakeholders of the intended deliverables of an intervention
project increases the effectiveness and acceptance of the intervention (e.g., Hardy,
Titchen, & Manley, 2007; Tourish & Robson, 2006; Wagner, 1994; Yoo et al., 2006).
These benefits of involving stakeholders appear to arise from two processes. First,
the information and feedback received from stakeholders (e.g., in experimental settings)
can substantially increase the design and effectiveness of the intervention. Second,
stakeholder involvement can serve as a “technology of legitimation” (Harrison & Mort,
1998), by which legitimation of the intervention process is build and maintained in
demanding multistakeholder settings.
An interesting example of stakeholder involvement is provided by Madsen, Desai,
Roberts, and Wong (2006). The latter study describes how two physicians redesigned
an intensive care unit by actively involving nurses and support staff in care decisions.
These physicians argued that intensive care units should use the most up-to-date infor­
mation (e.g., from nurses) about critically ill patients. Therefore, nurses and other
support staff received training to recognize and report critical signals and take action.
As a result, mortality rates declined steadily and a steady stream of new care innovations
20 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

was produced by the unit (Madsen et al., 2006). Nevertheless, other physicians in the
same hospital questioned the legitimacy of the increasing autonomy of nurses and
other staff. Moreover, when the hospital expanded the intensive care unit by hiring
two new physicians, the unit split into camps and the two pioneers decided to leave the
hospital (Madsen et al., 2006). This example illustrates the substantial benefits that
stakeholder involvement can produce in terms of information and feedback—in a
community of professionals (health care practitioners) who tend to resist interventions
that do not fit their beliefs and prior training. Moreover, it illustrates stakeholder involve­
ment as a technology of legitimation, in the sense that the two physicians were highly
successful in getting the support and commitment from nurses and support staff, but
failed to obtain support from other physicians and senior management of the hospital.
Similarly, active participation by a broad set of organizational stakeholders is criti­
cal to the success of collaborative research ventures undertaken by academic scholars
and management practitioners (e.g., Bartunek, Foster-Fishman, & Keys, 1996; Mohrman
et al., 2001; Mirvis et al.; 2003; Offermann & Spiros, 2001; Van de Ven & Johnson,
2006). In sum, this leads to the following propositions:

Proposition 4a: The more the OD practitioner can apply and adapt his or her
intervention approach to new settings, the more likely he or she will continu­
ally reinterpret intervention processes and results, and vice versa.
Proposition 4b: The more the OD practitioner seeks and facilitates stakeholder
involvement (for information and feedback benefits as well as legitimacy
effects), the more these stakeholders positively interpret the intervention pro­
cesses and outcomes.

Reinterpretation–Ascription Interface
Institutionalizing knowledge is generally understood as an important device for enhanc­
ing knowledge transfer in technical and operational work settings (e.g., Lanzara & Patriotta,
2007; Sher & Lee, 2004). There is an emerging body of evidence, however, that sug­
gests high levels of knowledge standardization and codification tends to undermine orga­
nizational transformation processes (e.g., D’Adderio, 2004; Garud & Kumaraswamy,
2005; Orlikowski, 2002). That is, a high level of codified knowledge may stifle the
ability to produce effective proposals for interventions (Leonard-Barton, 1992).
An interesting example is the attempt to design and implement knowledge manage­
ment practices at Infosys Technologies, the global software services firm. In the early
1990s, Infosys started to transform employees’ knowledge into an organization-wide
resource that would “make every instance of learning within Infosys available to every
employee” (Garud & Kumaraswamy, 2005, p. 22). This project involved, among others,
a central knowledge portal supported by e-mail, bulletin boards, and repositories for
marketing, technical, and project-related information. To motivate employees to con­
tribute content to the knowledge portal, Infosys implemented an incentive system invo­
lving monetary rewards or prizes, which produced several unintended consequences—such
Romme 21

as information overload, decreasing quality and relevance of contributions, and a break­

down of the culture of freely sharing knowledge (Garud & Kumaraswamy, 2005). The
incentive system was therefore substantially modified and reduced, to decrease its
negative impact on the culture of collaborative learning and knowledge sharing pro­
cesses and increase the informal, face-to-face and narrative qualities of these processes
(Garud & Kumaraswamy, 2005).
Moreover, D’Adderio (2004) analyzed the influence of software on organizational
adaptation and transformation in IT and other high-tech firms. She observes how the
authority with regard to change in these firms becomes distributed among engineers,
software systems, and design practices. D’Adderio finds that the disciplining action of
software can be beneficial to certain, clearly structured processes for which require­
ments for stability and control are high; but can represent a source of rigidity to other,
more unstructured, functions and activities:

An excessive emphasis on control may prevent the exploration of alternative

technology configurations, as well as weaken the ability to incorporate hetero­
geneous knowledge inputs in the design (including inputs from customers and
suppliers, and design feedback from other organizational functions and disciplines).
(p. 170)

Another body of evidence suggests that a certain amount of knowledge standardiza­

tion and codification can be very useful. For example, manuals and software applica­
tions can help agents adapt their routines by enhancing the cognitive alignment among
dispersed members of how interventions should be executed and by facilitating the
postexecution evaluation for eventual adaptation (Zollo & Winter, 2002). Similarly,
establishing a shared communication protocol facilitates the exchange of information
and learning outcomes across individuals or groups (Dhanaraj, Lyles, Steensma, &
Tihanyi, 2004). Moreover, the process through which knowledge is standardized and
articulated—for example, in team meetings and via e-mail conversations—requires a
significant amount of questioning about the causal linkages between actions and out­
comes. Thus, the standardization and codification process implies participants are
somewhat forced to ask questions—for example, about the reasons for successes and
failures in their prior interventions—thereby unveiling some of the causal ambiguity
of the latter (Zollo & Winter, 2002). Knowledge codification has therefore been argued
to raise the level of mindfulness about the effectiveness of key processes (Weick &
Sutcliffe, 2006) and draws attention to the needs to respond flexibly to contextual cues
(Levinthal & Rerup, 2006).
In sum, this suggests that the effect of standardization and codification of OD inter­
ventions on the reinterpretation—ascription interface is inverted U-shaped (as shown
in Figure 2). At low initial levels of standardization and codification, each additional
effort to standardize and codify the intervention approach supports the process of
learning from experiences (cf. the practitioner’s mindfulness)—in terms of reinterpre­
tating and ascripting. After a critical threshold level, each additional effort to standardize
22 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

Ability to Ascribe
Alternative
Purposes and
Values

Standardization and Codification of

Intervention Approach

Figure 2. Relationship between standardization–codification and the ability to ascribe

alternative purposes and values to the intervention approach

and codify the OD intervention approach undermines the process of reinterpreting and
ascribing (new) properties to this approach. In sum, standardization and codification
mediates the interaction between reinterpretation and ascription as follows:

Proposition 5a: The more the OD practitioner continually reinterprets his or her
intervention approach in view of the experiences and outcomes obtained, the
more likely he or she will engage in ascribing alternative purposes and values
to the intervention approach (and vice versa).
Proposition 5b: The level of standardization–codification of the OD interven­
tion approach affects the practitioner’s ability to ascribe alternative purposes
and values to this approach—according to an inverted U-shaped relationship;
as such, this mediates the causality defined under Proposition 5a.

The five propositions described in this section constitute a preliminary theoretical frame­
work with regard to the dynamics of a particular intervention approach (summarized
in Figure 3).

Discussion
Contribution

Table 1 provides an overview of the theoretical framework described earlier, and thus
outlines the answer to the question posed in the beginning of this article: What are key
elements of a theory of OD interventions, inspired by the artifaction idea? As such,
this study entails an unconventional and somewhat provocative contribution to the lit­
erature on intervention methods and strategies, which is entirely instrumental in nature
and also tends to be largely decoupled from mainstream organization science (e.g.,
Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Cooperrider & Whitney, 1999; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008).
Romme 23

Deliberate incompleteness of
intervention approach
(Proposition 3)
Fabrication Displacement

Ability to create Background, virtues,

Stakeholder
alternative purposes and discourse of OD
involvement
and values practitioners
(Proposition 4)
(Proposition 2) (Proposition 1)

Ascription Reinterpetation

Standardization and codification

of intervention approach
(Proposition 5)

Figure 3. Schematic overview of theoretical framework

The main contribution to the OD literature is to argue and illustrate that strong theory
can actually privilege the interdependence between theory and practice, and thus pro­
vide a bridge between mainstream organization theory and research traditions prevail­
ing in the OD field (e.g., action research).
In particular, I have attempted to develop a number of key ideas, concepts, and propo­
sitions that together provide the skeleton of a future theory of organizational interven­
tion. Ideally, this theory will serve to connect the highly fragmented literature on specific
OD methods (e.g., Cooperrider & Whitney, 1999; Garrety & Badham, 2000; Romme &
Damen, 2007) with the literature that pursues theory with a strong descriptive and
explanatory capability (e.g., Amabile et al., 2001; Mohrman et al., 2001). The theoretical
framework on organizational intervention may also motivate action researchers to con­
nect intervention and interpretation to explanation and analysis. This type of work is still
exceptional (e.g., Argyris et al., 1985; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008), although it may be the
only road toward a more mature OD science (see Starbuck, 2003).
Several conditions may be critical in creating a research culture that nurtures orga­
nizational intervention. For one, practitioners and scholars need to team up more often
than is currently the case, to engage in major OD efforts. In this respect, OD practitio­
ners need a diverse epistemic and experiential base to be able to create interesting and
valid theory as well as effective interventions (see Argyris et al., 1985; Schein, 1987).
In an ideal world, many OD professionals would simultaneously be practitioners and
researchers, as is the case in more mature intervention sciences (e.g., the medical pro­
fession). But direct interaction between clinical practice and scholarly research at the
level of the individual OD professional might be difficult to realize in the short run,
given the publish-or-perish culture and career incentives currently prevailing in aca­
demia. Nonetheless, OD researchers are likely to benefit from developing their own
24 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

Table 1. Summary of Theoretical Framework: Key Assumptions, Definitions, and Propositions

Artifaction Perspective
Ontological assumption: theory and practice are interdependent. Epistemological assumption:
principle of “insufficient reason” implies reason must be combined with practical
experience and improvisation. That is, intervention in organizational settings serves to
bring (hidden) contextual dimensions into the academic debate. Moreover, interventions
resolve a fundamental limitation of explanatory and interpretive research, by uncovering
how organizational entities respond if challenged in nontrivial ways.
Artifact: socially constructed vehicle of functional and social meaning (Beckman, 2002;
Bechky, 2008; Elsbach, 2004)
Artifaction: the process of creating artifacts, composed of four elementary modes (Beckman,
2002):
fabrication: materially creating or changing the properties of the artifact
displacement: transferring the artifact to a new context, in which another meaning or
function may become operative
reinterpretation: deliberately changing the meaning or function of the artifact (cf.
conceptual displacement)
ascription: deliberately changing the perceived properties of the artifact (cf. conceptual
fabrication)
Key theoretical idea: (intervention as) artifaction in organizational settings tends to involve
dynamic combinations of fabricating, displacing, ascribing, and reinterpreting artifacts.
Key Definitions
Organizational development (OD): any practice that serves to deliberately improve problem
solving and renewal processes in organizational settings/systems. Intervention: purposeful
action to create and facilitate change in a particular organizational setting or system (cf.
Adelman & Taylor, 1994; Midgley, 2003).
OD intervention approach: the set of intentions, assumptions, goals, strategies, tactics, and
processes that motivates the OD practitioner’s interventions and serves to reflect on
these interventions.
Note: The OD intervention approach is the key artifact in this theoretical framework.
Propositions
Proposition 1
a. “Inside” OD practitioners collaborating with “outside” experts are more likely to
improve organizational problem solving and renewal processes than insiders (or
outsiders) working alone, but only if (initial) differences in problem-solving styles and the
associated process conflicts are overcome.
b. OD practitioners drawing on and combining the professional virtues of episteme–
techne–phronesis are more likely to improve organizational problem solving and
renewal processes than those who draw on a more exclusive set of virtues.
c. OD practitioners predominantly drawing on discourse with phronesis as its central
virtue are likely to adopt a participatory approach.
d. OD practitioners predominantly drawing on discourse with techne as its central virtue
are likely to adopt a nonparticipatory approach.
Related literature: Bartunek and Louis (1996); Mohrman et al. (2001); Cronin and
Weingart (2007); Flyvbjerg (2001); Argyris (1997); Bushe and Marshak (2009); Mantere
and Vaara (2008)

(continued)
Romme 25

Table 1. (continued)
Proposition 2
The higher the abductive ability of the OD practitioner to ascribe alternative purposes
and values to interventions, the less likely it is that he or she becomes locked into the
current intervention approach (fabricated in the past), and vice versa.
Related literature: Banathy (1996); Locke et al. (2008); Mirvis et al. (2003); Romme (2003a)
Proposition 3
The more the OD practitioner deliberately perceives and sustains his or her intervention
approach as being structurally incomplete, the more effectively this approach will
coevolve with its use in new settings (and vice versa).
Related literature: Garud et al. (2008); Rindova and Kotha (2001); Sackmann et al. (2009)
Proposition 4
a. The more the OD practitioner can apply and adapt his intervention approach to new
settings, the more likely he or she will continually reinterpret intervention processes
and results, and vice versa.
b. The more the OD practitioner seeks and facilitates stakeholder involvement (for
information and feedback benefits as well as legitimacy effects), the more these
stakeholders positively interpret the intervention processes and outcomes.
Related literature: Bartunek et al. (1996); Hardy et al. (2007); Harrison and Mort (1998);
Madsen et al. (2006); Offerman and Spiros (2001); Wagner (1994)
Proposition 5
a. The more the OD practitioner continually reinterprets his or her intervention approach
in view of the experiences and outcomes obtained, the more likely he or she will engage
in ascribing alternative purposes and values to the intervention approach (and vice
versa).
b. The level of standardization–codification of the OD intervention approach affects the
practitioner’s ability to ascribe alternative purposes and values to this approach—
according to an inverted U-shaped relationship; as such, this mediates the causality
defined under Proposition 5a.
Related literature: D’Adderio (2004); Garud and Kumaraswamy (2005); Leonard-Barton
(1992); Weick and Sutcliffe (2006); Zollo and Winter (2002)

experimentation sites, also to become more interesting “outside” partners in OD proj­

ects (cf. Proposition 1a). For example, they can design their classrooms as organiza­
tional development sites, to experience and learn about the dilemmas and challenges
of OD practitioners first hand (e.g., Romme, 2003b).
Second, if practitioners develop capabilities in assigning alternative purposes and
values to their interventions, they are less likely to get locked into their current inter­
vention approach. For example, Cooperrider and Whitney (1999) provide a set of ide­
ation tools that can be used to develop these capabilities. Moreover, by acquiring skills
in prototyping and managing the deliberate incompleteness of their approach, OD
practitioners will learn to theorize on the fly—to generate provisional workable solutions
to emerging problems.
26 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(1)

Third, OD professionals need to identify and exploit opportunities to try out and
implement OD strategies and solutions in new settings. The displacement of artifacts
from one setting to another is what drives the learning process of practitioners (also
among them) and deepens understanding of boundaries that define the “what,” “who,”
and “where” of intervention (cf. Midgley, 2003). Moreover, displacement from one
setting to another will motivate the OD professional to develop and sustain an inter­
vention approach that is deliberately incomplete—to inform, and coevolve with, its
application in current as well as new settings.
Finally, OD scholars and practitioners need to start a dialogue on how to systemati­
cally accumulate knowledge on interventions. The medical profession, for example,
operates on agreed standards, protocols, and evaluation criteria for its interventions.
Similarly, OD as an intervention science needs to invest in developing a common jar­
gon and framework, to be able to codify interventions in very diverse settings as well as
facilitate learning across these settings. For example, Denyer, Tranfield, and Van Aken
(2008) recently developed a tool for describing and assessing the context, characteris­
tics, generative processes, and outcomes of interventions. At a more general level, the
introduction and diffusion of evidence-based tools in management research may serve
to enhance OD as an intervention science (e.g., Van Aken & Romme, in press).

Limitations
I have focused on the OD intervention approach as the main knowledge artifact rather
than the interventions themselves or any other artifact that may be relevant to these
interventions. The need to disregard (the interaction with) other artifacts and organi­
zational factors and processes arises from the main purpose of this article, which is to
develop new theory on organizational intervention.
The artifaction theory developed here may serve to understand how and why par­
ticular intervention approaches rise, fall, or sustain over time. A blind spot is the eval­
uation of the effectiveness of OD interventions; the framework presented previously
does not define how to evaluate OD interventions, although this is critical for develop­
ing OD as a scientific field.
A key limitation of this article arises from the conceptual nature of the main argu­
ment. Future work will need to engage in elaborate case studies, preferably conducted
by scholar–practitioner teams, to further scrutinize the validity and practical relevance
of the framework developed previously in this article.
Moreover, the artifaction framework may raise other questions for future studies on
organizational interventions. For example, empirical studies can explore which dynamic
combinations of fabrication, displacement, ascription, and reinterpretation affect the
success of an intervention (approach) in a particular setting. Similarly, are certain pat­
terns of fabrication, displacement, ascription, and reinterpretation effective, regardless
of the organizational context (e.g., industry, age, and size of organization, governance
structure)? Research into these and related questions can throw light on the relationship
Romme 27

between artification, its subprocesses, and intervention success and failure. Studies
exploring these questions may help substantiate the causal inferences and reciprocal
causality implied by most propositions discussed in the previous section. As such,
research drawing on longitudinal designs and practitioner–academic collaboration will
most likely produce data that serve to test these propositions.

Conclusion
The theory and methodology of intervention in authentic organizational settings is
underdeveloped because mainstream organizational research tends to rely on the con­
cept of independent observation. In this respect, intervention-oriented research may
be critical to push organization research forward and develop a theory of OD interven­
tion that is both practically and theoretically significant. I sincerely hope this article
will inspire and motivate other scholars engaging in intervention studies to contribute
to the development of strong theory regarding the complex and ambiguous nature of
OD interventions.

Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to two reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this
article.

Author’s Note
An earlier draft of this article was presented at the third Organization Studies Summer work­
shop on “Organization Studies as Applied Science” (Crete, June 2007) as well as the Academy
of Management Conference (Chicago, August 2009).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

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Bio
A. Georges L. Romme is professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Eindhoven
University of Technology, Netherlands, and currently also serves as dean of the Department of
Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences at this university. He holds an MSc degree in
economics from Tilburg University and a doctoral degree in business administration from
Maastricht University.