Chapter 5

Organization Development and Change
Chapter Five:
Diagnosing Organizations
Thomas G. Cummings
Christopher G. Worley
Learning Objectives
for Chapter Five
• To equip students with a general framework
of OD diagnostic tools from a systematic
perspective
• To define diagnosis and to explain how the
diagnostic process provides a practical
understanding of problems at the
organizational level of analysis
Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-2
(c)2005 Thomson/South-Western
Diagnosis Defined
Diagnosis is a collaborative process between

organizational members and the OD
consultant to collect pertinent information,
analyze it, and draw conclusions for action
planning and intervention.

Diagnosis
• It suggests a model of organization change analogous to
the medical model of diagnosis:
– An organization (patient) experiencing problems seeks help
from an OD practitioner (doctor); the practitioner examines
the organization, finds the causes of the problems, and
prescribes a solution.
• Diagnosis in organization development, however, is
much more collaborative than such a medical
perspective implies and does not accept the implicit
assumption that something is wrong with the
organization.
Diagnosis
• First, the values and ethical beliefs that underlie
OD suggest that both organization members and
OD practitioners should be involved in
discovering the determinants of current
organization effectiveness.
• Similarly, both should be involved actively in
developing appropriate interventions and
implementing them.

Diagnosis
• Second, the medical model of diagnosis also
implies that something is wrong with the patient
and that one needs to uncover the cause of the
illness. In those cases where organizations do have
specific problems, diagnosis can be problem
oriented, seeking reasons for the problems.
• The client and the OD practitioner may be looking
for ways to enhance the organization’s existing
functioning.
Diagnosis
• It is a collaborative process between organization
members and the OD practitioner to collect pertinent
information, analyze it, and draw conclusions for
action planning and intervention.
• Diagnosis may be aimed at uncovering the causes of
specific problems, focused on understanding
effective processes, or directed at assessing the
overall functioning of the organization or department
to discover areas for future development.

The Need for Diagnostic
Models
• Conceptual frameworks that OD practitioners use
to understand organizations are referred to as
“diagnostic models.”
• They describe the relationships among different
features of the organization, as well as its
environment and its effectiveness.
• As a result, diagnostic models point out what areas
to examine and what questions to ask in assessing
how an organization is functioning.
The Need for Diagnostic
Models
• Simplifications of reality
– emphasize certain organizational features as critical
while ignoring other features.
• Potential diagnostic models are everywhere
– collection of concepts and relationships that represent a
system or explain its effectiveness can potentially
qualify as a diagnostic model.
• Field knowledge
– offers a wealth of practical information about how
organizations operate. Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-9
Open Systems Model
Environment
Inputs Transformations Outputs
• Information • Social Component • Goods
• Energy • Technological • Services
• People Component • Ideas
Feedback
Properties of Systems
• Inputs, Transformations, and Outputs

• Boundaries
• Feedback
• Equifinality
• Alignment

Environment
• Environments are everything outside of the system that
can directly or indirectly affect its outputs.
– Open systems, exchange information and resources with their
environments. Because these external forces influence the
system, organizations cannot completely control their own
behavior. Example: environmental conditions as the
availability of labor and human capital, raw material,
customer demands, competition, and government regulations.
– Understanding how these external forces affect the
organization can help to explain some of its internal
behavior.

Inputs
• Inputs consist of human capital or other resources,
such as information, energy, and materials,
coming into the system from the environment.
– For example, a manufacturing organization acquires
raw materials from an outside supplier. Similarly, a
hospital nursing unit acquires information concerning a
patient’s condition from the attending physician.
– In each case, the system (organization or nursing unit)
obtains resources (raw materials or information) from
its environment.
Transformations
• Transformations are the processes of converting
inputs into outputs.
– In organizations, a production or operations function
composed of both social and technological components
generally carries out transformations.
– The social component consists of people and their work
relationships, whereas the technological component
involves tools, techniques, and methods of production
or service delivery.

Transformations
• Organizations have developed elaborate mechanisms
for transforming incoming resources into goods and
services.
– Banks, for example, transform deposits into mortgage loans
and interest income. Schools attempt to transform students
into more educated people.
– Transformation processes also can take place at the group
and individual levels. For example, research and
development departments can transform the latest scientific
advances into new product ideas, and bank tellers can
transform customer requests into valued services.
Outputs
• Outputs are the results of what is transformed by
the system and sent to the environment. Thus,
inputs that have been transformed represent
outputs that leave the system.
– Group health insurance companies receive premiums
and medical bills, transform them through record
keeping, and export payments to hospitals and
physicians.

Boundaries
• Boundaries—the borders or limits of the system—
help to protect or buffer the organization’s
transformation process from external disruptions;
they also assure that the right inputs enter the
organization, and the relevant outputs leave it.
• Organizational boundaries are determined not only
by physical location, but also can be defined for
managerial, technical, or social purposes.

Feedback
• Feedback is information regarding the actual
performance or the outputs of the system. Not all
such information is feedback, however.
• Only information used to control the future
functioning of the system is considered feedback.
• Feedback can be used to maintain the system in a
steady state (for example, keeping an assembly
line running at a certain speed) or to help the
organization adapt to changing circumstances.
Feedback
– McDonald’s, for example, has strict feedback processes
to ensure that a meal in one outlet is as similar as
possible to a meal in any other outlet.
– On the other hand, a salesperson in the field may report
that sales are not going well and may insist on some
organizational change to improve sales. A market-
research study may lead the marketing department to
recommend a change to the organization’s advertising
campaign.

Alignment
• How well a system’s different parts and elements
align with each other partly determines its overall
effectiveness.
• This alignment or fit concerns the relationships
between the organization and its environment as
well as among the components that comprise the
design of the organization.

Alignment
• Alignment represents the extent to which the
features and operations of one component support
the effectiveness of another component.
– Just as the teeth in the wheels of a watch must mesh
perfectly for the watch to keep time, so do the parts of
an organizational system need to mesh for it to be
effective.

Alignment
• Diagnosing environmental relationships and the
interactions among the various components of an
organizational system requires taking “a systemic
perspective.”
• This view suggests that diagnosing often involves
the search for misalignments among the various
parts of an organizational system.

Equifinality
• Equifinality is the principle that in open systems a
given end state can be reached by many potential
means.
• In business, equifinality implies that firms may
establish similar competitive advantages based on
substantially different competencies.

Comprehensive Model for
Diagnosing Organizational
Systems

Diagnosing
Organizational Systems
• The key to effective diagnosis is…

– Know what to look for at each
organizational level
– Recognize how the levels affect each
other

Diagnosing
Organizational Systems
• When viewed as open systems,
organizations can be diagnosed at three
levels.
– The highest level is the overall organization
– The next level is the group or department
– The lowest level is the individual position or
job.

Organization-Level
Diagnostic Model

Organization-Level
Diagnostic Model
Inputs Design Components Outputs
Technology
General
Organization
Effectiveness
Environment Strategy Structure
Culture
Industry
Structure
HR Measurement
Enacted Systems Systems
Environment

Key Alignment Questions
• Do the Design Components fit with the
Inputs?
• Are the Design Components internally
consistent? Do they fit and mutually
support each other?

Organization-Level Inputs
• General Environment
– External forces that can directly or indirectly affect
the attainment of organizational objectives
– Social, technological, ecological, economic, and
political factors
• Industry Structure
– External forces (task environment) that can directly
affect the organization
– Customers, suppliers, substitute products, new
entrants, and rivalry among competitors
by Michael Porter
Organization-Level Inputs
• Enacted Environment
– The enacted environment consists of organization
members’ perception and representation of the
general and task environments. Environments must
be perceived before they can influence decisions
about how to respond to them.
– Organization members must actively observe,
register, and make sense of the environment before
it can affect their decisions about what actions to
take.

Organization Design Components
• Strategy
– the way an organization uses its resources
(human, economic, or technical) to gain and
sustain a competitive advantage
• Structure
– how attention and resources are focused on task
accomplishment
• Technology
– the way an organization converts inputs into
products and services
• Human Resource Systems

– the mechanisms for selecting, developing,
appraising, and rewarding organization
members
• Measurement Systems
– methods of gathering, assessing, and
disseminating information on the activities of
groups and individuals in organizations
• Organization Culture
– The basic assumptions, values, and norms
shared by organization members
– Represents both an “outcome” of organization
design and a “foundation” or “constraint” to
change

Outputs
• Organization Performance
– e.g., profits, profitability, stock price
• Productivity
– e.g., cost/employee, cost/unit, error rates,
quality
• Stakeholder Satisfaction
– e.g., market share, employee satisfaction,
regulation compliance
Alignment
• Diagnosis involves understanding each of the
parts in the model and then assessing how the
elements of the strategic orientation align
with each other and with the inputs.
• Organization effectiveness is likely to be

high when there is good alignment.

Group-Level
Diagnostic Model

Inputs
• Organization design and culture
– They consist of the design components
characterizing the larger organization within
which the group is embedded—technology,
structure, management processes, and human
resources systems—and organization culture.

Design Components
• Goal clarity
– involves how well the group understands its
objectives. In general, goals should be
moderately challenging; there should be a
method for measuring, monitoring, and feeding
back information about goal achievement; and
the goals should be clearly understood by all
members.

Design Components
• Task structure
– is concerned with how the group’s work is
designed. Task structures can vary along two
key dimensions: coordination of members’
efforts and regulation of their task behaviors.

Design Components
• Group composition
– concerns the membership of groups. Members
can differ on a number of dimensions having
relevance to group behavior. Demographic
variables, such as age, education, experience,
and skills and abilities can affect how people
behave and relate to each other in groups.

Design Components
• Group composition
– Demographics can determine whether the group
is composed of people having task-relevant
skills and knowledge, including interpersonal
skills. People’s internal needs and personal
traits also can influence group behaviors.
Individual differences in social needs can
determine whether group membership is likely
to be satisfying or stressful.
Design Components
• Team functioning
– is the underlying basis of group life. It involves
group processes having to do with how
members relate to each other, which is
important in work groups because the quality of
relationships can affect task performance.

Design Components
• Performance norms
– are member beliefs about how the group should
perform its task and what levels of performance
are acceptable. Norms derive from interactions
among members and serve as guides to group
behavior.

Outputs
• Team effectiveness
– has two dimensions: performance and quality of
work life. Performance is measured in terms of
the group’s ability to control or reduce costs,
increase productivity, or improve quality. It is a
“hard” measure of effectiveness. In addition,
effectiveness is indicated by group members’
quality of work life. It concerns work satisfaction,
team cohesion, and organizational commitment

Individual-Level
Diagnostic Model

Inputs
• Organization design
– is concerned with the larger organization within
which the individual job is the smallest unit.
Organization design is a key part of the larger
context surrounding jobs.

Inputs
• Culture
– represents the values and norms shared by
organization members. Because they are
generally taken for granted, they guide
members’ perceptions, thoughts, and actions.

Inputs
• Group design
– concerns the work group containing the
individual job. Like organization design, group
design is an essential part of the job context.
Task structure, goal clarity, group composition,
performance norms, and team functioning serve
as inputs to job design

Inputs
• Personal characteristics
– of individuals occupying jobs include age,
education, experience, skills, and abilities. All
of these can affect how people react to job
designs and perform.

Design Components
• Skill variety
– is the degree to which a job requires a range of
activities and abilities to perform the work.
• Assembly-line jobs, for example, generally have
limited skill variety because employees perform a
small number of repetitive activities.
• On the other hand, most professional jobs include a
great deal of skill variety because people engage in
diverse activities and employ several different skills
in performing their work.
Design Components
• Task identity
– measures the degree to which a job requires the
completion of a relatively whole, identifiable
piece of work.
• Skilled craftspeople, such as tool-and-die makers and
carpenters, generally have jobs with high levels of
task identity. They are able to see a job through from
beginning to end.
• Assembly-line jobs involve only a limited piece of
work and score low on task identity.
Design Components
• Task significance
– identifies the degree to which a job has a
significant impact on other people’s lives.
• Custodial jobs in a hospital are likely to have more
task significance than similar jobs in a toy factory
because hospital custodians are likely to see their
jobs as affecting someone else’s health and welfare.

Design Components
• Autonomy
– indicates the degree to which a job provides freedom
and discretion in scheduling the work and
determining work methods.
• Assembly-line jobs generally have little autonomy; the
work pace is scheduled and people perform
preprogrammed tasks.
• College teaching positions have more autonomy.
Professors usually can determine how a course is taught,
even though they may have limited say over class
scheduling.
Design Components
• Feedback
– about results involves the degree to which a job
provides employees with direct and clear
information about the effectiveness of task
performance.
• Assembly-line jobs often provide high levels of
feedback about results, whereas college professors
must often contend with indirect and ambiguous
feedback about how they are performing in the
classroom.
Outputs
• Individual-job effectiveness
– includes two kinds of outputs, those related to
how well the job is performed and those having
to do with how people experience their job.
Performance is measured in terms of the
quantity, quality, time, and cost of producing
particular job outcome such as a product or
service.


Chapter 5

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 5

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Organization Development and Change

Diagnosis is a collaborative process between

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-3

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-5

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-7

• Inputs, Transformations, and Outputs

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-11

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-12

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-14

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-16

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-17

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-19

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-20

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-21

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-22

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-23

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-24

• The key to effective diagnosis is…

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-25

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-26

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-27

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-28

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-29

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-31

• Human Resource Systems

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-34

• Organization effectiveness is likely to be

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-36

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-37

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-38

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-39

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-40

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-41

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-43

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-44

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-45

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-46

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-47

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-48

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-49

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-50

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-53

Cummings & Worley, 8e 5-56

You might also like