Summary Organization Development
Week 1: Environment, Culture and Team design
C&W chapter 5
Organization diagnosis: Diagnosis is the process of understanding a system’s current
functioning. It involves collecting information about current operations, analyzing data, and
drawing conclusions for potential change and improvement.
Open systems: systems theory, a set of concepts and relationships describing the properties
and behaviors of things called systems (organizations, groups). Assumes: external
environment, takes specific inputs from the environment, and transforms those inputs using
social and technical processes. The outputs of the transformation process are returned to the
environment and can be used as feedback to the organization’s functioning. Environments
are everything beyond the boundaries of the system that can indirectly or directly affect
performance and outcomes. Inputs consist of human resources or other resources, such as
information, energy, and materials, coming into the system. Transformations are the
processes of converting inputs into outputs. Outputs are the results of what is transformed by
the system and sent to the environment. Only information used to control the future
functioning of the system is considered feedback. The idea of equifinality suggests that
similar results or outputs may be achieved with different initial conditions and in many
different ways.
Diagnosis: When viewed as open systems, organizations can be diagnosed at three levels.
1. Organization; includes the design of the company’s strategy, structure, and processes.
a. Input: general (all external forces and elements that can influence an
organization and affect its effectiveness), industry structure/task environment,
and enacted environment (the organization members’ perception and
representation of its general and task environments). Key dimension:
information uncertainty, resource dependence,
b. Design components: strategy (the way organization uses resources),
technology, structure, measuring systems and human resource systems.
c. Outputs: organization performance (financial outputs such as sales),
productivity (internal measurements of efficiency, such as sales per employee),
and stakeholder satisfaction (how well the organization has met the
expectations of different groups).
2. Group or department; includes group design and devices for structuring interactions
among members, such as norms and work schedules.
3. Individual position or job; includes ways in which jobs are designed to elicit required
task behaviors.
, Kish-Gephart, J.J., Harrison, D.A., & Trevino, L.K. (2010). Bad Apples, Bad Cases, and
Bad Barrels
This article looks at individual-level unethical choices on the work floor (how and under what
circumstances)
Definitional framework: Rest made a four-stage model of ethical decision making. Individuals
pass through various stages when making a decision. This process leads to morel intention
(when one commits to a particular action) and ends with moral action or behavior (carries out
the intended behavior). Difference between unethical intention (expression of one’s
willingness or commitment to engage in an unethical behavior) and unethical behavior (any
organizational member action that violates widely accepted (societal) moral norms). Last one
can be divided into workplace deviance (violating organizational norms) and illegal behavior
(ethics and law).
1. Individual characteristics:
a. Cognitive moral development: how individuals advance from childhood to
adulthood in the complexity and elaboration of their thinking about why
actions are morally right or wrong
b. Moral philosophies: belief and personal preferences for particular normative
frameworks
c. Machiavellianism: synonymous with amoral action, sharp dealing, hidden
agendas, and unethical excess .
d. Locus of control: beliefs of individuals about whether the outcomes of their
actions are contingent on what they do or on the machinations of outside
forces.
e. Job satisfaction
f. Demographics; gender, age, and educational level
- Who are the bad apples: people with Machiavellianism, with external locus of control,
hold a relativistic moral philosophy.
2. Moral issue characteristics:
a. Moral intensity: (1) magnitude of consequences, harm that could befall victims
of an unethical choice; (2) social consensus, the degree of peer agreement that
the action is wrong; (3) probability of effect, the likelihood that the action will
result in harm; (4) temporal immediacy, the length of time before harmful
consequences of the act are realized; (5) proximity, the social, psychological,
cultural, and physical nearness to the victim of the act; and (6) concentration
of effect, the “inverse function of the number of people affected by an act of
given magnitude”
- What are the bad cases: when an ethical dilemma is perceived as a good case leads to no
unethical intention and bad cases (choice cases) lead to unethical choices.
3. Organization environment characteristics
a. Ethical climate; group of prescriptive climates reflecting the organizational
procedures, policies, and practices with moral consequences
b. Culture: formal and informal organizational systems aimed at behavioral
control, from ethical climate, with its broader focus on perceived
organizational values.
c. Codes of conduct.
- Where are the bad barrels: companies with an ‘everyone for himself’ attitude encourage
unethical behavior. Good barrels: focus on well-being and clear communication range.
Week 1: Environment, Culture and Team design
C&W chapter 5
Organization diagnosis: Diagnosis is the process of understanding a system’s current
functioning. It involves collecting information about current operations, analyzing data, and
drawing conclusions for potential change and improvement.
Open systems: systems theory, a set of concepts and relationships describing the properties
and behaviors of things called systems (organizations, groups). Assumes: external
environment, takes specific inputs from the environment, and transforms those inputs using
social and technical processes. The outputs of the transformation process are returned to the
environment and can be used as feedback to the organization’s functioning. Environments
are everything beyond the boundaries of the system that can indirectly or directly affect
performance and outcomes. Inputs consist of human resources or other resources, such as
information, energy, and materials, coming into the system. Transformations are the
processes of converting inputs into outputs. Outputs are the results of what is transformed by
the system and sent to the environment. Only information used to control the future
functioning of the system is considered feedback. The idea of equifinality suggests that
similar results or outputs may be achieved with different initial conditions and in many
different ways.
Diagnosis: When viewed as open systems, organizations can be diagnosed at three levels.
1. Organization; includes the design of the company’s strategy, structure, and processes.
a. Input: general (all external forces and elements that can influence an
organization and affect its effectiveness), industry structure/task environment,
and enacted environment (the organization members’ perception and
representation of its general and task environments). Key dimension:
information uncertainty, resource dependence,
b. Design components: strategy (the way organization uses resources),
technology, structure, measuring systems and human resource systems.
c. Outputs: organization performance (financial outputs such as sales),
productivity (internal measurements of efficiency, such as sales per employee),
and stakeholder satisfaction (how well the organization has met the
expectations of different groups).
2. Group or department; includes group design and devices for structuring interactions
among members, such as norms and work schedules.
3. Individual position or job; includes ways in which jobs are designed to elicit required
task behaviors.
, Kish-Gephart, J.J., Harrison, D.A., & Trevino, L.K. (2010). Bad Apples, Bad Cases, and
Bad Barrels
This article looks at individual-level unethical choices on the work floor (how and under what
circumstances)
Definitional framework: Rest made a four-stage model of ethical decision making. Individuals
pass through various stages when making a decision. This process leads to morel intention
(when one commits to a particular action) and ends with moral action or behavior (carries out
the intended behavior). Difference between unethical intention (expression of one’s
willingness or commitment to engage in an unethical behavior) and unethical behavior (any
organizational member action that violates widely accepted (societal) moral norms). Last one
can be divided into workplace deviance (violating organizational norms) and illegal behavior
(ethics and law).
1. Individual characteristics:
a. Cognitive moral development: how individuals advance from childhood to
adulthood in the complexity and elaboration of their thinking about why
actions are morally right or wrong
b. Moral philosophies: belief and personal preferences for particular normative
frameworks
c. Machiavellianism: synonymous with amoral action, sharp dealing, hidden
agendas, and unethical excess .
d. Locus of control: beliefs of individuals about whether the outcomes of their
actions are contingent on what they do or on the machinations of outside
forces.
e. Job satisfaction
f. Demographics; gender, age, and educational level
- Who are the bad apples: people with Machiavellianism, with external locus of control,
hold a relativistic moral philosophy.
2. Moral issue characteristics:
a. Moral intensity: (1) magnitude of consequences, harm that could befall victims
of an unethical choice; (2) social consensus, the degree of peer agreement that
the action is wrong; (3) probability of effect, the likelihood that the action will
result in harm; (4) temporal immediacy, the length of time before harmful
consequences of the act are realized; (5) proximity, the social, psychological,
cultural, and physical nearness to the victim of the act; and (6) concentration
of effect, the “inverse function of the number of people affected by an act of
given magnitude”
- What are the bad cases: when an ethical dilemma is perceived as a good case leads to no
unethical intention and bad cases (choice cases) lead to unethical choices.
3. Organization environment characteristics
a. Ethical climate; group of prescriptive climates reflecting the organizational
procedures, policies, and practices with moral consequences
b. Culture: formal and informal organizational systems aimed at behavioral
control, from ethical climate, with its broader focus on perceived
organizational values.
c. Codes of conduct.
- Where are the bad barrels: companies with an ‘everyone for himself’ attitude encourage
unethical behavior. Good barrels: focus on well-being and clear communication range.
