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Diagnosing Organizations
Diagnosing Organizations
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.
need to understand either a whole system or some part, process, or feature of the organization. To diagnose an organization, OD practitioners and organization members need to have an idea about WHAT information to collect and analyze. O Conceptual frameworks that are used to understand organizations are referred to as diagnostic models.
Feedback
in the context of a larger environment that affects how the organization performs and in turn is affected by how the organization interacts with it. O This also suggests that organizations and their subsystems departments, group, and individuals share a number of common features that explain how they are organized and function.
Properties of Systems
O Environments O Inputs, Transformations, and Outputs O Boundaries
O Feedback
O Equifinality O Alignment
diagnosis is
Design Components
Technology
Outputs
Organization Effectiveness
Strategy
Structure
Industry Structure
HR Systems
Measurement Systems
Outputs
Team Effectiveness
Organization Design
Group Composition
Group Norms
Outputs
Individual Effectiveness
Task Identity
Autonomy
Task Significance
Inputs? O Are the Design Components internally consistent? Do they fit and mutually support each other?
Organization-Level Inputs
O General Environment
indirectly affect the attainment of organizational objectives O Social, technological, ecological, economic, and political factors
O Industry Structure
directly affect the organization O Customers, suppliers, substitute products, new entrants, and rivalry among competitors
accomplishment
O Technology
O the way an organization converts inputs into products
and services
shared by organization members O Represents both an outcome of organization design and a foundation or constraint to change
Outputs
O Organization Performance
O e.g., profits, profitability, stock price
O Productivity
O e.g., cost/employee, cost/unit, error rates,
quality
O Stakeholder Satisfaction
O e.g., market share, employee satisfaction,
regulation compliance
Alignment
O 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.
O Organization effectiveness is likely to be high when