This article describes an attempt by a group of Harvard and M.I.T. graduate students to use organization development methods for the first time in a large urban school system. The group concluded that (1) organization development consultants must be aware of the different environment within which large city school systems operate, (2) such an…

Discusses the use of conflict management and organizational development techniques to develop collaborative decision-making in an organization. (Available from The Conference Board Record, Box 908 SDR P.O. Station, New York, NY 10022; $30.00 annually, $1.50 single copy.) (JG)

This report on the relationship of a complex organization (such as a big-city school system) to its environment critiques the theory and method developed by Paul R. Lawrence and Jay W. Lorsch for analyzing this relationship. To test their approach to organizational analysis, the author conducted a research project in a large urban school system.…

This paper introduces organizational development and describes its potential utility to the planning community. The paper first points out some current practices in educational planning that may violate principles of effective human behavior in educational organizations. The centralization of goal setting and decisionmaking and the failure to…

Paper read at the American Educational Research Association Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 2-6, 1970. Describes an approach to planned organizational change in school systems built on the effective features of both the open-systems approach to understanding organizations, and the T-Group-Consultant school of small group methods. (JM)

Suggests that much of what is labeled OD is really a demonstration training done after school or during one or two day workshops, and that like other curricula, OD is packaged for teachers and administrators such that it becomes a program rather than a continuous process. (AM)

Current practices of planning-programing-budgeting systems in educational organizations have been criticized because they impose objectives, emphasize hierarchical control, and foster unproductive climates. A new method, organizational development, makes effective use of human behavior and when used with PPBS could provide an efficient system for…