The organizational-development approach argues that major educational innovations require changes in the culture of the school or college. This book demonstrates how strategies based on organizational development (OD) can bring about constructive organizational change in work settings. OD is based on the following assumptions: (1) Groups differ…

Among the primary social pressures on schools to change are the demands for individualization, relevance, accountability, educational technology, and humanizing relationships. These five pressures challenge the educational administrator and offer categories in which to plan professional development activities. The adaptive school is an avenue for…

The authors propose that a principal, instead of making all decisions himself, should convene faculty, staff, and student groups to help bring conflict into the open and to work on organizational problems systematically. This "team-leader" role assumes that team members are intelligent, competent, and want to perform well; and that an open…

Organizational Development (OD) projects assist schools in clarifying communication, establishing clear goals, solving conflicts, improving meetings, and making decisions. (Author)

In a project to help all professional members of a junior high school staff improve their group processes, a series of training interventions were spaced throughout the school year to increase their organizational abilities. Two days of a six-day summer workshop were spent in structured game-like exercises designed to increase awareness of…

Since evaluations have shown that organizational development is a plausible and useful vehicle for improving school climate, it needs to be extended in various ways, including (1) further scientific study of organizational development in schools; (2) more research into the processes and effects of organizational development training; and (3)…

In this paper, the authors describe (1) the role of the organizational specialist in trying to establish and maintain vertical and horizontal lines of communication in organizations; (2) two case studies of organizational development (Kent and Eugene); (3) the values of creativity, work, and sharing that guide the authors; (4) the general systems…

When school psychologists adopt an organization development perspective they are acting on a cluster of related concepts: (1) that because schools are social organizations, school effectiveness depends on the school's organizational culture; (2) that attempts to institute educational reforms only work when the reforms and the school culture mesh;…

This book attempts to show how schools can go about humanizing their own processes and procedures. It takes the view that schools are complex social systems and that systematic changes--not merely changes in individual attitudes--are required to realize humanization. From this "systems" point of view, the most powerful tool for developing…

The special concern of this manual is the improvement of working relationships among the members of a school's administration, faculty, and staff. Studies have indicated that for complex problems offering many alternatives, decisions produced by group interaction are usually far superior to decisions produced solely by individuals. To achieve…