How can action learning be used as part of an overall approach to changing the culture of an organisation? This article describes some of the work being done by managers in South Cambridgeshire district to build a more empowered and engaged organisation following the appointment of a new chief executive tasked with raising standards in an…

Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC) was organized by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in partnership with The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to increase student learning in developmental--or basic skills--classes. However, their concern was not just the success of students in classes…

A year-long project was undertaken at Solano Community College, in California, to establish a well organized and planned program to recruit and retain underrepresented faculty and staff, utilizing funds from a Faculty and Staff Diversity grant from the California Community Colleges' Office of the Chancellor. The first step was the formation of a…

The experiences of the University of Richmond and others institutions indicate that incentives, direct and tangible or indirect and intangible, reflecting the realities of academic life enhance opportunities for initiative and collegiality. (MSE)

Examines a confrontation team-building intervention that was highly successful in building the supervisors into a unified group. Evaluation indicated the team became the most important variable with little consideration given to the rest of the organization, resulting in the whole organization being severely crippled and having to be rebuilt.…

A Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) program designed to instill workplace values in the institution's business and finance areas is described. Program elements include a focus on the values of a specific work group, acknowledgment of the relationship between work performance and institutional success, and recognition of the good work of…

The essays in this collection focus on various aspects of organization development (OD) and its application in educational institutions. First, Jim Hammons provides an overview of OD and its value to the community college. Then, Richard Woodman and William Muse describe techniques and methodologies that have been successful in improving work group…

Hoechst Celanese, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical and chemical companies, used an Innovation Model as a framework for integrating the technology, business, and human factors needed to solve problems and create business successes. The model involved three elements (expertise, skills, and motivation). An experiential course in principles…

In response to widespread frustration over faculty salary negotiations, Wheaton College (Massachusetts) linked faculty salaries to changes in its financial resources. The policy united the entire college community and paid dividends in many ways. Faculty have become more directly involved in fundraising and recruitment activities, and in the…

Describes a change program developed for a small manufacturing firm to enable management to cope with organizational change and development. Intervention methods included data collection, anonymous questionnaires, a confrontation meeting, and introduction of change technologies using the organizational analysis approach. Benefits and problems…

Describes strategies used by 10 academic medical centers to preserve missions in face of changing demands and declining resources. Strategies include balancing planning and opportunism, developing new approaches for faculty participation in governance, experimenting with organization of core functions, listening to the customer, aligning…

A series of essays discussing ideas about humanizing work are presented in the document. Three major sections divide the essays, and each includes a preface with comments suggesting the central focus and questions with which the authors are concerned. The first section deals with the history, philosophy, and issues related to work and contains…

This volume, the fourth of a five-volume series, contains three onsite case studies of organization development (OD) selected from a sample of 76 school districts. The purpose of the case studies was to analyze in detail different types of OD programs and their use. Each case study represents a different OD focus: case study A involves a survey…