Organization
Development gained prominence as an established field in 1960s although nobody
can clearly identify how and who was behind its origin sequentially with
absolute certainty. But it is said to have been coined to compile the works of
behavioral scientists such as Robert Blake and Jane Mouton, Herbert Shepard,
Douglas McGregor and Richard Beckhard who were working in different
organizations around the same period on the behavioral aspects of employees and
the effect of organizational structure on them leading to personal and
organizational effectiveness. The name was propounded to distinguish the
relative importance of OD from other contemporary approaches.
However
Organizational Development has taken a lot from the various principles of
Fredrick W Taylor who in 1911 gave ‘Principles of Scientific Management’ which
are considered as the backbone of modern management field. He emphasized on the
adoption of scientific methods to improve work efficiency and employee
productivity and started the process of streamlining the production process. He
proposed “time and motion studies” and “focused on specialization and
standardization of work”, to correct the problems related to the employees
everyday work among the employees and develop the best methods of doing every
job leading to optimum results. Its application illustrated the positive impact
of examination and deliberate intervention by external experts in the work
processes of organizations on human efficiency and productivity.
