ORGANIZATIONAL-DEVELOPMENT IN THE THIRD-WORLD - VALUES, CLOSENESS OF FIT AND CULTURE-BOUNDEDNESS

This paper seeks to counterbalance some common arguments about the rol e of organization development (OD) in Third World settings. OD is a va lue-laden technology and this raises the issues of the closeness of fi t of specific OD approaches or designs to different cultures, historie s and settings. Most organizational theorists recommend a close fit, b ased upon an overall characterization of OD and estimates of the featu res of macro-cultures such as nations or regions. This paper urges a m ore differentiated perspective, based on evidence that OD works, on ba lance, in a broad range of contexts. Specifically, OD designs/approach es are not homogeneous, and neither are the nation-states or organizat ions in which OD is applied. The paper suggests a number of ways in wh ich OD practitioners might become more sensitive to different contexts and thereby improve their judgments about the advisability of making OD interventions.