Organization Development: A Political Perspective

It is now accepted that organizational politics exist in every organization and are involved in almost every facet of organizational life. Organizational politics are certainly involved in intervention programs. Despite these facts, organization development (OD) has been characterized as lacking any political sophistication whatsoever. In order to increase their success rate, OD consultants have been asked to become more politically involved in their intervention programs [Bennis, 1969; Pettigrew, 1975]. We argue here that OD has developed an unrecognized political orientation that aids OD consultants in the political arena and supports their intervention programs, and we explore the practical and ethical/value considerations of greater political involvement.