Process lag and individual stress in organizations: a diagnostic basis for OD

Abstract

Organization Development (OD) as one way to operationalize planned change has emerged as pressures have been building to manage the individual-organization interphase more effectively. The process of rapid change ushered in by the industrial revolution and urbanization has shifted the equilibrium of the field forces of society from stability towards transience. In responding to the rapid change, the consonance between the synergistic, homeostatic, and adaptive properties has been reduced. The individual- organization interface has become more visible and turbulent as individuals are increasingly interacting with organizations for every facet of the existence. As such the stress of life is increasingly being experienced on the individual-organization interface. Developing individual and organizational self- generativeness is perhaps the only way to deal with the stress on the individual organization interface and increase the consonance between the synergistic, homeostatic, and adaptive properties of organizations. The existing OD approaches of Beokhard, Lawrence-Lorsch, Blake and Mouton, Linkert and Bowers, have mainly provided a basis for operationalizing the OD intervention strategies into a contingency framework. In these approaches OD diagnosis is either based on normative ideals developed by instruments explicitly or set by the OD practitioner implicitly. Diagnosis has not been systematized into a contingency framework by the existing approaches.

The research reported in this study has attempted to develop a conceptual model to systematize the entry point OD diagnosis into a contingency framework. Organizational stress has been used to develop a basis for OD diagnosis. ‘Process lag’ as the discrepancy between the intended and emergent reality of an organization’s processes has been conceptualized as a major source of organizational stress. Process lag has been operationalized in three organizational indicators of process lag stress, role performance and personality interaction styles to develop a cuboidal perspective of OD diagnosis. The cuboidal perspective provides a contingency framework for entry point diagnosis, and consequently also a contingency framework for the intervention planning based on it. With successful entry point interventions an on-going cycle of diagnosis and interventions can help the organization to create consonance between its synergistic, homeostatic and adaptive properties and become a self-generative system. Empirical data on the three indicators of organizational reality, for 380 respondents from 30 units of the textile industry have been located in the cuboidal model to plan entry point intervention strategies for them.