Organization Development - Meaning & Definition

Published by MBA Skool Team , Last Updated: April 30, 2016

What is Organization Development?

Organization Development can be seen as theory and practice of change in the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the employees in a planned way of a certain period of time. Organization Development is a process carried out through training and development programs of employees, so that they have a better understanding of company goals, thereby benefiting the organization.


The long-term objective of OD is to enable the organization in adopting-better to the fast-changing external environment. Some of the typical OD activities are:

  • Team-building
  • Organizational assessments
  • Career development
  • Training
  • Leadership development
  • Talent management
  • Change management

Organization Development


Characteristics of organizational development

• It is the interdisciplinary and behavioral science approach which had its roots in organization behavior, sociology psychology counseling and public administration.

• It is the planned and long term strategy of change management.

•组织发展的主要焦点complete system together with its independent parts.

• Organization development recognizes the need of planned follow-up for maintain changes in the organization.

• Organization development is data centric approach wherein data is used to understanding and diagnosing problems in the organization.

• Organization development functions on a collaborative approach and it involve those people affected by change in change management process.

It is built on the humanistic and democratic values and seeks to improve the working condition by sensing how individuals make sense of their working environment. Participation, trust and support, and respect for people are some of the core values behind the success of organizational development effort.it is due to the growing application of organization development various firms have attained a phenomenal growth in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction leading them towards a sustainable future.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Organization Development along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by theBusiness Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 2000 business concepts from 5 categories.

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