bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Comparative Study of Consulting Processes and Group Development
Authors: Friedlander Frank 
Published: March 2006

The impact of three organizational development consulting processes is analyzed and compared in terms of prelaboratory interaction between consultant and client, interaction during laboratory sessions (trainer role and behavior, session climate and content), and postlaboratory interaction. Results indicate that the success of the development programs could be much better explained by whether there were prelaboratory and postlaboratory consultant activities than by variations in trainer role and behavior or by differences in content and climate of training sessions. Thus the conditions which clearly resulted in outstanding growth in group effectiveness and interaction patterns were (a) utilization of the laboratory as only one part of an integrated, ongoing, context-related development program in which the consultant used prelaboratory and postlaboratory time to gather and act upon his knowledge about the workgroup and its organizational context, and (b) the utilization of an internal consulting group which facilitated data gathering and action steps by both client and consultant. The underlying cause for the superiority of an integrated development program over a single laboratory program seems to be the increased acquisition and utilization of knowledge by the consultant of the workgroup and its organizational context. Among programs which relied entirely upon laboratory sessions (with no prework or postwork), the results were disappointing: programs in which laboratory sessions were essentially sensitivity training sessions resulted (six months later) in a greater sense of involvement by members of the workgroup but had little or no impact on other group dimensions of effectiveness and interaction. Conversely, laboratories which were active, conceptual, and analytical of processes and participants had no impact upon member involvement and trust and resulted in minimum increases in group effectiveness.
Operation KPE: Developing a New Organization
Authors: Dayal Ishwar , Thomas John M. 
Published: March 2006

Although behavioural science concepts and consultants are being utilized with increasing impact in many organizations, no work, to the authors' knowledge, has been done with a virtually new organization. This paper describes a programme of organizational development in a new company. As a framework for the programme, three key problem areas were initially diagnosed as important for the future growth of the organization: (a) individual problems of identity, future security, and alienation; (b) a group-level problem of developing interdependence within the top management team; and (c) organizational issues associated with policy formulation and adaptation to the environment. The behavioural science concept of organizational role was applied to the problem of interdependence in evolving a new method of group development-The Role Analysis Technique (RAT). The paper concludes with a discussion of three general issues which affect the future growth of the new organization: (a) the importance of developing concurrently at individual, group, and organizational levels; (b) the importance of evolving a norm of selfconsciousness about processes of growth; and (c) the dual relevance of differentiation and integration for effective organization development.
The Increasing Involvement of the Psychologist in Social Problems: Some Comments, Positive and Negative
Authors: Rogers Carl R. 
Published: March 2006

On September 1, 1968, Carl R. Rogers received the professional achievement award given by the American Board of Professional Psychology at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. He replied with seven incisive challenges to professional applied behavioral scientists. We are proud to publish them. The Editor
The Initiation of Superordinate Goals
Authors: Johnson David W. , Lewicki Roy J. 
Published: March 2006

The following is an exploratory study comparing the initiation of two types of superordinate goals in a highly competitive, nonzero-sum bargaining situation. One superordinate goal was introduced by a third party, was perceived by the participants as a natural event not linked to or created by the third party, and was not perceived by the bargainers in the conflict to be aimed at resolving the conflict. The other superordinate goal was initiated by one of the participants in the conflict, was identified with the initiator, and was perceived as being aimed at resolving the conflict. A variation of the standard intergroup conflict exercise was used for the study. The data indicate that the first type of superordinate goal resolved the competition between the groups but in a way which, it is hypothesized, may lead to premature agreement, leaving the basic conflict of interests unresolved. The second type of superordinate goal, on the other hand, became caught up in the competitiveness of the situation and increased, rather than decreased, the competition.
Black and White Students in Several Small Communities
Authors: Schmuck Richard A. , Luszki Margaret Barron 
Published: March 2006

Sixty-three Negro pupils from eight classrooms in small Midwest communities were matched with an equal number of white peers on sex, grade, age, and socioeconomic status. The purpose of the study was to determine how black pupils in settings quite different from extensively studied central cities of large metropolitan areas compared on various measures of school and personal adjustment with their white counterparts. Measures included three student perceptual variables (self-esteem, school adjustment, and perceived parental support of school); attitudes toward family and peer groups; vocational interests and aspirations toward the futureall obtained from a sentence completion test; teacher ratings; and sociometric questions related to liking, influence, and expertness. The few differences found favored the Negro pupils. Black boys were significantly higher on the school adjustment index than white boys, and in the eyes of their children, black parents displayed more interest in their sons' schoolwork than did white parents. Analysis by classrooms divided according to the percentage of black pupils showed no differences in school or personal adjustment on the measures used, suggesting that, in the classrooms studied, whether a pupil was in a majority or a minority position as a Negro had little bearing on his feeling of being accepted by his peers. Other findings showed greater differences based on sex rather than race. The implications of these findings are discussed, and recommendations for classroom teachers are presented.
Applying Behavioral Science: Current Projects
Authors: Lake Dale G. , Ritvo Miriam R. , O'Brien Gregory M. ST. L. 
Published: March 2006

This is the second in an annual series of articles reviewing activities, concepts, and research on planned change. The first review (Lake, 1968) focused upon concepts and research. This article will review activities which apply behavioral science knowledge to community development, mental health, health agencies, public school systems, higher education, product organizations, Peace Corps, and religious institutions. Material for this article was collected through an informal survey sent to 300 persons known to pursue professional careers which involve the planning of change. The thoroughness of our description depends upon the amount and quality of materials received. The reviews are meant to be informative, not evaluative. The reader will quickly recognize that most projects are multifaceted, employ many assumptions, and utilize many strategies of changing.
The Impact of an Organizational Development Program on Perceptions of Interpersonal, Group, and Organization Functioning
Authors: Zand Dale E. , Steele Fred I. , Zalkind Sheldon S. 
Published: March 2006

There are two central tasks today in the ever-widening field of organizational development. One is the application of and experimentation with behavioral science knowledge and methods to improve process in different kinds of organizations.2 The second is to gather systematic data which will allow us to choose among alternatives and to sort out factors which seem to make a difference in the change process.3 In trying to contribute to the latter effort, this paper will present some of the findings of a study of an organization change effort in a large research and engineering company employing more than 2,000 persons and having five levels of authority represented in its managerial hierarchy. The president was acquainted with both Managerial Grid laboratories and unstructured T-Group laboratories. About a year and a half before this research was started, the president and his vice presidents had been meeting periodically with behavioral science consultants. At these meetings interpersonal relationships among the top executives were analyzed. One outcome of these meetings was a decision that the vice presidents would attend stranger T Group laboratories. After the vice presidents had participated in these laboratories, they, with the concurrence of the president, decided to initiate an extensive organization change effort.
Improving Organizational Problem Solving in a School Faculty
Authors: Schmuck Richard A. , Runkel Philip J. , Langmeyer Daniel 
Published: March 2006

The intervention detailed here was aimed at improving the flexible organizational problem solving of a junior high school faculty. It was pointed toward organizational development, not personal change. Even though the emotional reactions of faculty members were considered in designing the training events, our intervention remained fixed on organizational roles and norms and their interrelationships. We hoped to learn whether improved organizational functioning could be produced in a faculty by integrating group training in communication and problem solving with the normal business of the school. We began our intervention just prior to the academic year and returned intermittently until February. Data evaluating the effects of the intervention support the claim that a number of salutary outcomes were at least partly due to the intervention. Movement in favorable directions occurred in a number of concrete, observable organizational changes, in verbally expressed attitudes about the principal and staff meetings, in the kinds of innovations reported, and in the changing organizational norms of the faculty. Strengths and weaknesses of the intervention are discussed.
Newark: Community or Chaos
Authors: Duhl Leonard J. , Steetle Nancy Jo 
Published: March 2006

This paper is an attempt to record the events and decisions surrounding the creation of the Medical College in Newark out of the seeds of the New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry. This issue, although often cited as an underlying cause of the Newark riots in July 1967, is also illustrative of what may happen constructively when the poor and the alienated confront the system with a series of demands. The Newark case indicates that the Model Cities Program, in conjunction with urban renewal and other federal programs, can be one of the mechanisms for increasing the competence of both City Hall and the ghetto to deal with the complex and interlocking problems of the neighborhood and the city. It offers insights into new levels of federal, local, and interagency coordination that can make agreement possible. The confrontation between the poor citizens threatened with displacement and City Hall clearly showed that the "urban problem" is not only the sense of alienation felt in the ghetto community but also the capacity of a local government to solve its problems. If poverty is defined as the inability to command the events that affect one's life, both City Hall and the ghetto can be described as "poor." This case study of the proposed relocation of a medical school begins with background sketches of Newark's politics, racial composition, health, education, and housing problems. There follows a survey of the chronology of events over a two-year period surrounding the site choice and acreage demands of the school in the face of ghetto area opposition. Interagency cooperation at federal, state, and local levels during the school's planning phases and application for funds is also depicted. The lessons of Newark are many. It is the intent of this paper to focus on a few acts from the urban drama.
Accelerating Laboratory Learning Through a Phase Progression Model for Trainer Intervention
Authors: Culbert Samuel A. 
Published: March 2006

A T Group's capacity for learning need not emerge only at the group's "natural" pace, as trainers have so often assumed. Trainers can, and many do, use methodologies that accelerate a group's rate of learning. This paper describes one such methodology for accelerating a group's rate of learning: a phase progression model for trainer intervention. What follows is an example of how the author-trainer experimented in systematically using his understanding of T-Group phenomena to conceptualize and to point to a sequence of phases which might be optimum for a particular group in accomplishing its learning objectives. This example also illustrates one relatively simple technique for shifting a group's focus from one issue, or phase of exploration,' to the next. Taken together, the sequence of phases and the technique for shifting from one phase to the next comprise essential elements of the "phase progression model." A more exhaustive explanation of all the elements included in this example and a discussion of how the model allows individual trainers to utilize their own preferred theories of trainer participation follow the example.
A Laboratory-Consultation Model for Organization Change
Authors: Dyer William G. , Maddocks Robert F. , Moffitt J. Weldon , Underwood William J. 
Published: March 2006

Behavioral change agents engaged in management and organization development efforts recognize as crucial, solutions to the recurring problems of entry and transfer. The major feature of the project reported here and still under way is the attempt to optimize both entry methods and transfer activities by a single developmental approach which includes the unique feature of using laboratory training to build a consulting relationship between internal consultants and their operating managers in an industrial organization. The essential elements of the total design included: (a) laboratory training as an initiating vehicle, (b) the use of internal Trainer-Consultants, (c) the use of data collection and feedback, and (d) a single management and organizational conceptual framework. A single framework was used to overlay prelaboratory, laboratory, and postlaboratory activity. Data about each of the 25 participating managers were collected from peers and subordinates prior to the laboratory. The laboratory allowed each manager to receive data from other participants, to receive data from back-home work peers and subordinates, to establish a working consulting relationship with internal consultants, and, with them, to begin to formulate a plan of action for back-home application. Initial results from back-home application within the organization indicate that these design features have reduced the entry and transfer problems experienced in utilizing laboratory earnings in organization development. However, certain problems still exist in transfer of learning, namely: uneven skill on the part of the managers to implement laboratory learnings, some lack of skill on the part of the Trainer-Consultants to intervene effectively, and the existence of certain organization conditions that do not support change.
System Intervention in a School-Community Conflict
Authors: Levin Gilbert , Stein David D. 
Published: March 2006

During the New York City school strike of 1968, staff members of a community mental health center, along with members of a local community group, helped plan and execute a Forum* in school-community relations intended to channel existing conflicts toward the long-term benefit of the community the center serves. The significance of this report stems from several factors that are not typical of applied behavioral science interventions. First, entry took place at the height of a community conflict situation, in the face of warnings from various parties to the conflict that the most constructive course was to do nothing. Second, the relationship between a community mental health center and its catchment area differs in important respects from that involved in either the external or internal change-agent models, and thus limits action alternatives in such a crisis. Third, turnout at the Forum was strikingly high and quite representative of the community population. Fourth, the design of the Forum itself is of interest, since it altered successfully some of the chaotic aspects of the typical public meeting.
One from Two: Facilitating an Organizational Merger
Authors: Blumberg Arthur , Wiener William 
Published: March 2006

Applied behavioral scientists spend most of their consulting time with single groups or organizations dealing with matters of communications, problem solving, organizational structure, interpersonal relations, and so forth. This paper focuses on the problems which develop when two organizations are joined to create one functioning unit. There is a small but growing body of literature' that is concerned with merging organizations. Although the major emphasis of what is written is on financial matters, Kitching (1967) focuses on matters of management and organization, albeit not in great detail. His data indicated that in 8i per cent of the merger "failures" reported, reporting relationships were unclear and there was a tendency to change them often. He also suggests the necessity of having competent "managers of change" and of setting up unambiguous reporting relationships in the newly formed organizational structure. The financial and economic components of mergers are part of a total mix of problems that includes such things as expectations about norm development, role changes, leadership style, decision-making processes, and goal orientation. It is with these factors that this paper is concerned. The format is that of a case study of a merger situation in which the writers were involved.
An Emergent Interuniversity Consortium for Educational Change
Authors: Luke Robert A. , Mial Dorothy 
Published: March 2006

As behavioral scientists take an increasingly active role in planned change efforts with school systems, the need to develop our own skills of collaboration, resource sharing, and creating flexible work structures becomes paramount. No one individual or institution has all the necessary capabilities. This report describes the development of an interuniversity consortium, COPED (Cooperative Project for Educational Development),1 designed to develop and test strategies for planned change in educational systems. To maximize the resources available to client systems, it was decided to involve five universities, each with specialized resources and interests. It was acknowledged from the beginning that considerable energy would have to be devoted to intraorganizational issues such as power and influence, membership concerns, institutional and individual needs for autonomy, and consultant-client relationships. What follows identifies the major organizational and interpersonal issues and describes how the consortium dealt with the issues of its own maintenance.
Bethel Culture, 1969: Impressions of an Immigrant
Authors: Pagés Max 
Published: March 2006

Some features of Bethel culture as seen by an "outsider" are reviewed. It is proposed that this culture alleviates basic personal and group anxieties by offering defensive satisfactions (love, closeness, the denial of conflict, mystical union). Strong social norms and the technical "designing" of the staff tend to maintain an artificially united "community," benevolently ruled. It is also suggested that Bethel culture serves to preserve American society from internal and external disruption. The article concludes with comments on the need for analysis of the functions which training (and applied social science in general) performs for society and, via some discussion of how "foreigners" are treated at Bethel, examines the problems of building an international community of social scientists. Fourteen years had passed since I had been to Bethel, or anywhere else in the United States. So my one month's experience of being on the staff of two Human Relations Laboratories was a renewed contact both with Bethel and with the American culture.
The American Advisor Abroad
Authors: Bass Bernard M. 
Published: March 2006

Mutual understanding of both the similarities and differences between an American and a host national counterpart is a key to effective utilization of the American advisor abroad. When both American and host know what to expect of each other, the American consultant's interpersonal competence, consulting skill, and technical knowledge can be brought to bear in a more effective manner than where misunderstandings of opinions, values, and ideology prevail. A program is described which is building a bank of information about such similarities and differences. How knowledge of the data has relevance to relations between the American and the host national is discussed, along with educational procedures for disseminating such information to those who take on American advisory roles abroad.
A Psychiatric Model for Intercession in Intergroup Conflict
Authors: Wedge Bryant 
Published: March 2006

A therapeutic approach to intercession in intergroup conflict would involve establishing and institutionalizing linkages of communication and contact between the hostile parties. Such linkages create an "intersystem system" that tends to limit the vigor of hostile interaction. A process model for such intercession involves five distinct steps: (1) the intercessor establishes dialogue with each involved party; (2) particular interests of the parties are defined and complementary or mutual interests are identified; (3) members of the conflicting groups are brought together on neutral ground in the presence of neutral buffers; (,) limited cooperation toward achieving "partial superordinate goals" for selfinterested purposes is encouraged; and (5) the intercession is terminated as soon as communication concerning concrete and limited cooperative goals is established. Throughout this process the internal organization and outlook of each group are respected, and there is no attempt to challenge the boundaries or integrity of the group or its beliefs. An experiment in phased intercession between the United States Embassy and the Revolutionary Youth Movement in the Dominican Republic during a period of estrangement and hostile interaction supported the principal hypothesis outlined above and demonstrates the practical possibility of global field experiments in scientific peace-making.