The purpose of this book is to address one of the most rapidly growing and important areas in the field of organization development. Despite its importance, relatively little is known about international and global organization development. This book is designed to summarize and apply the existing knowledge in international and global organization development in such a fashion as to provide insight, knowledge, and application in a way that is most helpful to the organization development professional who is interested in, or working in, the field.
The book incorporates models of cultural differences, which are identified and expanded in terms of the implications for the practice of organization development. (1) It explores cultural values in terms of differences in resistance to change, the nature of leadership roles, organizational structure and the application of such organization development techniques as team building, survey feedback, job redesign, and large group methods. (2) It explore successes in both developed and developing countries. (3) It provides a list of competencies both for basic knowledge and skills and their extension to international work. It explores the match between organization development interventions and national cultural values. (4) It explores the role of economic development and legal and political structures for global organization development practitioners. It deals with the issue of culture specific versus universal organization development techniques. (5) It incorporates stories from pioneers in the field as well as more recent members of the organization development community. (6) It uses illustrations from award-winning international projects. (7) It draws on a substantial amount of work undertaken by the authors including over one hundred interviews with leading organization development professionals, surveys of organization development professionals, articles and books on international/global organization development and the authors’ own international research including an award winning international case.
