Does organizational development really work?

What will be an ideal response?

Given the popularity of OD in organizations, this question is very important, and most of the relevant studies show the effects of these various interventions to be beneficial, mostly in the area of improving organizational functioning. Any conclusions about the effectiveness of OD should be qualified in several important ways. First, OD interventions tend to be more effective among blue-collar employees than among white-collar employees. Second, these beneficial effects can be enhanced by using a combination of several techniques (e.g., four or more together) instead of any single one. Finally, the effectiveness also depends on the degree of support these techniques receive from top management: The more these programs are supported from the top, the more successful they tend to be. Despite the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of OD interventions, a great many of them go unevaluated. The effectiveness of OD techniques depends, in part, on the extent to which the OD values match the underlying values of the national culture in which it is employed.