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Ideas in Currency and OD Practice

Has the Well Gone Dry?

University at Buffalo

Billie T. Alban

Alban and Williams, Ltd.

Roy J. Lewicki

Ohio State University

The separation between theory and practice in organization development (OD) has widened over the years. This causes the field of OD to be susceptible to fads rather than having productive conversations with researchers about newideas that can be translated into new methods. This article identifies the following six areas of research with potential to create new practices in OD: virtual teams, conflict resolution, work group effectiveness, social network analysis, trust, and intractable conflict. Each area is described and its ease of application to practice assessed. Then, the process by which new methods have been adopted in the field over the past 15 years is reviewed. The article concludes with a discussion of the need to overcome the gap between the two separate worlds of research and practice in the interest of stimulating innovation.

Key Words: organization development • research and practice • change management • knowledge application • new consulting methods

The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 40, No. 4, 403-422 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0021886304270372


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