Chapter 9

Evaluating and Institutionalizing

Organization Development Interventions
Evaluating Organization
Development Interventions
Implementation and Evaluation
Feedback
Measurement
Research Design
 Implementation and Evaluation Feedback
Most discussions and applications of OD evaluation imply that
evaluation is something done after intervention. It is typically
argued that once the intervention is implemented, it should be
evaluated to discover whether it is producing the intended effects.
For example, it might be expected that a job enrichment program
would lead to higher employee satisfaction and performance.
After implementing job enrichment, evaluation would involve
assessing whether these positive results indeed did occur. This
after implementation view of evaluation is only partially correct.
It assumes that interventions have been implemented as intended
and that the key purpose of evaluation is to assess their effects.
 Measurement
Providing useful implementation and evaluation feedback involves two
activities: selecting the appropriate variables and designing good measures of
them. Selecting Appropriate Variables Ideally, the variables measured in OD
evaluation should derive from the theory or conceptual model underlying the
intervention. The model should incorporate the key features of the intervention
as well as its expected results. The general diagnostic models described in
Chapter 5 meet this criterion, as do the more specific models introduced in
Chapters 10 through 20.
For example, the job level diagnostic model described in Chapter 5 proposes
several major features of work: task variety, feedback, and autonomy. The
theory argues that high levels of these elements can be expected to result in
high levels of work quality and satisfaction.
 Research Design
In addition to measurement, OD practitioners must make choices
about how to design the evaluation to achieve valid results. The key
issue is how to design the assessment to show whether the
intervention did in fact produce the observed results. This is called
internal validity. The secondary question of whether the intervention
would work similarly in other situations is referred to as external
validity. External validity is irrelevant without first establishing an
intervention’s primary effectiveness, so internal validity is the
essential minimum requirement for assessing OD interventions.
Unless managers can have confidence that the outcomes are the
result of the intervention, they have no rational basis for making
decisions about accountability and resource allocation.
 Three features are particularly powerful for assessing changes:

1. Longitudinal measurement. This involves measuring results repeatedly over

relatively long time periods. Ideally, the data collection should start before the change
program is implemented and continue for a period considered reasonable for
producing expected results.
2. Comparison unit. It is always desirable to compare results in the intervention
situation with those in another situation where no such change has taken place.
Although it is never possible to get a matching group identical to the intervention
group, most organizations include a number of similar work units that can be used for
comparison purposes.
3. Statistical analysis. Whenever possible, statistical methods should be used to rule
out the possibility that the results are caused by random error or chance. Various
statistical techniques are applicable to quasi-experimental designs, and OD
practitioners should apply these methods or seek help from those who can apply them.
Institutionalizing Organizational Changes
 Institutionalization Framework
Figure 9.2 presents a framework that identifies organization
and intervention characteristics and institutionalization
processes affecting the degree to which change programs are
institutionalized. 19 The model shows that two key antecedents
—organization and intervention characteristics—affect different
institutionalization processes operating in organizations. These
processes, in turn, affect various indicators of
institutionalization. The model also shows that organization
characteristics can influence intervention characteristics. For
example, organizations having powerful unions may have
trouble gaining internal support for OD interventions.
Organization Characteristics
Three dimensions of an organization can affect intervention characteristics and
institutionalization processes:
1. Congruence. This is the degree to which an intervention is perceived as being in harmony
with the organization’s managerial philosophy, strategy, and structure; its current
environment; and other changes taking place. When an intervention is congruent with
these dimensions, the probability is improved that it will be supported and sustained.
Congruence can facilitate persistence by making it easier to gain member commitment to
the intervention and to diffuse it to wider segments of the organization.
2. Stability of environment and technology. This involves the degree to which the
organization’s environment and technology are changing. The persistence of change is
favored when environments are stable. Under these conditions, it makes sense to embed
the change in an organization’s culture and organization design processes.
3. Unionization. Diffusion of interventions may be more difficult in unionized settings,
especially if the changes affect union contract issues, such as salary and fringe benefits,
job design, and employee flexibility. For example, a rigid union contract can make it
difficult to merge several job classifications into one, as might be required to increase task
variety in a job enrichment program.
 Intervention Characteristics
Five features of OD interventions can affect institutionalization processes:
1. Goal specificity. This involves the extent to which intervention goals are specific rather than
broad. Specificity of goals helps direct socializing activities (for example, training and orienting
new members) to particular behaviors required to implement the intervention.
2. Programmability. This involves the degree to which the changes can be programmed or the
extent to which the different intervention characteristics can be specified clearly in advance to
enable socialization, commitment, and reward allocation.
3. Level of change target. This concerns the extent to which the change target is the total
organization, rather than a department or small work group. Each level of the organization has
facilitators and inhibitors of persistence.
4. Internal support. This refers to the degree to which there is an internal support system to guide
the change process. Internal support, typically provided by an internal OD practitioner, can
gain commitment for the changes and help organization members implement them.
5. Sponsorship. This concerns the presence of a powerful sponsor who can initiate, allocate, and
legitimize resources for the intervention. Sponsors must come from levels in the organization
high enough to control appropriate resources, and they must have the visibility and power to
nurture the intervention and see that it remains viable.
 Institutionalization Processes
Five institutionalization processes that can directly affect the degree to which OD
interventions are institutionalized:
1. Socialization. This concerns the transmission of information about beliefs, preferences,
norms, and values with respect to the intervention.
2. Commitment. This binds people to behaviors associated with the intervention. It
includes initial commitment to the program, as well as recommitment over time.
3. Reward allocation. This involves linking rewards to the new behaviors required by an
intervention. Organizational rewards can enhance the persistence of changes in at least
two ways.
4. Diffusion. This refers to the process of transferring changes from one system to another.
Diffusion facilitates institutionalization by providing a wider organizational base to
support the new behaviors.
5. Sensing and calibration. This involves detecting deviations from desired intervention
behaviors and taking corrective action. Institutionalized behaviors invariably encounter
destabilizing forces, such as changes in the environment, new technologies, and
pressures from other departments to nullify changes.
 Indicators of Institutionalization
Five indicators of the extent of an intervention’s persistence.
1. Knowledge. This involves the extent to which organization members have knowledge of the
behaviors associated with an intervention.
2. Performance. This is concerned with the degree to which intervention behaviors are
actually performed. It may be measured by counting the proportion of relevant people
performing the behaviors.
3. Preferences. This involves the degree to which organization members privately accept the
organizational changes. This contrasts with acceptance based primarily on organizational
sanctions or group pressures.
4. Normative consensus. This focuses on the extent to which people agree about the
appropriateness of the organizational changes. This indicator of institutionalization
reflects how fully changes have become part of the normative structure of the organization.
5. Value consensus. This is concerned with social consensus on values relevant to the
organizational changes. Values are beliefs about how people ought or ought not to behave.