Organization Development and Change

did not realize this was an intl edition when purchasing. Used the ISBN for the book my school requested, not the intl edition. Hoping it has the right content...the last thing I need is two of these.

I agree with some of the other reviewers who recommended "real world" books by Beitler, Schein, Kotter, and other authors. Cummings and Worley's work is only helpful if you are an academic trying to understand the real world.

This textbook is dated, as all multi-editions (intentionally?) are. Most of the case studies are from the 1990s; there is little sense of history here. The case studies tend to be short and general in nature, as well. The material on OD presented in the book is good and informative, even if the prose style is rather dry. What the authors spend 676 pages(including glossary)to say could have been said as well in perhaps half the space. Compared to other OD texts that the writer has read, this one comes off quite well, the forgoing nonwithstanding. In terms of constructive criticism, this writer would like to see greater depth in the coverage of each topic, and a greater sense both of history and of the future. The book reads as if the authors expect the trends of the present to continue without change into the forseeable future. Specifically, globalization is seen as a long-term factor, when it may well give way to regional trade blocks, as the world becomes multipolar, and as ethnic and religous issues join national self-interest in setting the agendas of nations not on the winning side of globalism. (However, one cannot expect OD textbook authors to be geostrategic thinkers, either.) Connectivity with other disciplines would also help the text; for example, a digression examining "King Lear" or "Julius Caesar" from an OD perspective might inform and entertain the reader. While this book could be improved, it is worth reading on it's own merits, and compares well to other texts in the field of OD. -Lloyd A. Conway

This book is too academic. Managers and consultants should purchase Beitler's "Strategic Organizational Change" for real-world advice.