Introduction to Group Relations and Organizational Diagnosis.
Abstract
The perspective of Group Relations and Organizational Diagnosis did not emerge from a vacuum. It is rooted in a clinical perspective on the study of organizations. There are signs of the methodology in the earliest and most formative substantive studies in the field of organizational behavior. Evidence suggesting an intergroup theoretical perspective can be found in the three earliest action research projects, although none of them demonstrate more than tacit understanding of intergroup dynamics and their use for understanding of intergroup dynamics and their use for understanding and changing organizational behavior. As time passed and the clinical study of organizational behavior became more differentiated, the function of organizational diagnosis became a specialty in its own right. Earlier treatments of organizational diagnosis, like the initial studies of organizational behavior, did not explicitly conceptualize their work in intergroup terms, but observable limitations or self-acknowledged problems by the authors again pointed to the potential advances suggested by an intergroup perspective. The earlier works also varied in the degree to which they contributed to the entry, data collection, or feedback phases of organizational diagnosis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA083569
Entities
People
- Clayton Alderfer
- Ken K. Smith
- L. Dave Brown
- Robert E. Kaplan
Organizations
- Yale University