Kurt Lewin's Three Organisational Development Theory

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3 Organisational Development Theory
Much of the academic research on OD points the work of Kurt Lewin who is regarded as a founding father of OD (Mclean, 2005) Lewin was a phycologist, hence much of his theory and models originate from the field of social psychology.
The key theoretical roots of action research, group theory and change models came from Lewin’s early work (Cheung-Judge & Holbeche, 2011). They form the underpinnings of many change models including Kotter’s eight stage change model. Kotter’s (1995) was a modern evolution of Lewis ‘Three Stage’ change model which had been the basis of many change theories since its inception.
Kotter’s (1995) model looked to overcome the criticisms with Lewins original three step change model and
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Elements of Social Constructivism can now be identified and the reason for this is perhaps due to the success of models such as Cooperrider and Srivastva’s (1987) Appreciative Inquiry.
Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) social constructivism framework tells us that organisations are living frameworks and change is enabled by shared perception and dialogue (Van Nistelrooij & Sminia, 2010). Social constructivism and indeed a re-configuration of action research underpin Cooperrider and Srivastva’s (1987) Appreciative Inquiry (AI) (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). AI is now widely used in organisational development interventions (Borman, et al., 2012). Change in AI is driven by recognising the value of positive thinking, new ideas and values. This is the core difference between it and the Lewin Three-Step and Kotter’s models. Mantel and Ludema (2000) describe how it provides a new language to drive change in an organisational change setting (Mantel & Ludema,
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It started with a representative sample of both employees in customers to identify what the organisation did well. Over the course of the next continued the AI model to implement best practice and planning throughout the organisation – this is where we could consider the similarities to Senge’s (1990) Learning Organisations and Argyris and Schons (1978) Learning Loop model. Towards the end of the four year period it used AI to design and implement its continuous business improvement program ensuring it remains in a constant change of improvement and learning.
HDWFD reported an estimated $3.5 million in savings as a result of the AI process. Retention and employee motivation was substantially increased and the process embedded a culture of empowerment, innovation and continuous improvement (Trosten-Bloom & Whitney, 2001). It can therefore be argued that AI and its 4-D model can enable organisation to achieve high performance – high commitment culture which of course is widely recognised in HRM and Business as providing organisations with a sustainable competitive

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