Larry E. Greiner

Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow

A small research company chooses too complicated and formalized an organization structure for its young age and limited size. It flounders in rigidity and bureaucracy for several years and is finally acquired by a larger company.

Wanted OD More Alive Than Dead

The authors examine the evolution of organization development (OD) from its exciting startup to its confusing current state, ending with their concern for OD’s future viability. There have been man...The authors examine the evolution of organization development (OD) from its exciting startup to its confusing current state, ending with their concern for OD’s future viability. There have been many ups and downs to the OD field, including its faddish rise in the 1960s, its downturn while under attack in the 1970s, and its subsequent morphing into many forms during the 1980s and 1990s. The current diffuse nature ofODsuggests that it is hardly recognizable in most organizations, portending its possible demise as a historical artifact. However, the authors believe that ODstill has a role to play if it can revitalize itself by taking on a strategic role in organizations to focus its core values on solving problems it has largely avoided or ignored in the past.

The “feminine mystique” in male-dominated jobs: A comparison of attitudes and background factors of women in male-dominated versus female-dominated jobs

Abstract This paper examines various background factors plus success and work-related atttudes of 324 women as aggregated into one of three groups: those women working in male-dominated jobs, those in female-dominated jobs, and those in relatively sex-ratio balanced jobs. Overall results show that women holding male-dominated jobs are more likely to be older, better educated, have fathers with higher educational levels, and are more likely to be childless as compared to women in female-dominated jobs. Holding age and education constant, women in male-dominated jobs usually rated definitions of success as more important to their feelings of well-being than did women in female-dominated jobs. With these same constants, there were few differences in work attitudes among the three groups, but contrary to expectations, women in female-dominated jobs rated the importance of their work higher than did women in male-dominated jobs . The variables best predicting whether a woman held a male-dominated job were college attainment, problems related to sex discrimination, the age of the participant, her feelings toward achieving a very high salary, her feelings of the importance of her work, and her feelings about becoming an authority in her job.

Steve Kerr and His Years with Jack Welch at GE

Steve Kerr is chief learning officer and a managing director of Goldman Sachs. Until March 2001, he was vice president of leadership development and chief learning officer for General Electric (GE), including responsibility for GE’s renowned leadership education center at Crotonville. He was formerly on the faculties of Ohio State University, the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Michigan and was dean of the faculty of the USC business school from 1985 through 1989. He is a past president of the Academy of Management. His writings on leadership and “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B” (Kerr, 1975) are among the most cited and reprinted in the management sciences. During the past few years, he has been the subject of interviews in Business Week, Forbes ASAP, Fortune, Human Resource Executive, Intranet, Investors Business Daily, the New York Times, Organizational Dynamics, Knowledge Management, Organization Science, and the Wall Street Journal.

US Business Schools in the 1980s—a Negative Scenario

The ‘business school’ is a unique American invention that, over the last 50 years, has become not only firmly institutionalised within the US university system, but now serves as its financial heart. The immense success of American business schools is attested to by swelling numbers of university students who major in business administration, and by lines of companies queueing up to hire their graduates. University professors outside the ubiquitous business school have learned to tolerate begrudgingly this ‘commercial eyesore’ because they know that its tuition revenues subsidise deficit ridden courses in Greek and history.