Robert E. Kaplan

Intervention in a Loosely Organized System: An Encounter with Non-Being

Historically, organizational theory and the theory of organizational change have been preoccupied with highly structured organizations, the bureaucracy being the archetype. But recently what may be called a loosely organized system has attracted the attention of some theorists of organization and organizational change. Loosely organized systems come in all shapes and sizes, a familiar example being the ill-defined system consisting of a set of organizations, related but autonomous. If intervention is defined as a way of organizing to promote learning and change in social systems, then the question arises: How is this organizational task accomplished in a loosely organized system? This is the central question in this paper, which revolves around a case study of intervention in a system of community agencies: How does the interventionist shape an essentially integrative strategy to an essentially disintegrative social system?

A Mirror for Managers: Using Simulation To Develop Management Teams

Of the many methods consultants employ to stimulate team development, simulation is among the least common. In this article, the authors describe how realistic simulation can help one diagnose management teams. In presenting a case study of one management teams experience with simulation, the article provides a frame work for effectively using simulation for this purpose and follows this with an evaluation of the intervention.

The Utility of Maintaining Work Relationships Openly: An Experimental Study:

An experimental study compared two types of group maintenance: maintenance-by-expression, which manages interaction by discussing it openly, and maintenance-by-suppression, which manages interaction without examining it explicitly. It was predicted that these two types would have differential effects on group outcomes, specifically, that expressive maintenance would result in superior task performance, a more rewarding experience, greater knowledge about the social process, as well as higher emotional costs. These hypotheses were tested in a laboratory experiment in which 4-person mixed-sex groups worked on a series of human relations problems over a 4-hour period. Of the four hypotheses, two received strong support but the one pertaining to performance was not confirmed. The implications of these findings were examined with particular attention to the lack of evidence in this study, and in the literature, that expressive maintenance (process work) improves performance.

Is Openness Passe

The openness movement that started in the 1940s with the invention of the T-group has lost much of its momentum. The movements excesses and abuses have discredited openness in its pure form to the point where anything resembling a T-group is verboten in many organizations, and many of its original champions have become disenchanted with it. What of the original form of openness can be or should be salvaged?

Stages in Developing a Consulting Relation: A Case Study of a Long Beginning

The literature on Organization Development (OD) emphasizes a collaborative relationship between consultant and client and an open, data-based confrontation of an organizations problems in human interaction. Less attention has been given to how collaboration and openness are achieved. Focusing on organizational self-analysis in organizations new to OD, this paper considers the stages of development through which consultant and client organizations must pass for the consulting relation to reach maturity. The paper is based on a case study of an OD project in which 2 years were consumed in this preparatory phase. The argument is made that before the desired changes in the organization are possible, a meta-change in the organizations capacity to learn and change and to collaborate with change agents is necessary. On the basis of the case study and the literature on group development, a formulation is presented of the stages by which this meta-change is accomplished. The argument is made that this developmental phenomenon must occur at two levels-both at the level of particular units of the organization and at the level of the organizational system as a whole.

The Etiology of Encounter Group Casualties: "Second Facts"

This paper has two purposes. First, it conceptualizes the process by which encounter group casualties occur. Primary attention in the literature on encounter group casualties has been trained upon the rate of injury and upon the more or less discrete events which give rise to injury. For example, Lieberman, Yalom, & Miles (1973), the major study thus far, made a rather piecemeal analysis of the causes, listing such discrete factors as attack (by the group or leader), rejection, coercive expectation, and unrealistically high hopes of gain. This paper will attempt a more integrated conception of the etiology of encounter group casualties, with a central explanatory concept being the mismanagement of conflict. The second purpose is to replicate the Lieberman et al. (1973) study of encounter group casualties. Procedure for diagnosing injury was essentially the same, the type of encounter group somewhat different, and the incidence of psychological injury considerably lower.

Teaching Process Analysis

numerous pieces have been written on the opposition between the consultant who would introduce process analysis and the client system which tends to resist it (Argyris, 1962, 1970, 1971; Harvey and Davis, 1972; Harrison, 1968, 1973; Kaplan, 1976, 1978a, 1978b). A similar situation obtains in the classroom, when an instructor in organizational behavior has the temerity to include process analysis in an introductory OB course. The mixed reactions of students are not so different from those of their organizational counterparts. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to major factors which govern the response of students to