Transorganizational Organizational Development

Abstract

Transorganizational change is the change in the arena of relationships between organizations that affect not only the single organization but impacts the whole network of organizations. It is a planned change in the network of relationships with a variety of stakeholders to accomplish something which is beyond the capability of a single entity or organization.

Introduction

Organization development OD is an ongoing, systematic process of implementing organizational change effectively. Its main objective is to improve organizational performance by handling its internal and external functioning of relationship. Few of the OD interventions categories are: Human Resource Interventions: These includes intergroup relations, large group

They are developing highly complex network so as to gain competitive advantage in this rapidly changing environment. In this paper we will focus on how Transorganizational change have expanded the impact of OD in any organization and how it is impacting in the larger picture.

Literature Review

Most of the challenges facing in the field of OD is arising due to the growing network age where new organizational forms by partnering or merging and redesign of work structure is of prime importance to facilitate the new changes in technologies, market or new collaborative culture. These strategies can

Cummings (1984) has proposed a four-stage OD model for improving collaboration in networks called Transorganizational development (TOD), which is defined as:

“It is an intervention concerned with helping organizations to join into partnerships with other organizations to perform tasks or to solve problems that are too complex for single organizations to resolve. It helps organizations to recognize the need for partnerships and to develop appropriate structures for implementing them. (Cummings & Worley, 1997, p. 151)”

The first stage of Cummings and Worley’s (1997) model is the Identification stage. In this stage, potential members of the Transorganizational system are initially identified. They are selected in terms of addressing a particular issue or problem.

The next step is the convention stage where the partner organizations are brought together to explore motivations, perceptions and expectations of the combined task. Kaplan (1982) referred to this process as corresponding to the diagnosis component within traditional organization development interventions. Such activities can be described as modified “search conferences” (Emery & Purser, 1996) which enable stakeholder organizations to discover shared values, goals, expectations, and ambitions that will facilitate joint task