Introducing Organizational Development (OD) Practices in a County Human Services Agency

Organization development (OD) is one approach to managing change within an organization. In this case study, organization development is defined as a top-management-supported, long-range effort to improve an organization's problem-solving and renewal processes, particularly through a more effective and collaborative diagnosis and management of the organization's culture. It is rare that a public county human service agency has the opportunity to incorporate an internal organizational development (OD) function to assist with managing organizational change. This is a case study of one such agency which hired an internal OD specialist to facilitate organizational restructuring related to the implementation of welfare reform. The case study is based on the first three years of implementation (1996-1999).