Organization Development in Social Development Organizations

Social Development Organizations (SDOs) have an important role to play in the social and economic development of the people particularly in developing countries following capitalist/mixed economy systems. However, many SDOs are organizationally ill-equipped to carry out their important functions in society. This is partly because of their origin as a half-heartedly tolerated appeasement tool with inappropriately borrowed values, structures and systems, and partly because conventional OD values and techniques developed in the context of industrial/commercial organizations have limited success with SDO’s which are different from other organizations in their more humanitarian value systems, greater need for client orientation, greater dependence on external, scarce and uncertain resources, greater need to co-operate with other agencies and so forth. While SDOs do have some common characteristics, they cannot be considered a homogeneous lot. They differ among themselves on the basis of their greater or lesser orientation towards rules, structure, expertise, value, need, people, external agencies and the like. Thus, the OD needs of SDOs are different, on the one hand, from those of the industrial/commercial organizations and, on the other hand, among different types of SDOs. OD in SDOs should focus on : (1) value management, (2) perspective management, (3) participation management, (4) dependency management, and (5) withdrawal management. Specific OD needs of government and voluntary SDOs are discussed, and the directions of future change in OD with special reference to SDOs are indicated.