Theory D and O.B. Mod.:

Abstract

Academics and practicing managers have, and continue to search for ways to improve organizational performance. One way of improving performance is called the behavioral approach. This approach has traditionally attempted to find the causes and/or antecedents (e.g., motivation and attitudes) which result in an individual employee's expense of effort aimed at achieving performance. In this search there has been a tendency to embrace approaches that have made exciting claims, e.g., promised to radically improve overall performance overnight. Unforunately, this "quick fix" mentality still exists in many managers and consultants. Far too often, "quick fix" solutions are used by managers who want to get recognition and impress their peers and by academics seeking publications by creating new concepts, even if the new concepts are simply new words (e.g., intrapaneurship) rather than demonstrable performance improvement techniques. In recent years, the human resource management literature has been littered with such quick fixes (Business Fads, 1986). While some progress toward improving U.S. productivity has been achieved in recent years, many new concepts and techniques which were appealing in the early developmental stage, failed to exhibit sustained value in the long run. Thus, greater reliance upon concepts and techniques with a record of effectiveness validated via systemic research will supplant those which rely upon "arm-chair" logic or the latest "fads." The give and take between research and practice can be a healthy, productive exchange, and even controversy and disagreement can stimulate further research and interesting applications. However, if this combative interaction is so divisive that neither side will even listen to the other, then both research and practice suffer. One way to improve the communication between research findings and the actual practice of human resource management is to demonstrate the ways that various approaches can be additive rather than always pitting them against one another in combative controversy. This process is directed less at subjugating new concepts and techniques to a "go" or "no go" decision and more toward explaining what new elements may be introduced to form a synergistic approach to effective performance management. It is to these ends that this article is directed. Specifically, Theory D (Deming, 1982), as it relates to O.B. Mod., the expansion into the behavioral areas of performance that Theory D advocates makes such an analysis timely and necessary. In essence, Theory D makes a "conceptual leap" from the statistical control field into the behavioral performance arena. Analyzing this "leap" is an integral part of this article.