As we begin our exploration of Organizational Development, I would like each of you to find and review a current events news article relevant to an organization currently dealing with a significant need, issue, or situation, such as a layoff/restructuring, legal issue, strike, quality control problem, change of leadership, strong competition, globalization concerns, etc. As you will discover as you learn more about OD, there is certainly no shortage of organizational challenges and needs requiring change intervention! The ‘organization’ can be a for-profit company, a nonprofit organization, an educational institution, a government office or agency, a major sports team, and so on – they are all considered organizations in a broad sense.
Acceptable article sources would be credible news sites, such as the Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNN, BBC, etc. No articles from Facebook or other social media sources, please! Also, please do not overlap articles with each other.
For your main post, please share the article’s URL link with the class and provide a summary of the article’s key points and ‘takeaways’. Also consider the extent to which the organization has/had various options to handle their situation, and how other organizations might be able to learn from this scenario (such as what to do or what not to do if they were faced with a similar situation). You may also consider the following questions as you develop your main post (to give you some ideas for what to look for and think about!):
• Is this situation unique to this particular organization that is the focus of the article, or is it a widespread issue that is impacting or has the potential to impact many more organizationor industries?
• What stakeholder groups does this issue/situation potentially affect besides the workforce (e.g., shareholders, customers, local communities, special interest groups, government)?
• What are the implications for the organization as a result of this issue? Are they taking any steps to rectify the situation? If not, what do you think could happen to the organization’s success and sustainability long-term?
