Steven H. Cady

Bowling Green State University | BGSU · Department of Management

In this article, we draw on the product life cycle framework to propose an adapted model for evaluating the evolution of a theory. The product life cycle was designed as an economic analysis tool, and its intuitive usefulness led to its adaptation for a variety of disciplines. Nevertheless, it has not been applied to theory. We propose a five-stage...

Without understanding one’s self, individuals blindly and with a minimal amount of consciousness, go about their lives and their businesses. Understanding one’s self and how it can influence work performance offers individuals the opportunity to more meaningfully carry out their duties and fulfill their work requirements. Sri Aurobindo, an Indian s...

Reflecting on the past seventy years of work in organization development and change, you will find that many of the change processes have evolved away from small groups conducting traditional action research or leader groups determining the best way forward. Today, we have entered a new era of collaborative system-wide engagement. Collaboration bri...

The use and scope of evidence-based solutions in organization development and change is on the rise; this trend is bringing renewed focus on ensuring interventions are well designed, followed by an objective evaluation. One of the most unattended functions in organization development and change is the use of good evaluation techniques to examine th...

An important interdisciplinary opportunity to conduct field research examines how to improve an individual’s contribution on a team that requires little to no interaction in order to accomplish the team’s mission, goals, and objectives. This field study examined 308 volunteers organized into 78 membership recruitment teams. A specific planned team...

In nonprofit organizations, motivating volunteers for particular activities is challenging because they can take place in unstructured environments. Therefore, members are disengaged despite their initial commitment to the cause. An important opportunity in the literature is to examine motivation from the perspective of the volunteer; and, more spe...

This chapter provides a way to navigate the myriad evaluation tools and choose the best combination for assessing the effectiveness of organization development (OD) interventions from small-scale incremental change to large-scale transformation. The reason it addresses the full spectrum from small to large is that all change initiatives are compris...

This chapter explores the current state of competency development in organizations. It provides an approach to developing a robust competency framework, and proposes a way forward for competencies in the field of organization development (OD). It is important to note that the role of competencies in the OD field is relevant for both professionals a...

The purpose of this paper is to describe a phased approach using whole system collaborative change methodologies to implement a network of Integration FOrums (focusing of Business Processes and IT Systems) ast a South African mining company. We will describe the phased approach that was utilized as part of the transformation journey and how we have...

There is an interesting yet little known story about a model in the field of Organization Development. Referred to as the Change Formula, it is one of the most practical, widely recognized tool developed in the last 50 years. The formula describes the conditions, that when met, will move an individual, group, or whole system in a direction of their...

We present a case study based on a body of methodologies within a field referred to as whole system collaboration and change, large-group methods or interventions, and large-scale change. The World Café conversational process was utilised as part of an intervention designed to improve employee commitment and ensure continued effort in a service imp...

This study presents an examination of the ambiguity surrounding the language of organizational change. The purpose is to unearth patterns in how language is used to describe major organizational change. A sample of 15 journals that spanned 15 years (2,168 issues) were examined from three categories. The results provided 14 different relevant terms...

Despite widespread recognition of its importance, very little empirical research has been conducted on strategy documents, particularly Mission or Vision statements. A database containing 489 organizational statements from 300 different organizations was analyzed via content analysis to determine how many distinct concepts could be identified and t...

We studied 284 volunteers, loosely coupled in groups (i.e. low task interdependence, high outcome interdependence), selling memberships in a non-profit organization. Consistent with economic models of altruism, we found individual perceptions of group potency to be negatively related to individual selling behavior (i.e. making telephone calls and c...

Issues of gender and mentoring are explored through several theoretical lenses—similarity-attraction paradigm, power dependence, social exchange, biological, and psychological theories—to provide a more comprehensive view of mentoring from a gender-based perspective. Issues related to gender and mentoring presented in past mentoring research and te...

A meta-analysis of one approach to measuring expectancy and self-efficacy was conducted. Although used for over 25 years, this measure has yet to be named or integrated across the two theoretical domains. We proposed to label this measure a Multilevel Performance Probability and conducted a meta-analysis. The search for empirical tests of expectanc...

Increasingly, human resource professionals are being challenged to manage organizational programs that have proliferated in the wake of continual pressure to respond to competition and environmental change. This research examines program commitment, that is, an employee's commitment to an organizational program, and investigates its association wit...

This field study examines how changes in span of managerial control (SOC), the leadership substitute referred to as procedure availability, and self-monitoring (SM) influence impression management tactics used by subordinates in their customer service reports. The findings revealed that a wide SOC and available procedures influenced subordinates to...

This article presents an authentic field study, which used an entropy-based formula to measure team diversity, of 50 teams. The data were collected in a division of a high-tech, Fortune 500 company. The results revealed that diversity (race, age, sex, and function) had no impact on quality of innovation, whereas sex and race had a negative and posi...

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a 15-min. on-site massage while seated in a chair on reducing stress as indicated by blood pressure. 52 employed participants' blood pressures were measured before and after a 15-min. massage at work. Analysis showed a significant reduction in participants' systolic and diastolic blood pressure after receiv...

This study seeks to determine how the synergogy model of group cooperative performance can be most effectively used in the classroom/training environment with respect to task assignments and reward interdependency. Using two principle designs from Mouton and Blake's synergogy model, the findings indicate that when team members are assigned speciali...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 1996. Includes bibliographical references.