The Tavistock's 1945 invention of Organization Development: early British business and management applications of social psychiatry

Bernard Burnes, Bill Cooke*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The management field 'Organization Development' (OD), is said to have been invented in the mid-1950s in the USA. Some contribution post-1958 by the UK Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR), and to a minor extent, in its World War II 'group-relations' work is acknowledged. Otherwise, OD depicts the circle of its US 'founding father' Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) as its historic mainspring. A new 1945 primary source, the TIHR's originating funding proposal to the Rockefeller Foundation, proposes all the components of OD, outside mention of Lewin et al. Thus, what was to become OD was invented in the Britain of 1945, not the USA of the 1950s.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)768-789
Number of pages22
JournalBusiness History
Volume55
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2013

Keywords

  • Kurt Lewin
  • Organization Development (OD)
  • Rockefeller Foundation
  • Tavistock

Cite this