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This book is for students, practitioners, and managers who seek to learn more about the process of organizational change following organization development values and practices. We will use the term organization development, as most academic audiences prefer, over the term organizational development, which seems to dominate spoken and written practitioner communication. We will also refer to the organization development practitioner, consultant, and change agent in this book as a single general audience, because these terms emphasize that OD is practiced by a large community that can include more than just internal and external paid OD consultants.

OD includes (and the book is written for) anyone who must lead organizational change as a part of his or her role. With the magnitude and frequency of organizational change occurring today, this encompasses a wide variety of roles and is an increasingly diverse and growing community. The OD practitioner can include the internal or external organization development consultant, but also managers and executives; human resources and training professionals; quality managers; project managers and information technology specialists; educators; health care administrators; directors of nonprofit organizations; leaders in state, local, and federal government agencies; and many more. We will also more frequently discuss organizational members than employees, which is a more inclusive term that includes volunteers in nonprofit groups and others who are connected to organizations but may not have an employment relationship with them. The term also is intended to include not just leaders, executives, and managers but also employees at all levels.