Some Conceptual Issues in Individual and Group-Oriented Strategies of Intervention into Organizations

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to conceptualize and contrast some of the psychological and sociological assumptions underlying two different strategies of social intervention: an individually oriented strategy which assumes that individual change is the primary mediator of organization change and a group-oriented strategy which assumes that group-level phenomena, such as norms and values, are the primary mediators of organization change. It is not assumed that the views presented in this paper are complete or uncontroversial. On the contrary, by articulating these assumptions and their interrelationships, we hope to begin building systemic conceptual frameworks for describing the dynamics of social intervention. The understanding of social process provided by these frameworks may aid the practitioner in his application of an intervention approach and may help the theoretician-researcher to be more aware of gaps in his knowledge of social process.