| During the last decade, the administration of higher education has been faced with the responsibility of directing colleges and universities through unprecedented change. At the same time, organization development has been utilized--primarily in business and industry--as a strategy for facilitating the process and dynamics of organizational change. With this as context, the purpose of this study was to compare analytically the literature of organization development with the literature of higher education administration as the basis for developing an integrative and descriptive model wherein organization development could be explored as a potential strategy for managing the institutional change crucial to higher education.;It was found as a result of the study that organization development and higher education administration have substantive areas of congruence as well as incongruence at the level of their basic premises, values, and purposes. Hence, the utilization and application of organization development as a strategy for higher education administration will need to be confined to areas of congruence or adapt accordingly to the distinctive qualities of higher education administration.;To accomplish this purpose, the process followed was as follows: (1) exploration of fundamental organization development literature to determine consensus regarding basic premises, values, and purposes; (2) exploration of fundamental higher education administration literature to determine consensus regarding basic premises, values, and purposes; (3) comparative analysis of the relationship between the basic premises, values, and purposes of organization development and those of higher education administration; (4) development of a framework for model building from model theory; (5) development of a descriptive model from the comparative analysis in accord with model theory; (6) submission of model and guidelines to three separate expert panels for their critique (organization development panel, higher education administration theorist panel, and higher education administration practitioner panel); (7) revision of model and guidelines in accord with responses and suggestions from panelists. |
