The organization development consultancy agenda for development programmes in Ghana

Abstract

Despite its humanistic values, organisation development consultancy practice appears to be facing implementation challenges, especially regarding development programmes in the public and private sectors. OD's agenda for development programmes is to ensure its values yield benefits that could be translated into effective programmes. This is because all the development programmes involve change, which in one way or the other had not been managed effectively in the past, given the many fads of change management. The main objective of this study was to assess the benefits and challenges of OD as a consultancy practice, and create the needed awareness to enable consultants; policy makers and managers encourage its use in development programmes. This case study, through snowball sampling procedure, recorded the perceptions of 35 respondents, 16 of which are OD practitioners and 19 non OD practitioners. The findings confirmed that OD as a consultancy methodology has enormous potentials to facilitate development programmes in Ghana. However, challenges such as reliance on 'expert' consultants and opposition by policy makers need to be overcome through education and awareness creation ifOD is to survive as a consultancy practice. Far reaching implications for OD practice were provided.