The Clinical-Experimental Approach to Assessing Organizational Change Efforts

Abstract

Attempts to gain valid knowledge about the effects of organizational improvement efforts are fraught with difficulties. This article proposes the "clinical-experimental" method as a solution; it involves the separation of researcher and change-agent roles, the construction and testing of general and specific clinical hypotheses, thoroughgoing experimental design, and careful documentation of change-agent assumptions, plans, strategies, and effects. Organization improvement is regarded as the induction of increased "organization health"; a case study of such an effort in a large school system-which did not evoke the short-run changes hoped for-is presented to illustrate the clinical-experimental method.