The Impact of Social Hierarchies on Efforts at Organizational Change: Comparing Two Approaches from the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations

摘要

Two approaches to organizational consultation - psychodynamic systems and socio-technical systems theories - originally developed at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations but diverged several decades ago. We describe each approach and analyze its effectiveness in a community consultation in which the presence of social hierarchies presented a considerable challenge. We then discuss a consultation in which both approaches were combined, and argue for the benefits of this joint technique.