Organization 21C: Someday All Organizations Will Lead This Way

Chapter 16. The Sustainability of Organizations

Dexter Dunphy

This book is dedicated to the memory of Richard (Dick) Beckhard—a creative contributor to a social movement that has had a significant impact on the nature of modern organizations. Practitioners such as Dick referred to the body of theory they were developing, and their practice, as organization development (OD). However, OD was but one phase in a wider social movement that, in the second half of the 20th century, aimed to change the fundamental character of traditional bureaucratic organizations. My colleague Andrew Griffiths and I have called this broader movement the organizational renewal movement (ORM).^[1]

In our book, The Sustainable Corporation,^[2] we trace the historical genesis ...