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This study used a convenience sample (N = 387) aggregated from several Japanese worksettings to replicate results obtained with the phase model of burnout in a substantial number of studies in North American loci. At several levels of analysis, the results of the present replication support the generic character of the phase model and its components. Thus Japanese respondents psychologically structure the items of the Maslach Burnout Inventory used to estimate individual scores on three subdomains of burnout in much the same ways as two large batches of U.S. respondents. These subdomain scores—depersonalization, personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion—are combined to generate assignments of Japanese respondents to phases of burnout. Moreover, the phase assignments covary significantly with a panel of marker variables, which are similar or identical to variables used in North American studies. Basically, as the phases progress I → VIII, individuals report worsening scores on all 6 marker variables—job involvement, number of health symptoms, helplessness, job satisfaction, job tension, and self‐rated productivity. The pattern of results is similar to that in almost all North American studies using the phase model. Japanese respondents get assigned to the three most advanced phases of burnout in markedly greater proportion than North American respondents. In comparison to most of its counterparts, the present study accounts for a smaller proportion of variance between the phases and marker variables.

This article offers a conception of the learning organization. From this model, we discuss ways in which organizational development can now be used to create learning organizations and ways in which organizational development theory and practice might change to create learning organizations. We consider three ways OD may contribute to the learning organization: supportive systems of interaction, guiding values, and a sense of structural alternatives. We look at contributions learning organizations make to OD, in terms of changing conceptions of dialogue, system diagnosis focused on learning, intervention focused on long term empowerment, and measurement at the macro system level.

Evaluative studies of OD applications 1950–86 generated an earlier panel of 100 applications with a substantial success rate, and this article reports that extending the period of observation in economically‐developing countries does not require substantive modification of that estimate. Additional cases were sought during the 1987–1993 interval, to augment the 30‐plus year period underlaying the original panel. The augmented panel has been enlarged by approximately 20 percent—from 100 to 121 cases of applications.

The argument here is direct, if tentative. Thus, most available evaluative studies agree that OD applications, globally, have substantial success rates, but this seems ironic in light of the common domination of culturally relativistic views. Many observers urge the culture-boundedness of planned change which implies low OD success rates. This paper is one in a projected series of qualitative tests about whether the irony is only apparent. That is, this series proposes to test for the congruence of the basic OD normative framework with various cultural patterns that can be encountered in the global analysis of today’s organizations. A high degree of fit between the OD Work Ethic and more or less discrete ideational frameworks will help dissolve the apparent irony.

Here, the specific task involves testing the congruence of the “Confucian Work Ethic” with an OD normative framework. The latter may be viewed as the “target” against which the fit of the Confucian Work Ethic is tested in a qualitative sense. High success rates are reported for OD applications in Confucian settings, especially in Korea where Confucian ideas have a substantial prominence. Here, Confucian comparisons with the OD Ethic imply a “good fit,” which is consistent with the similarly high success rates in Korea as well as elsewhere.

Since China began its market-oriented economic reform in 1979, government budget deficits have been a fact of life. On one hand, the share of resources owned or controlled by the government must be shrunk in order to create a favorable environment for the development of the market economy. On the other hand, the government still performs many responsibilities required by the traditional planed economy. After calculating government budget deficits and analyzing their causes, the article assesses the impacts of government budget deficits and predicts the future of deficits in China.

Since China began its market-oriented economic reform in 1979, government budget deficits have been a fact of life. On one hand, the share of resources owned or controlled by the government must be shrunk in order to create a favorable environment for the development of the market economy. On the other hand, the government still performs many responsibilities required by the traditional planed economy. After calculating government budget deficits and analyzing their causes, the article assesses the impacts of government budget deficits and predicts the future of deficits in China.

This symposium seeks to contribute to an expanding core for Organization Development and Change (ODC) in the global arena. ODC is developing “prismatic” features, and these at once signal robust activity even as they threaten spin‐offs. The five contributions below deal with generic measurement issues; the introduction of a Hawaiian design for conflict management; the central roles of interlevel designs and dynamics in ODC; gender proportions and their organizational covariants; and an updating of the evaluative literature on ODC applications in national settings having moderate‐to‐low GNP per capita.

Whatever else, Organization Development and Change (henceforth, ODC) is preeminently an integrative area of concentration. Thus, ODC encompasses a broad range of arts and sciences; it blends values, as well as empirical research and theory in applications; and those applications in diverse settings include the cross‐national and the cross‐cultural.

Ulf Bengtsson works for Motorola Inc. as an Organization Effectiveness consultant. In this role he works in the area of change acceleration, organization design, and other strategic OD initiatives. His undergraduate degree is in Organizational Communication from Cleveland State University and he earned a Masters in Management and Organizational Behavior (concentration in OD) from Benedictine University. He has done award-winning papers and presentations and has numerous publications on topics including organizational behavior, organization development, and appreciative inquiry. A Swedish citizen, he now resides in Chicago. Ulf can be reached at: Ulfl@motorola.com.Allen C. Bluedorn (Ph.D. in sociology, University of Iowa) is the Emma S. Hibbs Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of Management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has taught and studied management and the organization sciences, first at the Pennsylvania State University, then for the last 23 years at the University of Missouri-Columbia. These efforts have produced seven major teaching awards, over 30 articles and chapters, and his recently published book, The Human Organization of Time (Stanford University Press, 2002). He has served as president of the Midwest Academy of Management, as a member of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society’s board of directors, as a representative-at-large to the Academy of Management’s board of governors, as associate editor of Academy of Management Learning and Education, and as division chair of the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division.David Coghlan is a member of the School of Business Studies at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, Ireland. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of organisation development, action research, action learning, clinical inquiry, practitioner research and doing action research in one’s own organisation. His most recent books include Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization (co-authored with Teresa Brannick, Sage, 2001), Changing Healthcare Organisations, (coauthored with Eilish Mc Auliffe, Blackhall: Dublin, 2003) and Managers Learning in Action (eds. D. Coghlan, T. Dromgoole, P. Joynt & P. Sorensen, Routledge, 2004).Paul Coughlan is Associate Professor of Operations Management at the University of Dublin, School of Business Studies, Trinity College, Ireland where, since 1993, he has researched and taught in the areas of operations management and product development. His active research interests relate to continuous improvement of practices and performance in product development and manufacturing operations. He is President of the Board of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, and a member of the board of the European Operations Management Association.Fariborz Damanpour received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Graduate School of Management at the Rutgers University in 1985. Currently he is a professor at the Department of Management and Global Business of the Rutgers Business School, where he served as the chairperson of the management department from 1996 to 2002. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an engineer, an organizational development consultant, and the manager of a start-up unit in a large organization. His primary areas of research have been management of innovation and organization design and change. His papers have been published in several management and technology management journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Journal of Management Studies, Management Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal. He serves on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Journal of Management Studies.Joyce Falkenberg is Professor of Strategy and Associate Dean of the School of Management at Agder University College (HiA) in Kristiansand, Norway. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1984. Her dissertation focused on strategic change and adaptation as a response to changes in the environment. Her research has continued the focus on strategic change with an emphasis on implementation. Recent work has combined this emphasis with the strategy issues of congition, strategizing, and resource based perspective. Before coming to HiA in the summer of 2003, Joyce Falkenberg was a member of the faculty at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. She taught in many international programs, including NHHs Masters of International Business; executive masters programs in Russia and Poland; and held seminars in Latvia, China, Switzerland, and Germany. Falkenberg has served on the Executive Board of the Academy of Management Business Policy Division and on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Review.Mary A. Ferdig Ph.D., is Director of the Sustainability Leadership Institute in Middlebury, Vermont, a research and education organization dedicated to developing leadership capacity for building a more sustainable world. Her research interests focus on leadership for sustainable organizational and social change, grounded in complexity and social constructionist perspectives. She consults with leaders in not-for-profit and business sectors as well as teaching process consultation and leadership communication in the Management and Organizational Behavior Master’s program at Benedictine University and the Public Administration and Community Services program at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. She also serves as an External Examiner in the Doctoral Program in the Complexity Management Centre, Hertfordshire University, London, U.K.Robert T. Golembiewski is Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus at the University of Georgia, where he is part of the Public Administration program. Bob G is an internationally-active consultant in planned change, and he is the only pracademic who has won all of the major research prizes in management: the Irwin in business, Waldo Award in PA, the NASPAA Award in public policy, two McGregor awards for excellence in the application of the behavioral sciences, and the ODI Prize for global programs in planned change.

This article was written to encourage scholars to not forget to include the power of hierarchy in their studies of leadership in public sector organizations. Contemporary theories of leadership too often assume that hierarchy will wither away once the leader imposes his or her will on the organization, an assumption that does not seem to work in reality given the bureaucratic nature of public organizations. Instead it is argued that we can learn about public sector leadership needs by remembering the power of hierarchy and what it demands in terms of leadership from different levels in the organization. The article concludes with speculation as to how future research on leadership might be directed with hierarchy in mind.