The Handbook of Large Group Methods: Creating Systemic Change in Organizations and Communities

Large Group Interventions are methods used to gather a whole system together to discuss and take action on the target agenda. That agenda varies from future plans, products, and services, to redesigning work, to discussion of troubling issues and problems. The Handbook of Large Group Methods takes the next step in demonstrating through a series of cases how Large Group Methods are currently being used to address twenty-first-century challenges in organizations and communities today, including: * Working with widely dispersed organizations, and the problem of involvement and participation * Working with organizations facing a serious business crisis * Working with organizations in polarized and politicized environments * Working in community settings with diverse interest groups * Working at the global level and adapting these methods for cross-cultural use * Embedding and sustaining new patterns of working together in organizations and communities

Table of Contents:
Preface. PART ONE: SETTING THE STAGE. 1 That Was Then, but This Is Now: The Past, Present, and Future of Large Group Methods. PART TWO: SIX CHALLENGES FOR THE 21st CENTURY. 2 Widely Dispersed Organizations and the Problem of Involvement. 3 Organizations in Crisis. 4 Working in Polarized and Politicized Environments. 5 Working in Communities with Diverse Interest Groups. 6 Working Cross-Culturally. 7 Embedding New Patterns of Working. PART THREE: RESOURCES FOR LARGE GROUP METHODS. 8 Resources for Large Group Methods. The Authors. Index.

About the Author :
Barbara Benedict Bunker is emeritus professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has taught in executive development programs at Columbia, Pepperdine, and the Harvard University School of Education and has held Fulbright Lectureships in the business schools of Keio University and Kobe University in Japan. Billie T. Alban is president of Alban and Williams, Ltd., and an internationally known management consultant whose clients include British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Exxon, and Kraft/General Foods. She teaches in executive development programs at Columbia, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Pepperdine and has served on the board of the Organization Development Network. Bunker and Alban are coauthors of Large Group Interventions from Jossey-Bass.

Review :
"Overall, the book is well planned and presented. True to the editors' preference, each chapter is essentially a story about approach to a particular problem." (PsycCritiques, 09/06/2007)