Some characteristics of organisation development consultants.

A population of organisation development consultants is identified from the training function of the Chemical industry and certain demographic features are reported.These features are compared with other populations identified at the same time. A sample of organisation development consultants and training officers are interviewed in depth regarding some personal and professional beliefs. Organisation development is analysed as a social movement, and some major findings on the characteristics of those who join various kinds of social movement are reported. Two hypotheses (i and ii) relating the aetiology of the values of organisation development consultants to those of their parents or significant authorities in early childhood are taken from the literature and tested in relation to organisation development consultants. A third hypothesis (iii) concerning the aetiology of values of organisation development consultants is developed from object relations theory.The organisation development consultants are compared with a group of trainee social scientists and trainee general managers regarding their perceptions on various dimensions o£ their parents. As a result, negative findings are recorded concerning hypotheses i) and ii), the dependency and counterdependency hypotheses. Hypothesis iii) is tested by literature reanalysis, reanalysis of depth interviews with organisation development consultants and by fieldwork usingthe object relations technique both with a group of organisation development consultants and a group of college lecturers. Further comparisons are made with clinical groups on whom the object relations technique has been used. The implications of the findings regarding hypothesis iii) are discussed both in relation to organisation development practice and the further research needed as a result of this work.