A Critical Review of Organizational Development and Service Delivery in the Public Sector

Organizational Development, strategically implemented and managed, propels organisational progress and Service delivery. While many scholarly works have discussed this approach of organisation management, empirical and theoretical gaps persist. This study discusses organisation development and service delivery with respect to the provision of public goods in the public sector context. The public sector has been highlighted to be in the forefront of accommodating organization Development approaches and initiatives. The study adopts a document review approach to reveal the conceptual issues relating to the constructs of public sector, organization development and service delivery. A number of theories and models have been appraised including institutional theory, agency theory, goal setting theory, resource dependency theory and system theory. The models that have been reviewed are action research model by Lewin, Lewin three-step model, and Porter and Lawler expectancy model. The purpose of the study was to undertake empirical and theoretical review on the organization development linkage to service delivery in the public sector context and to propose a theoretical model which can be used for future research. The study will significantly enrich the literature of organization development upon which future researchers shall conduct further research. In addition, the study will assist the governments to identify appropriate approaches that can be utilized in improving service delivery in public sector. The study proposes a theoretical model that links organization development and service in public sector and that this relationship is mediated by public sector organizational systems and moderated by organization environmental influence. The research recommends future research to empirically test the proposed relationships.