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The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative understanding of participants’ experiences in an exemplar large-scale organization development intervention (LODI). The purpose was to understand what contributes to the success of LODIs from participant experiences.

The research design was a qualitative study of one-on-one interview findings (n=23) from participants involved in LODIs that spanned over four years in a complex healthcare system. Participants involved in the process represented clinical, operational, and support service staff as well as all levels from frontline to senior leaders. The 23 participants consisted of 13 women and ten men.

The qualitative analysis showed that participants reported experiences of transformational change, where contextual conditions as well as personal and organizational transformation processes existed in the LODIs. Contextual conditions were shown to have a multiplier effect on the attainment of transformation in what was considered a successful large-scale change, where desired business outcomes were also achieved. Further, access to shared transformational experience is what created context for the sense of community, responsibility, and accountability that spurred change agents into action.

Prior theory and research shows that large-scale and similar organization development interventions result in transformational change, deepened relationships, and successful outcomes as a result of organizational change processes such as emergence and generativity. This study provides new insight into why LODIs work from participants’ perspectives. These findings may be used to design successful LODI processes and expands research to include and be informed by participants’ experiences, in a field predicated on stakeholder involvement to begin with.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what contributes to transfer of soft‐skill, leadership training.

The paper presents a literature review resulted in five broad factors that may influence transfer of leadership training. These were used to guide a qualitative, exploratory study. Interviews were conducted with 18 participants of an extensive, soft skill oriented leadership development program, along with peer observers. Where possible, quantitative analyses are used to test and confirm qualitative findings.

The results showed substantial transfer of training and suggest that actual utilization of newly learned skills is influenced differently than judgments about the value of the training. The greatest inhibitor to transfer appeared to be fear of breaking cultural norms and the most important remedy, the number of other managers who receive the training. In particular, having one's boss take the same training was strongly associated with post‐training utilization. Some kinds of social support, like encouragement and verbal praise, were associated with positive judgments of the training but not with utilization. Instead, observing others use the skills and being able to coach one another was the kind of “support” that effected utilization, which depended on colleagues and bosses also receiving the training.

As an exploratory case study, the study lacks a large sample and the kind of methodology that could prove the validity of the findings.

A number of implications for training managers wanting to ensure their leadership development programs have real impact are discussed. In particular, the study points to a need to plan for rapid diffusion of the training and for cultural change processes in parallel with leadership development courses.

The paper meets a need for empirical investigation of factors associated with transfer of soft skills into the workplace, as called for by researchers like Cheng and Ho. It identifies differences in what impacts judgments of value versus what actually impacts transfer. It also identifies how changing leadership behavior is as much a cultural intervention as a change in skill sets.

This paper seeks to understand what contributes to the transfer back to the workplace of soft‐skill leadership training.

The study draws on information from a study carried out at Vancouver Island Health Authority, Canada.

The paper reveals that the greatest inhibitor to transfer appears to be the fear of breaking cultural norms and the most important remedy, the number of other managers who receive the training. In particular, having one's boss take the same training is strongly associated with post‐training utilization.

The paper points to the need to plan for the rapid diffusion of training, and for cultural‐change processes to run in parallel with leadership‐development courses.

The paper shows that some people are motivated to transfer their training back to the workplace because the organization has “invested” in them.

The dialogic nature of new organization development practices brought a dramatic shift in relation to the way OD has had been practiced in the past. However, contemporary literature indicates that OD still has to go a long way if it has to play a central role. The purpose of this paper is to speculate for the concerns being raised about OD practices and propose an interpretive approach to fill in the gaps.

This paper traces OD’s glorious journey, which began with egalitarian values. This section builds on the dynamics of power and politics which was integral to the OD movement and further reviews and critiques the contributions of new OD approaches that has its foundations in postmodernism and social constructionism. In the second part, the paper discusses the critical perspective and introduces the concept of subaltern to fill in the gaps in new OD approaches. Further, the paper finds a ground to integrate and redefine the boundaries of critical and subaltern studies.

The paper proposes an interpretive approach for designing and carrying out OD interventions and introduces the concept of critical-subaltern OD. This approach recognizes the importance to engage with the dialectics or contradictions present between (and within) OD interventions. Through this interpretive approach, the author positions critical-subaltern voices as an integral part of OD interventions and change management.

The interpretive approach gives an insight into the unacknowledged and unheard socially constructed realities of change and OD practices for sensemaking. The approach would also be instrumental in enhancing the levels of engagement and productivity in unacknowledged and non-dominant employees.

This paper is a departure from the modern literature of critical management studies and builds on the critical theory on OD. The paper proposes by roping in the benefits of subaltern studies into OD practices. The paper builds ways to include voices of those, who never gain a voice. In brief, toward the end of the paper, the author proposes an interpretive approach and moves toward critical-subaltern OD. Through this interpretive approach, the author positions critical-subaltern voices as an integral part of OD interventions and change management.