Developing Social Network Propositions to Explain Large-Group Intervention Theory and Practice

The problem and the solution. In response to turbulent business environments, organizations are increasingly calling on the human resource development (HRD) function to facilitate organizational change. Thus, HRD professionals are looking to new forms of organization development that promise more rapid, whole-system change. One approach is large-group interventions. Although practitioners and researchers recognize the efficacy of large-group interventions, many researchers contend that the underlying theoretical mechanisms by which these interventions operate are poorly understood, resulting in a gap between research and practice that makes it difficult to say with certainty how large-group interventions operate, when they are appropriate, or how they might be integrated with other approaches. This article suggests that a social network perspective can inform our understanding of how large-group interventions work. Drawing on the social network and organizational change literature, the article develops four propositions for future empirical research. These propositions may ground large-group intervention methods in social network theory.