Organizational development in partnership with the social sector: Pain, dance and drama

Abstract

This article offers a reading of an organizational development project in the Quality Management domain. The experience was shared by a Development Partnership involving six organizations from the social sector, a town council and a private consulting firm. This change in organizational management focused on providing social services, as influenced by values of social solidarity and volunteer work. The process itself unfolded in a way that can be characterized as complex, ambiguous, uncertain and chaotic. The reflections developed here intend to explain the density of this process and the flow of its activities and its effects. The theoretical system adopted invokes an allegory of organizational analysis made up of three metaphors: pain, drama and dance. Keywords: organizational metaphors; structuring principles, organizational partnerships.