Talk:Organizational behavior/Archives/2015

Redirection and structure
I have redirected this to organizational studies. I moved the references and all the text except for the section on external and internal factors, which, while relevant, do not form the basis of organizational behavior. OB is at least partially based on studying behavior of firms and organizations as a whole, rather than just the individuals inside of the organizations. I am open to discussion if someone wants to revert, however. --Goodoldpolonius 03:29, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The structure's a bit messy. Personally, I'd call the whole thing organisational studies then focus on Organizational Behavior as the study of individuals within organisations and Organisational Theory as the study of the organizations as a whole. Unfortunately, there's not clear definition that's universally accepted. However, at the moment, Organisation Theory redirects to Organization Behavior which I think most people in the field would argue that are different. Geoff332 (talk) 13:21, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Removed link to commercial website showing paid advertisements that was in opening sentence. Added citation needed tag. Will continue working on critical opening paragraph, based on what all reliable sources provide. Mrm7171 (talk) 02:13, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

No discussion? as to why editor psyc12 deleted sound reliably sourced edits?Mrm7171 (talk) 00:20, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

I explained in the edit note. This is about history. It doesn't belong in the lede that is defining what the field is. It belongs in history because it is about development of the field.Psyc12 (talk) 00:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You just deleted this: again, and while we were in the middle of a good faith discussion over a resolution here? I don't agree with your reasoning but this hostile deletion while under discussion on talk, undermines Wikipedia consensus building and civility between editors. Can you please restore this sound edit and all the reliable sources attached that you also deleted, as a good faith gesture, while we are discussing it?Mrm7171 (talk) 00:35, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Can other editors please sign their posts too? Thanks.Mrm7171 (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You cannot have an opening paragraph that does not mention organizational psychology. It is very relevant and needs to be established early.Mrm7171 (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Organizational psychology and OB are not the same, and to mention it in the lede will just confuse uninformed readers into thinking they are. This is an article about OB and not about psychology. OP should be mentioned somewhere, and the history section is a reasonable place.Psyc12 (talk) 12:30, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate keeping things as they are in the article, while we discuss this in a civil manner psyc12. Not saying they are exactly the same. However similar enough to mention it in lede for Wikipedia readers. How are they different in your opinion? Differences are very subtle, according to Jex. How do you see it psyc12?Mrm7171 (talk) 13:05, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Added reference to statement in lede. Jex and Britt devote a section to the issue, in their definitive text? Thoughts?Mrm7171 (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Jex and Britt do not say there is confusion between the two fields. They say there are "outward similarities" but then they go on to talk about how they are different. These fields are different, and to talk about I/O in the lede is to confuse readers into thinking they are the same.


 * "the field of organizational behavior is concerned not only with individual behavior in organizations, but macro-level processes and variables such as organizational structure and strategy are viewed as interesting and worthy in their own right. Organizational psychology is also concerned with the impact of macro-level variables and processes, but only to the extent that such variables and processes have an impact on individual behavior. Much of the reason for this difference is that organizational behavior draws from a greater variety of disciplines than does organizational psychology. While organizational psychology draws primarily from various subfields within psychology, organizational behavior draws from a variety of disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and labor relations to name a few." p. 4.Psyc12 (talk) 14:43, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I get that OB is multidisciplinary. That is not the point I am making psyc12. Jex and Britt struggle with being able to deliniate. Have you read their text. Organizational psychology. A scientist practitioner approach? Jex devotes a whole section to this confusing issue. He says in the end, the most tangible he can see is the differencs in the salary level. I added the reference and re-worked the single sentence as you asked. The lede normally does noit need a reference even psyc12. I am very familiar with what we are talking about here too. Even on the I/O article talk page there is a header from a while back Talk:Industrial and organizational psychology/Archive 1 where another editor is asking the same question. There are accredited Masters Degrees in the UK listing OB as a core subject. I have even seen some I/O authors listing OB on the front cover of their I/O texts! It has got that confusing. This is an encycopledia. I am noting that there is confusion, in one well written sentence in the lede. Readers can refer to the I/O article to see for themselves if they like. But we can't censor these things. I think the other sentences of the lede should be put further down in the article actually. Have you any other reliable sources explicitly saying how OB is different to org psych?Mrm7171 (talk) 23:18, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

oops - wrong place to comment. Removed my comment to move it to a more appropriate place. Geoff332 (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Organization Theory
Although organizational behavior is certainly related to organization theory, I don't think the latter is part of the former. Shouldn't we have a separate article on Organization theory? The French Wikipedia has. --Chealer (talk) 03:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I would support that idea, of a separate article on org theory.Mrm7171 (talk) 00:11, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Support editor Chealer's comments above. I agree there should be a separate article on organizational theory. As Chealer correctly pointed out, org theory is not the same as org behavior, nor is it a a specialization of OB.Mrm7171 (talk) 06:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Support from me as well. However, it's more that just creating a new entry. It's also a case of making a clear distinction between OB (theory of behaviour in and around organisations) and OT (theory of organisations - form, structure, etc). This is most obvious in the introductory paragraph which uses a quote that conflates OB and OT as basically the same thing. I'll try and find time to update that a little to remove the confusion while retaining the basic gist of the introduction.

Geoff332 (talk) 09:53, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

First sentence of the history section
The first sentence of the history section read as follows, "The focus of organizational behavior shifted to how psychological factors affected organizations, a transformation propelled by the identification of the Hawthorne Effect." It is not clear what the original focus from which the shift took place was. A prior version mentioned the period around World War I but was deleted. It would be helpful to include a time frame such as the period following the publication of the first Hawthorne studies because this is a history section. Iss246 (talk) 17:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I edited the first paragraph in view of the fact that the nature of OB before Hawthorne was not mentioned although the paragraph I saw yesterday began by mentioning a shift in OB from before to after Hawthorne, but without indicating what the "before" looked like. It would be helpful if a contributor could write a couple of sentences to begin the first paragraph, and have those sentences describe what OB was like before Hawthorne. Iss246 (talk) 18:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Updating History
I've made a few updates to the history. The focus is to highlight some of the key ideas that led to the emergence of OB and where some of the major streams of thought originated from.
 * Introduced the context of the industrial revolution and Weber's bureaucracy. The brings in sociology.
 * Put a quick summary of some of the early practitioner theories; this is where management theory really comes from.
 * Adding some basic scientific management ideas, with the most direct precursors. This is important, because Hawthorne started as a simple work study; it was the surprising results that really led to OB.
 * Expanded the section on Hawthorne and how it led to focus on individual motivation as a topic and draws in psychology.
 * Removed the reference to operations research. This is not a derivative of OB in any sense (it came from military logistics and applying mathematical models).
 * Put a bit more about Herbert Simon: this both brings in economic theory and introduces decision making as a major topic.

I've run out of time to go much beyond this, but a lot of the next section is really organisation theory. Geoff332 (talk) 17:47, 25 August 2015 (UTC)