Organizational Behavior (Stephen Robbins)

The Building Blocks of OB

OB is an applied behavioural science that is built upon contributions from a number of

behavioural disciplines. The main areas are psychology, sociology, social psychology,

anthropology, and political science.^5 As we will learn, psychology’s contributions have been

mainly at the individual or micro-level of analysis. The other four disciplines have con-

tributed to our understanding of macro concepts, such as group processes and organi-

zation. Exhibit 1-1 presents an overview of the major contributions to the study of OB.

6 Part 1 Understanding the Workplace

Social psychology

Psychology

Behavioural

science

Contribution Unit of

analysis

Output

Anthropology

Sociology

Political science

Study of

Organizational

Behaviour

Organization

system

Learning

Motivation

Personality

Emotions

Perception

Training

Leadership effectiveness

Job satisfaction

Individual decision making

Performance appraisal

Attitude measurement

Employee selection

Work design

Work stress

Group dynamics

Work teams

Communication

Power

Conflict

Intergroup behaviour

Formal organization theory

Organizational technology

Organizational change

Organizational culture

Conflict

Intraorganizational politics

Power

Organizational culture

Organizational environment

Behavioural change

Attitude change

Communication

Group processes

Group decision making

Group

Comparative values

Comparative attitudes

Cross-cultural analysis

Individual

EXHIBIT 1-1 Toward an OB Discipline