| Making the Conceptual Journey Explicit: Human Dignity in Organizational Behavior |
| | Gist, Marilyn E. | U. of Washington | megist@u.washington.edu | (206)-685-1913 |
| | Homer, Lori E. | U. of Washington | lohomer@u.washington.edu | 206-543-4367 |
| | Our academic journey in organizational behavior (OB) has unfolded as a sequence of viewpoints on the value of general vs. specific theories. Early on, general OB theories were parsimonious and intuitively appealing, but not strongly predictive of specific behaviors. Subsequently, OB scholarship turned to specific theories and constructs that are more proximal to specific behaviors. Although this improved prediction, it resulted in a multiplication of constructs, and increasingly fragmented research contributions. Our journey must now take us toward conceptual connections across these many, specific constructs so that we can better understand the scholarly field of OB as well as practitioner experiences within organizations. Accordingly, this paper advances human dignity as a higher-order construct for organizational behavior. Dignity refers to thoughts and behaviors that are deemed appropriate to human worth. We demonstrate the implications of this higher-order construct by showing that human dignity is related to several more specific constructs in social-psychology and OB, and that it is implicit in many of our theories. Thus, it can integrate or unify a number of research streams in OB. Implications are offered for research and for the practice of management. |
| | Keywords: dignity; self-esteem; value-judgment |
| Whither Goest Thou? Seeking Trends in Organization Theory into the New Millenium |
| | Lemke, Dwight K. | James Cook U. | dwight.lemke@jcu.edu.au | (617) 4042 1368 |
| | Schminke, Marshall | U. of Central Florida | schmin@creighton.edu | (402) 280-2613 |
| | Clark, Nicole E. | Griffith U., Gold Coast | n.clark@gu.edu.au | (617) 5594-8694 |
| | Muir, Pamela | Cairns Region Economic Development Corporation | pmuir@credc.com | (617) 4051-2166 |
| | This study examines recent trends in Organization Theory to predict its
direction into the new millennium. Using a sample of 607 papers presented to
the Organization and Management Theory division of the Academy of Management
from 1989 to 1998, it explores changes in: theoretical bases of research,
"central debates" within the field, institutional sources of research, and
type of research. Two principal results emerged regarding theoretical bases.
First, Strategic approaches continued to dominate OMT research during the
1990s, comprising 34% of all papers presented. Second, Institutional and
Network approaches showed the strongest growth over the period (300% and 250%,
respectively). These trends were confirmed by a strong increase in papers
reflecting a Collective Action view of organizations (Astley & Van de Ven,
1983). A corresponding decreasing interest in Industrial Economics,
Contingency, Culture and Climate, Population Ecology, and Ethics approaches
emerged. Results also indicated that Astley and Van de Ven's (1983) six
"central debates" in the field were not equally represented in recent
research, and that significant changes are afoot there as well. In
particular, debates concerning whether organizational studies are principally
concerned with individual or collective action have shown the greatest growth.
Debates concerning whether organizations are neutral goal-directed instruments
or institutional manifestations of the wider society garnered the least
interest. Finally, results suggested that scholars from a wider range of
institutions are becoming more involved in OT research, and that qualitative
approaches may be gaining momentum in the field. Implications of these trends
for the future are discussed.
|
| | Keywords: History; Organization Theory; Trend Analysis |
| Clearing a Path Through the Management Fashion Jungle: Some Preliminary Trailblazing |
| | Carson, Paula Phillips | U. of Southwestern Louisiana | plp6475@usl.edu | (318) 482-5754 |
| | Lanier, Patricia A. | U. of Southwestern Louisiana | lanier@usl.edu | 318-482-6087 |
| | Carson, Kerry D. | U. of Southwestern Louisiana | kdc4421@usl.edu | 318-482-6868 |
| | Guidry, Brandi | U. of Southwestern Louisiana | bguidry@usl.edu | 318-482-6087 |
| | Sixteen recognized management fashions which emerged over the past five decades were identified and evaluated on established criteria such as radicalness, broadness, and fear-induction. Correlations were then established between these criteria and lifecycle, economic, and penetration variables to both explain and assist with prediction of fashion emergence and decline. |
| | Keywords: Management Fashions; Economic Indicators; Bibliometrics |
| The Origins of Social Loafing |
| | Cheramie, Robin | Louisiana State U. | rchera2@lsu.edu | 225-334-2145 |
| | Social loafing is a decrease in individual effort in proportion to an
increase in group size. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the
phenomenon of loafing was acknowledged among factory workers. The origin
of social loafing is traced to Frederick W. Taylor's systematic soldiering,
as well as the rope-pulling studies of Max Ringelmann. Taylor may have
been the first to name this phenomenon with his title of systematic
soldiering, but others had previously observed this activity. Max
Ringelmann recognized this activity with his rope-pulling studies in the
1880s. This paper will attempt to chronologically trace the current
literature of social loafing to works of both Taylor and Ringelmann. In
addition, clarifications are made to some common misconceptions regarding
Max Ringelmann and his research. |
| | Keywords: social loafing; Frederick Taylor; Max Ringelmann |
| The Role of Time in Theory and Theory Building in Organizational Behavior |
| | George, Jennifer M. | Texas A&M U., College Station | jgeorge@cgsb.tamu.edu | (409) 845-3905 |
| | Jones, Gareth R. | Texas A&M U. | gjones@tamu.edu | (409) 845-0330 |
| | Although time has been included in theory and theory building as a boundary condition, this paper argues that time can and should play a more important role because it can change the ontological description and meaning of a theoretical construct and of the relationships between organizational behavior (OB) constructs. We suggest that OB theorists explicitly incorporate multiple aspects of temporality into the "what, how, and why" building blocks of their theories. First, we describe six important time dimensions which we propose are especially relevant to theory building about people, groups, and organizations: the past, future, and present and the subjective experience of time; time aggregations; duration of steady states and rates of change; incremental versus discontinous change; frequency, rythms, and cycles; and spirals and intensity. Second, we put forward a series of time-related questions that can serve as a guide or template for improving theory building through the incorporation of temporality into the what, how, and why of theories. Lastly, we demonstrate how the explicit incorporation of time into theoretical analyses may not only lead to better theorizing and theories but also shed light on ongoing debates in the organizational behavior literature. |
| | Keywords: Time; Theory |
| Pluralism in the Field: Narrative Studies as an Interdisciplinary Inquiry |
| | O'Connor, Ellen S. | Stanford U. | eoconnor@leland.stanford.edu | 650/941-8249 |
| | This paper explores pluralism in organizational research (OR) from a disciplinary perspective. It focuses on narrative studies as a theoretical and methodological pluralism which crosses OR and the humanities. Narrative approaches have become increasingly popular in OR over the past 25 years. Yet to date there has been no assessment of the general significance of this work (e.g., a literature review). Moreover, with only a few exceptions, the challenge of pluralism, i.e., interdisciplinarity, posed to OR by narrative studies has not been carefully examined. This paper focuses on narrative studies as a rich site for pluralist work in OR. It has two purposes: first, to help bridge the gap between OR and the humanities, it provides a literature survey of the interdisciplinary nature of narrative work. Second, to orient narrative studies historically in OR, the paper takes stock of the current status and future possibilities of such work based on its interdisciplinary demands. Narrative approaches are presented as both well positioned to take OR in promising directions and as needing to be placed in greater dialogue with traditional OR in order to do so.
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| | Keywords: narrative; the humanities; interdisciplinarity |