Organizational Behavior

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What is Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behaviour (OB) is the study of human behaviour in organizational settings. OB research aims at creating a better understanding of how individuals, groups, and teams behave in the workplace by studying the determinants and consequences of individuals and groups behaviours. 

OB research in management is very closely related to the field of industrial and organizational psychology (see, e.g., Elton Mayo, the Hawthorne studies and the Human Relations movement; or James March and the Carnegie School).

Organization Behavior (OB) Levels

The three levels of study in OB:
- micro-level OB
- meso-level OB
- macro-level OB

Organizational Behavior research typically falls within one of the following level:
- The study of individuals in organizations (micro-level OB). OB research at the micro-level of study focuses on individual characteristics, such as demographic attributes, personality, and cultural values, but also emotion, job satisfaction, motivation, trust, ethics…

- The study of groups and team characteristics (meso-level OB), including size and cohesion of groups and teams, group processes and communication, power and negotiation, leadership style and behaviours, decision-making, cooperation and conflict.

- The study of how organizations behave (macro-level OB). Macro-level OB research studies organizational mechanisms, such as work design, goal setting, feedback and rewards, organizational communication, organizational culture, organizational structure. An increasing number of OB researchers conduct multi-level analysis. 

Other OB topics

OB researchers are also interested in a number of other topics, such as interpersonal processes within organizations (e.g., trust, justice, power, network, social exchange); organizational culture; organizational identity and organizational climate; work-family balance; organizational citizenship behavior…
OB researchers often study the influence of the micro-, meso- and macro-level variables on outcomes such as firm performance, creativity, stress, turnover, deviance, ethical behaviour, citizenship behaviours, etc.

OB methods
Like most behavioural scientists, OB researchers rely on quantitative scientific methods.
They usually collect data through the administration of surveys (including panel data, or surveys with repeated measurements), or laboratory experiments and conduct various types of statistical analyses in order to assess the reliability and validity of the constructs they measure.
OB researchers use pieces of statistical software, such as SPSS,  MPlus or M+, LISREL, Stata, AMOS) to conduct statistical analysis (e.g., multiple regression, ANOVA, multilevel modelling, hierarchical linear modelling, structural equation modelling, time series analysis, non-parametric statistics, Bayesian statistics). 

 

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