Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science (2nd ed.)

Citation

Niehoff, B. (2005), "Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science (2nd ed.)", Personnel Review, Vol. 34 No. 5, pp. 619-621. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480510612558

Just the title – Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science – conjures up expectations that the reader should gain a sense of clarity and understanding of the major paradigms that reflect the mainstream of the OB field. The table of contents reveals nine articles on content topics of affect, stress, self‐fulfilling prophecy, diversity, justice, reputation, deviance, conflict, and cross‐cultural studies, along with a methods chapter on construct validity. In addition, there is a concluding critical review of all ten entries and the field as a whole. Upon reading the table of contents, there was a temptation to second‐guess the inclusion of certain topics or the exclusion of others. For example, how could there be a volume articulating the “state of the science” in OB without discussion of motivation, leadership, or group dynamics? Withholding judgment, I opened the volume and read the thoughts of top scholars across OB. In the end, there were still questions, but I felt like I had a deeper appreciation for the depth of research being pursued in these fields.

Each chapter contains a literature review of a different content topic, with the general structure for the reviews covering the past, present, and future state of research direction for the specific field. The structure allows the scholars to delve into the beginnings of the sub fields, as well as explore some very interesting and integrated research directions.

Sigal Barsade, Arthur Brief, and Sandra Spataro wrote the first chapter on affect. They start with the Hawthorne studies and job satisfaction, but quickly move through state and trait affect, as well as the concepts of emotional labor and emotional intelligence. The discussion of future work includes the need to examine antecedents to specific workplace emotions as well as the impact of “everyday emotions”, a topic that rarely is addressed. The potential links of affect with neuroscience elicits a number of questions on potential cross‐disciplinary research topics.

The stress chapter by James C. Quick and his colleagues is not so much a review of theory as a discussion of actual programs and public health issues associated with work‐life stress. The chapter provides excellent background material to complement stress courses or workshops, as well as findings of recent work‐life stress research. One very progressive strategy discusses the implementation of a chief psychological officer by the US Air Force. The section on legal liability and risk assessment issues would also be important for most practitioners.

Dov Eden contributes the third chapter on the self‐fulfilling prophecy, and he explains the broad spectrum of research on this behavioral phenomenon. One surprise in this section is the discussion of the researchers' efforts at testing the phenomenon in actual training interventions and experiments. Most prior research on the self‐fulfilling prophecy has been conducted in the lab. While these training experiments have met with mixed results, they demonstrate the degree to which the researchers have sought validation of the Pygmalion effect. Future research directions focus on the impact of the self‐fulfilling prophecy on self‐efficacy, and a somewhat controversial discussion of ethics in the use of deception for the experimental tests of the phenomenon.

Belle Rose Ragins and Jorge Gonzalez review the area of workplace diversity. This chapter devotes a considerable amount of discussion to the diversity of definitions of this “slippery construct”. While diversity has emerged as a critical issue in the workplace, there is clearly still much debate over what type of diversity is needed. The chapter references definitions and research on the ever‐expanding categorizations used, from demographic (e.g. gender, race, national origin), to psychological (e.g. values, beliefs, and knowledge), to organizational (e.g. occupation, tenure, hierarchical level). The authors note that more research has pursued visible forms of diversity (e.g. gender and race), but recent work has begun to examine the impact of deep‐level diversity variables such as affective fit or educational level. They also discuss theory development (e.g. social identity model), impacts on outcomes (e.g. group and organizational level performance) and impacts on process variables (e.g. social integration, team conflict, and group norms). The future directions point to the difficulties facing diversity researchers, such as multi‐ethnic and demographic categorizations, and the collapsing of diverse populations (i.e. Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, and Indonesians) into one category (i.e. Asians). It is true, as the authors suggest, that diversity research draws emotional reactions rarely seen in management research.

Jason Colquitt and Jerald Greenberg review the research on organizational justice in the fifth chapter. Their review covers four areas of justice research:

1. 1.

   the types of justice;

2. 2.

   the process by which justice judgments are made;

3. 3.

   the outcomes of justice judgments; and

4. 4.

   the boundary effects of justice judgments.

This chapter is quite comprehensive in its coverage of prior work and needs for future research. The authors indicate that a better understanding of the boundary effects of justice pertaining to the national culture, gender, personality, and norms would be a fertile area for the future.

The sixth chapter on personal reputation by Gerald Ferris and his colleagues is probably the least mainstream of the topics in the volume, but the chapter demonstrates the cross‐disciplinary nature of this field. The historical section samples research in accounting (i.e. goodwill), sociology, economics, marketing, organizational theory, and employee recruitment, all of which have considered “reputation” as an important variable. Outcomes such as performance evaluations, promotions, and compensation have all been examined in relation to personal reputation. Necessary future directions include solving measurement challenges, examining longitudinal effects, and considering the social influence of reputation.

Workplace deviance is the topic for the seventh chapter by Rebecca Bennett and Sandra Robinson. They provide a comprehensive account of prior research on deviance and some of the gaps in research that could direct future work. The present research on deviance has only scratched the surface of possibilities, so there are numerous directions available for researchers. The examination of the impact of contextual variables, such as external organizational factors, national culture, and income distributions, on deviant behavior would be important to develop, and more attention should focus on the victims of deviant behavior or possible functional benefits of deviant behavior. The authors note that the area is not without its methodological challenges, including the sensitive human element involved and difficult data gathering strategies.

In the eighth chapter, Kurt Dirks and Judi McLean Parks review research on conflict and conflict resolution. They suggest that conflict occurs in three forms – outcome, process, and affective – and review work in each area. Future research directions include a deeper understanding of the impact of culture and the role of trust in an integrated model of conflict.

Jeffrey Edwards provides an excellent review of the history and current trends in approaches to the determination of construct validity in the ninth chapter. Topics of reliability, convergent and discriminant validity are covered thoroughly, as well as some underlying information on the use of confirmatory factor analysis. This chapter would be an excellent resource for a doctoral seminar in measurement and statistics.

In the tenth chapter, Herman Aguinis and Christine Henle cover the topic of cross‐cultural research in organizational behavior. Examining studies across four levels – national, organizational, group, and individual – this chapter provides a well‐structured guide for scholars seeking to begin the process of international research. The authors discuss not only the frequently‐used Hofstede taxonomy of national values, but also some of the critiques of the taxonomy and other categorizations that have been used in research.

The final chapter contains a critical review by Edward Locke of the preceding ten chapters. The focus of his review is on definitions, an issue he sees as common across all of the chapters. Whether the contributing authors acknowledge the slipperiness of their constructs or if Locke simply views certain constructs as redundant (e.g. process and affective conflict in Dirks and McLean Parks), he uses the articles as a platform to express a growing concern with how scholars are defining or not defining their constructs, or focusing on measurement rather than the construct definition itself. Even the chapter on construct validity is not spared, as he sees it drawing a vague distinction between constructs and their measures. In summary, Locke provides a fascinating account of each article's contributions and weaknesses. His vast experience in OB gave his comments and viewpoints much credibility.

In sum, I am impressed with this book. While it does not cover the state of the entire field of OB, it provides excellent resource material for scholarly discussions and background information for each of the topics included. I would think that each of the articles would be very appropriate reading for doctoral students or researchers who are seeking comprehensive viewpoints of these areas. Management practitioners would find most of the articles interesting, and some quite useful in their workplace. Researchers are the primary audience, as each article extends prior work by pointing the field in well‐defined directions. Time will tell whether the scholarly fields move toward those ends.