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Just what is the core concept of organizations? The question is posed as “what is the organization of organizations?” The answer is interdependence. Beginning with the concept of a process and its framework, the notion of an entity is extended to Processual Agents. A Processual Agent is anything that can effect a process. The discussion turns to potential, defined, and manageable interdependencies with examples of each. Many traditional management methods are viewed in terms of their effects in reducing potential interdependence in order to cut it down to manageable proportions. The discussion of Processual Agents is extended to organizations. This leads to a proposed structure for levels of interdependence and a summarizing principle called the cascade principle. Next the discussion turns to a new analysis of organizational change which examines the concepts of an organizational space and the summarizing conclusion called the cushioning principle. It is argued that the cascade and cushioning principles provide processes for maintaining and stabilizing organizations in the face of change. Examples are provided for the major concepts. The text is formalized in the form of ten axioms, twenty‐two propositions, and two summarizing principles.

This paper presents a framework consisting of seven logically linked considerations yielding nine strategies for managing risky situations. The framework provides a comprehensive method any entity can use to determine its strategy for managing a risky situation. The framework goes beyond the issue of calculating risk to asking how it might be managed The framework is applied in an example involving a human resources manager making a series of three related choices. It is also applied to the choices of strategies for a chief financial officer facing currency rate fluctuations and excessive taxes on profit.

Companies often conduct general Employee Opinion Surveys (EOSs) to measure some features or outcomes of an organization. Converting data to results is routine and governed by the design of the EOS and the use of standard statistical methods. However, as one moves away from results to their meanings or conclusions, and from conclusions to recommendations, other factors and variables come into play. These factors and variables are governed more by the context, the presence of constraints, the intuition of the decision makers, and the actions by engaged agents. Essentially EOSs produce ambiguous conclusions and recommendations because they are “knobless,” or lacking underlying processes which are controllable by management. The theory of the organizational hologram has evolved operationally into a family of Organizational Diagnostic Survey (ODS) forms which generate sets of results representing managerially controllable processes or combinations of processes. That is, the ODS provides a set of x‐axis variables that can be employed to explain variability in EOS results, which are viewed as dependent variables plotted on the y‐axis. Every item in an ODS form is “knobby.” The relationships among the questions and higher order results are causal and structured with known interdependencies. Combining ODS and EOS allows knobby analyses of knobless survey items.

This is Part II of a new approach to survey studies called knobby analyses of knobless survey items. In Part II, this approach is applied to a study of the national sales organization of a large high‐technology firm called here Euphoria BioTechnology. A 17 item Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) was constructed and administered concurrently with an Organizational Diagnostic Survey (ODS). The EOS inquired about the main features and properties of the organization and the ODS, based on the theory of the organizational hologram, provided a series of knobs which were used to “explain” their variance. Knobby analyses involve moving beyond data expertise to expert data. Data expertise is employed in both the EOS and the ODS surveys. However, knobby analyses allow one to leverage the EOS results to improve the derivation of the conclusions or meanings of the results of the survey data and to reach recommendations. Furthermore, knobby analyses allow follow‐up analyses of special management problems. Four examples of these subsequent analyses are provided in order to illustrate the process of producing expert data via the knobby analyses approach. It is inconclusive whether or not knobby analyses are more expensive than expert data processes using only the EOS results. However, knobby analyses did provide more and different information than an EOS could have done alone.

This article describes the processes, problems, and results of a Writers' Workshop over its two year period. The main purpose of the Writers' Workshop was to work with authors in order to help them develop their ideas in the form of articles publishable in a top academic journal. The main results are the five articles contained in this Special Issue. This paper also includes the authors' personal evaluation of the Writers' Workshop and a thumbnail summary of each article.

The process approach to multi-level organizational behavior is based on the assumption that multi-level organizational behavior is processual in nature. This article defines group and organizational processes and their representation as process frameworks. Both functional and inclusional classes of levels exist, each of which has at least five categories of levels. All ten categories are special cases of process frameworks. This article provides examples of each category level, which it uses to illustrate new models of organizational work, extended models of interdependence, a new typology of theories based on their levels of processes, and a new tool for survey research called knobby analyses. After explaining the basic idea of knobby analysis, the article briefly describes the processual theory of the organizational hologram, the use of linear programming, and causal-chain analysis to provide multi-level explanations of employee opinion data. These ideas are embodied in conducting a strategic organizational diagnosis, which is the first stage of organizational design. Organizational design encompasses multiple stages, each of which itself involves multiple, multi-level phenomena and analyses. The basic point is that the processual nature of multi-level organizational phenomena gives more hope for improvements in theory building and their application if one uses the process approach rather than a variable approach.

Given the immense variety of organizations and their purposes, is there some shared underlying reason for their existence? That is, is there a prime directive behind all of this variety? This paper argues that there is such a prime directive: to ensure the welfare of the commons. A commons is the organization, itself, and as such, it produces and yields resources shared by the members in a dynamic interplay of its characteristics. There is a commons‐level set of factors involving its environments, its strategic direction, its implementing commons processes, its resources and technologies, and the results it produces. There is also a member level set of factors involving the member's orientation to the commons, the member's position means of participation, and the results for the members. These eight characteristics must be consistent to ensure the welfare of the commons. These characteristics are continually in flux and the prime directive becomes, in practice, the attaining and sustaining of the dynamic congruency among them. Dynamic congruency implies specific sets of relationships that require balancing in the midst of change. Dynamic congruency can be employed to both assess and improve an organization. The expression of the prime directive has been evolving along with our understanding of organizations. Seeking to attain and sustain dynamic congruency provides a framework for ensuring the welfare of the commons.

This chapter provides a new theory for organizational leadership in which an organization's leadership, authority, management, power, and environments (LAMPE) are made coherent and integrated. Organizations work best if their LAMPE is coherent, integrated, and operational. The chapter begins by introducing basic concepts, such as structures, processes, process frameworks, task–role matrices, interdependence uncertainty, and virtual-like organizational arrangements. The LAMPE theory is then built upon this base. Leadership is defined as the processes of initiating, enabling, implementing, and sustaining change in an organization. Authority is defined as the legal right to preempt the outcome of a decision or a process. Management is defined in term of its major processes. Power is the control of interdependence uncertainty. When 29 leadership practices are introduced, it is possible to link them to all five of LAMPE's constructs. A number of conclusions are derived, in the form of 36 propositions: 5 dealing with leadership, 5 focusing on leadership requirements matching, 4 relating to leadership effectiveness, 5 dealing with leadership capacity, 4 concerning the benefits of distributed leadership, and 13 linking LAMPE to the theory of the organizational hologram.

Paul D. Bliese is currently the commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Unit – Europe. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Social Psychology from Texas Tech University. His research interests include multilevel methodology, leadership, and occupational stress. He is a consulting editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology, and also serves on the editorial boards of Leadership Quarterly and Organizational Research Methods. His work has appeared in the Human Performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Organizational Research Methods.Kristina A. Bourne is a doctoral candidate in Organization Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she also obtained a M.B.A. and a Women’s Studies Graduate Certificate. Her academic interests include gender and organization as well as family-friendly policies and benefits. She is currently working on her dissertation in the area of women business owners, and on a collaborative research project focusing on part-time work arrangements.Gilad Chen is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from George Mason University. His research focuses on work motivation, teams, and leadership, with particular interests in modeling motivation and performance in work team contexts and the examination of multilevel organizational phenomena. His work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Human Performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Organizational Research Methods.Jae Uk Chun is a doctoral student in Organizational Behavior in the School of Management at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he is also research assistant of the Center for Leadership Studies. His major research interests include leadership, group dynamics and group decision-making, and multiple levels of analysis issues.Vinit M. Desai is a doctoral student and researcher in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. His research interests include organizational learning, sensemaking, and error cognition in high reliability organizations.Shelley D. Dionne is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Leadership in the School of Management at Binghamton University, and a fellow in the Center for Leadership Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Binghamton University. Her research interests include leadership and creativity, levels of analysis issues, and team development and training.Daniel G. Gallagher (Ph.D. – University of Illinois), is the CSX Corporation Professor of Management at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management, and Industrial Relations (Berkeley). His current research interests include the multi-disciplinary study of contingent employment and other forms of work outside of the traditional employer – employee relationship.David A. Hofmann (Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University) is currently Associate Professor of Management at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include safety issues in organizations, multi-level analysis, organizational climate/culture and leadership, content specific citizenship behavior, and the proliferation of errors in organizations. In 1992, he was awarded the Yoder-Heneman Personnel Research award by the Society for Human Resource Management. His research appears in a number of journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, and Personnel Psychology. He has also co-authored several book chapters, edited a book (Safety and Health in Organizations: A Multi-level Perspective), and presented papers/workshops at a number of professional conferences.James G. (Jerry) Hunt (Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is the Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Management, Trinity Company Professor in Leadership and Director of the Institute for Leadership Research at Texas Tech University. He is the former editor of the Journal of Management and current Senior Editor of The Leadership Quarterly. He founded and edited the eight volume leadership symposia series, and has authored or edited some 200 book and journal publications. His current research interests include processual approaches to leadership and organizational phenomena and the philosophy of the science of management.Kimberly S. Jaussi is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Leadership in the School of Management at Binghamton University and a fellow in the Center for Leadership Studies. She received her doctorate from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include unconventional leader behavior, creativity and leadership, identity issues in diverse groups, and organizational commitment.Lisa M. Jones is a doctoral candidate in Organizational Behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and her M.B.A. and M.A. from Brigham Young University. Her research interests include leadership, collective personality, and innovation implementation.Kyoungsu Kim is Associate Professor of Organization in the College of Business Administration, Chonnam National University. His major fields of interest are culture and leadership at multiple levels of analysis. His research focuses on charismatic leadership, organizational structure, roles, culture, and multiple levels of analysis.Barbara S. Lawrence is Professor of Human Resources and Organizational Behavior at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. She received her Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. Dr. Lawrence’s current research examines organizational reference groups, the evolution of organizational norms, internal labor markets and their effects on employees’ expectations and implicit work contracts, and the impact of population age change on occupations.Craig C. Lundberg is the Blanchard Professor of Human Resource Management at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. He works with organizations facilitating organizational and personal development and publishes extensively (over 200 articles and chapters, five co-authored books). His current scholarship focuses on organizational change and culture, consultancy, alternative inquiry strategies, and sensemaking and emotions in work settings.Kenneth D. Mackenzie is the Edmund P. Learned Distinguished Professor in the School of Business at the University of Kansas. He is also the President of a pair of consulting companies which support and enrich his research. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on various editorial boards and has published numerous books and articles. He received a B.A. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He has spent his career trying to overcome the handicap of “excessive theoretical education.”Peter Madsen is a doctoral student at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. His thesis work examines the processes by which organizations attempt to learn from past failures and the organizational actions and characteristics that facilitate such learning. His other interests include organizational reliability, strategic management, the work-life interface, and ethics.John E. Mathieu is the Northeast Utilities and Ackerman Scholar Professor of Management at the University of Connecticut. He received a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Old Dominion University in 1985. He has published over 50 articles and chapters on a variety of topics, mostly in the areas of micro- and meso-organizational behavior. He is a member of the Academy of Management, a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Organizational Psychology, and the American Psychological Association. His current research interests include models of training effectiveness, team and multi-team processes, and cross-level models of organizational behavior.Sara Ann McComb is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She obtained her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. Her research interests include alternative work arrangements and project teams. Currently, she is examining mutually beneficial links between organizations and part-time workers, particularly in the service sector. She is also studying the way in which project teams share information, a project for which she was award the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.Jone L. Pearce is Professor of Organization and Strategy in the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine. She conducts research on workplace interpersonal processes, such as trust, and how these processes may be affected by political structures, economic conditions and organizational policies and practices. Her work has appeared in over seventy scholarly articles and her most recent book is Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government (Erlbaum, 2001). She is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and served as the Academy’s President in 2002–2003.Amy E. Randel is an Assistant Professor and the Coca-Cola Fellow in the Calloway School of Business & Accountancy at Wake Forest University. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include identity in organizations, diverse group dynamics, group efficacy, cross-cultural management, and social capital.Richard Reeves-Ellington is currently Professor Emeritus in the School of Management at Binghamton University and an Associate Dean at Excelsior College. He taught at the American University in Bulgaria and Sofia University in Bulgaria as a Fulbright Senior Scholar. His fields of interest revolve around cross-cultural aspects of global organization, marketing, and business strategy. He also served on the Fulbright Selection Committee for SE Europe, the Muskie Foundation for students from the CIS, and the Fulbright Senior Scholars Program. His initial 33-year career in the pharmaceutical industry included 19 years of living in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.Christine M. Riordan is a faculty member in the Department of Management and also the Director of the Institute for Leadership Advancement in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. Chris’ current research, which includes the study of labor force and cross-cultural diversity, has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Organizational Research Methods, and Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management.Karlene H. Roberts is a Professor of Business Administration at the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. She has been on the review boards of many major journals in her field. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society and the Academy of Management. Her current research interests are in the design and management of organizations in which errors can have catastrophic outcomes. In this area she explores cross-level issues.Denise M. Rousseau is the H. J. Heinz II Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. An organizational psychologist, her research focuses on worker-employer relationships and multi-level processes in organizational change. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and in 2003–2004, President of the Academy of Management.Melissa Woodard Barringer is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She obtained her Ph.D. in Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Her research interests are in the areas of total compensation and alternative work arrangements. She is currently studying part-time work in the service industry, and contingent work in the accounting and academic professions.

This paper describes the origins and a few main “course corrections” as the author evolved his processual models and theories for explaining and predicting organizational behavior. Interest in aggregation problems and their solutions lead to the evolution of the processual approach. The paper emphasizes the need for being engaged with the phenomena. Being engaged, however, can have the consequence that the researcher co-evolves with the research.