What is OB?


The discipline of Organizational Behavior encompasses three broad areas:

1. The Behavior of People in Organizations

OB draws on psychology, anthropology and sociology to gain insight into the behavior of individuals in organizational settings. Topics studied include:

2. Organizational Structure

Organizations consist of people organized to achieve organizational goals (like manufacture cars). One of the most important strategic elements of an organization is its structure: how the people are arranged so as to produce what the organization produces. Topics include:

3. Behavior of organizations

Just as we can study the interactions of individuals with the organization and with each other, we can also study the interactions of organizations with their environments, which include individual citizens and other organizations including the government. Some of the behaviors of organizations that we are interested in include:

As part of these investigations, we study such things as:


Revised: January 21, 1999 Go to Home Page