METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

In this chapter a detailed look has been taken at the alternative methods available for generating valid knowledge in organizational behavior. Primary emphasis has been placed on the requirements for an acceptable deductive argument and the elements necessary for accurate empirical analysis. The problems of behavioral measurement are also analyzed. The chapter concludes with an examination of the functional explanation, which is frequently encountered in the biological and behavioral sciences.

Rather than reiterating here the arguments developed, the need for devoting a chapter to the discussion of selected philosophical problems of the inexact sciences is reviewed. The objective is not abstraction for the sake of abstraction. Sir Roy Harrod, the great British economist, once said that, “the barrenness of methodological conclusions is often a fitting compliment to the weariness entailed in the process of reaching them.” Such discussions do indeed sometimes seem unusually boring and tiresome. However, in the area of organizational behavior, methodological issues are especially pressing. As the analysis is continued throughout the remainder of this book , frequent reference is continuously made to issues of knowledge generation, measurement, and associated topics that are all methodological in character. This is the method that unites science. If a systematic understanding of the concepts of organizational behavior is to be developed, then the methods employed in formulating them has to be appreciated.

Therefore, it is hoped that this chapter has provided a brief introduction to the methodology of the behavioral sciences. Of special significance is the recognition that although organizational behavior is scientific in character, it deals with human beings. Human beings are different from inanimate objects and organizational behavior is an empirical discipline. The application of the strict and unmodified inductive method, however, fails to account for many unique qualities of humans. The objective is to be as scientific as possible, while remaining open to the realities of human behavior.