Big-B versus big-O: What is organizational about organizational behavior?

This paper is an empirically grounded essay about the current state of organizational behavior (OB) research and productive future directions. We report the results of a survey of OB scholars about the current importance of various research topics and their importance in an ideal world. We compare the survey responses with an archival analysis of papers published in leading OB journals over a 10-year period. We suggest that many of the topics that our respondents perceive to be 'under researched' can be summarized with one particular definition of OB that emphasizes organizing behavior. Considering all three definitions together, we highlight the limitations of the traditional (Big-B and Contextualized-B) definitions and discuss the benefits of a more organizational (Big-O) approach. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Duke Scholars

Author Sim B. Sitkin Fuqua School of Business