Contributing disciplines to the field of OB

Contributing disciplines to the field of OB are psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences.

Contributing disciplines to the field of OB:

1. Psychology: Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception, training, leadership effectiveness, performance appraisal, attitude measurement, employee selection, work design, job stress.
2. Social psychology: behavioral change, attitude change, communication, group processes, group decision making.
3. Sociology: (communication, power, conflict, intergroup behavior) & (formal organization theory, organizational technology, organizational change, organizational culture)
4. Anthropology: (comparative values, comparative attitudes, cross-cultural analysis) & (organizational culture, organizational environment, power).
5. Other social sciences

Contributing Disciplines to the field of OB:

OB is an integrated body of knowledge (jointly) contributed by several behavioral disciplines. It is an interdisciplinary field. The major contributors to the study of OB are psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political sciences among others. The figure below presents an overview of the major contributors to the study of OB.

1. Psychology:

It is the science of human and animal behavior including the application of science to human problems. This field is interested in a very broad range of human thought and behavior. Its contributions have been mainly at the micro or individual level of analysis.

In psychology, it studies from the micro-level of human behavior. That will be so helpful for the OB to study the individual’s behavior and action. So, that OB managers can find the exact approach for their employee’s behavior cause behavior, feelings vary from person to person.

More recently, their contributions have been expanded to include learning, perception, personality, training, leadership effectiveness, needs, and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee selection techniques, work design, and job stress.

2. Social psychology:

It is the scientific study of how interaction, interdependence, and influence among persons affect their behavior. This field of study blends concepts from psychology and sociology. Social psychologists have provided an answer to why people behave as they do:

Social psychology analyses the behavior at the group level. It has made a remarkable contribution in the areas of measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes, communication patterns, group-decision making processes, etc. OB has a relationship with social psychology as both of them study at a macro level like a group of people in a company.

3. Sociology:

It studies people about their fellow human beings. It has made generalizations about human nature, social interaction, culture, and social organizations. It is the second most important contributor to the field of OB. Its major contribution areas are group dynamics, communication, power, conflict, culture, norms, roles,
status, socialization, organization theory, organizational change, etc. It helps to analyze the behavior at both group and organizational levels.

Sociology is the study of society and OB borrows the knowledge of sociology cause the company cannot grow if it cannot adjust with the surrounding society.

4. Anthropology:

It examines all the behaviors of man which have to be which are a part of the broad concept of culture. It analyses the learned, including all the social, technical, and family behavior of people at the group and organizational level. This field study helps us in understanding the cultural factors on behavior, value system, comparative norms, values and attitudes, organizational culture and environment, and so on.

OB firmly believes in the influence of the historical background of any employee as they will surely give some kind of judgment. For example; Asian people are considered hardworking and honest in America and Europe.

5. Other Social Sciences:

It studies individual and group behavior in relationship to a political environment and thereby helps to analyze the behavior of people at the organizational level. Popular topics derived from political science are power, political authority, conflict They help to understand the influence process in OB. Nowadays organizations are also regarded as political systems. So, managers need to understand organizational power and the political dynamic inside the organization. All the above fields have added separate and useful elements to the knowledge of OB. Besides those disciplines, some other disciplines also contributed to our understanding of OB are economics, history, and medicine, etc.

There are a lot of sciences to which OB is connected, but some of the major disciplines are mentioned above.

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