ABSTRACT

As scientists toil in the fields of their disciplines, they rarely enjoy opportunities to step back from their work and evaluate where their efforts have taken them. Assessing a field's scientific progress, however, is critical if it is to have any hope of making meaningful advances.

The time has come for a systematic self-examination of the state of the field of organizational behavior. Where has it been? Where is it now? And where is it going? The present book poses these questions to raise the self-consciousness of organizational scholars, causing them to question the field's values and its worth as a scientific and practical endeavor. Such a critical self-assessment of the state of organizational behavior is absolutely essential if the field is to prosper and make meaningful advances to behavioral science and to the welfare of individuals and society.

This volume is a collection of essays by the field's most highly regarded scholars--experts who have contributed widely to the field, and who were invited to share their thoughts about its past, present, and future. By presenting their ideas about the state of organizational behavior, the discipline as a whole is invited to engage in critical self-reflection. No other book serves this function.