ABSTRACT
A variety of values provide a powerful impetus to social science research. However, objectivity is such a strong ideal for all science that values are generally left implicit, denied, or obfuscated. Moreover, implicit value issues impose more significant problems for the social sciences than for most of the physical sciences. Values deserve far more explicit consideration in research. For example, why are certain implicit values concentrated in a given subfield and not in another? Varying popularity of research has been documented to be remarkably independent of the accumulation of rigorous research results (Dunnette and Brown, 1968; Nord and Durand, 1978). It is likely that the popularity of research is substantially related to the values attached to the subject matter, but we often cannot even be sure what those values are. This is only one of many reasons explored in this chapter about the significance of making values explicit in organizational behavior (OB) research. This chapter offers one view of why the field would benefit from scrutinizing the value aspects of research with the same rigor that is directed toward theoretical and methodological aspects. Specific value questions about pivotal issues in the field are explored to make some fundamental issues more explicit. These issues include the people OB research is supposed to serve, the world OB research is helping to enact, and the power the field relies upon to make a point.
