ABSTRACT
Allow us to state the premise of our chapter right at its beginning. We believe that a number of seemingly disparate constructs studied by organizational psychologists are essentially the same construct, requiring the same theoretical framework for explanation. Too often, these essentially identical latent constructs are regarded as different, are studied independent of each other by different sets of researchers, and are enmeshed in different explanatory systems. We believe this situation exists because the organizational “constructs” studied are described and defined by the way organizational phenomena are experienced by organizational members, or by the way they are identified by organizations, rather than by their underlying psychological meaning. Expressed in terms of manifest variables and latent constructs, too often, theory construction in the organizational sciences begins and ends with organizational members’ manifest experiences of organizational phenomena. Artificial boundaries are then formed that lead to the development of inappropriately narrow, phenomena-driven theories, and prevent us from recognizing that our separate phenomena are really alternative manifestations of the same underlying construct.
