Craig C. Pinder

Time to Proficiency Following Job Transfers

The time required by an individual to become proficient at a new job following a transfer is important to both employee and employer. This study suggested that subjective factors, such as levels of...

The Resurrection of Taxonomy to Aid the Development of Middle Range Theories of Organizational Behavior.

Since the publication of Katz and Kahn’s The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966) and Thompson’s Organizations in Action (1967), the open systems model has dominated the thinking of scholars interested in organization theory. Although a number of authors, such as Scott (1961), had discussed the systems view of organizations before 1966, Katz and Kahn’s book was the first major exemplar of the systems model, and the one probably most often cited since then in connection with the systems paradigm. For Katz and Kahn, the stated purpose of applying the systems model to organizations was to facilitate the integration of so-called “macro” and “micro” concepts, thereby fostering some commonality of terms and concepts. Further, they hoped that the systems model would escape a commonly alleged fault of earlier approaches to the study of social organization, namely, a tendency to rely on analogies and metaphors that were not entirely appropriate (Katz and Kahn, 1966: 9).

Contrasting Philosophical Perspectives in Administrative Science: A Reply to Morgan.

V. Warren Bourgeois and Craig C. Pinder The debate in the recent organizational science literature constituted in part by papers such as those by Manning (1979), Keeley (1980), Morgan (1980), and us (Pinder and Bourgeois, 1982) is a natural and predictable extension of a controversy that has been underway for many years in most other disciplines and that is still unresolved (and unresolvable?) within the disciplines of philosophy and linguistics.

Urban Geographic Factors and Location Satisfaction Following A Personnel Transfer

The article discusses a study pertaining to the comparative importance of various urban characteristics in predicting the location satisfaction of relocated employees. A total of 405 U.S. employees...

The Inevitability of Multiple Paradigms and the Resultant Need for Middle Range Analysis in Organization Theory

It has become fashionable in recent years for scholars to criticize “the state of the art” in the study of organizations. A content analysis of many of these criticisms and alleged problems reveals discontent about fundamental issues such as the directions the field has taken or is taking, and about how research and theorizing are being conducted. Controversy of such a basic nature and the frequency of its appearance suggests to us that there is considerable disappointment and frustration on the part of many students of the field and a widespread suspicion that the rate of progress in our learning about organizations is incommensurate with the effort being expended.

Toward Middle Range Theory

This conference was called for the purpose of exploring the meaning of Merton’s (1968) concept of middle range theory, and for examining the relevance of the concept for the scientific study of organizations and organizational behavior (O.B.). This paper will attempt to set the stage for our deliberations by providing a brief interpretation of the history of theoretical development in O.B., and by highlighting the five major themes of the conference.

Preparing Students as Consumers of Organizational Behavior: a Call for More Emphasis On Theory

Based on their interpretations of the teaching needs in Organizational Behavior, instructors generally seem to agree on the requirement for balance between cognitive and experiential learning (Bradford and Strauss, 1975). Lately, however, there appears to be an overabundance of attention to the development of new and exciting experiential exercises without sufficient regard for the knotty question of how best to prepare the student to understand and appreciate the cognitive knowledge related to our field (Senger, 1975). While