David L. Bradford

Influence without authority: The use of alliances, reciprocity, and exchange to accomplish work

53 ill Heatton is the director of research at a

A Dialogue On "Treating the Classroom as an Organization"

250 million division of a large West Coast company. The division manufactures exotic telecommunications components and has many technical advancements to its credit. During the past several years, however, the division’s performance has been spotty at best; multimillion dollar losses have been experienced in some years despite many efforts to make the division more profitable. Several 6 large contracts have resulted in major finang cial losses, and in each instance the various

A Historical View of the Future of OD An Interview With Jerry Porras

parts of the division blamed the others for the ’ problems. Listen to Bill’s frustration as he g talks about his efforts to influence Ted, a colleague who is marketing director, and Roland, the program manager who reports to Ted.

Some Potential Problems With the Teaching of Managerial Competencies

I would like to share my experiences and learnings from my attempts at implementing Cohen’s model of the classroom as an organization (see The Teaching of Organization Behavior, Volume II, Number 1, March, 1976, p. 13). The course, Introduction to Organization Behavior, was at the undergraduate level and met twice a week for one-and-one-half hours for 13 weeks. Enrollment in sections ranged from 20 to 40 students, at least a third of whom were freshmen. 1. Disorientation of Students

Responding To Student Challenges

David Bradford: Jerry, thanks for doing this. Let’s start at the beginning. You have had a long involvement in organization development [OD]. What led you into the field? Jerry Porras: My involvement in OD started at Cornell when I entered the MBA program in the fall of 1966. As part of the core curriculum I was required to take an organizational behavior [OB] course. Up to that time, I’d never really taken a course in human behavior. I was an undergraduate electrical engineering major, and my coursework consisted almost solely of math, science, physics, and engineering. Clay Alderfer had just joined the Cornell faculty fresh out of Yale where he had been mentored by Chris Argyris. He and Tom Lodahl, who had been at Cornell for a while, decided they were going to experiment with the required OB course. So, each week they offered a required lecture the first session and an experiential activity the second session. For the second session we had a choice of either a case discussion group or a T-group.

Ethical Issues in Experiential Learning

The domain of Organizational Behavior requires attention to the acquisition of managerial competencies. Our field is unique in the business school curriculum because of its dependence on action skills. Accounting, Finance, Marketing and others do not have to concern themselves with problem-finding or implementation. Questions of &dquo;how do I obtain the information I need to solve this problem?&dquo; and &dquo;how do I get the solution implemented,&dquo; although relevant to those other disciplines, are defined as &dquo;OB questions, not finance issues.&dquo; It is far easier to teach what to do than to develop the appropriate learning settings where students can learn how to do it. All of us have felt the frustration when students have equated the two; of assuming that their answer to a case (&dquo;all that Bob Knowlton has to do is confront his boss and Simon Fester&dquo;) is the same

O.B. of the Present and Future -- Reflections From the S.M.U. Conference

Organizational behavior, probably more than other areas, requires a positive classroom climate in order for learning to occur. This climate has to encourage a willingness on the part of the student to suspend initial judgment in considering the material as well as a willingness to get involved in classroom activities. No matter what teaching method is used, the subject matter of OB is potentially threatening, since it connects to so many student values and cherished notions about people. Furthermore, exercises and role-plays often directly attack students’ beliefs about their interpersonal competence. Even in lecture-discussion formats, students may fear the risk of §elf-exposure. Teachers often work hard to develop a favorable climate in their classes (see Athos, 1979, for one excel-

Influence Without Authority

Experiential activities are a powerful pedagogical tool that have grown in popularity. But there are a series of ethical issues (the “shadow side”) that such activities raises. These include (a) inadequate (informed) student choice, (b) bias in what is covered, (c) lack of adequate debriefing, (d) personal exposure in class and community, (e) issues of deception, (f) role behavior being personalized (by self and others), (g) the negative impact of feedback (planned or spontaneous), and (h) the degree of “boundedness” of experiential activities These problems are not inevitable, but with instructor awareness can be lessened. This article also suggests other ways to address these issues.

Power Up: Transforming Organizations Through Shared Leadership

whom we respected, struggling with the same issues. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that it was now legitimate to discuss teaching issues and share mistakes and problems. A different mood characterized the Dallas meeting. Possibly some of these issues lost their novelty the second time they were discussed, but woven through the meetings was a tone of discouragement, cynicism, almost futility. &dquo;Do we make any difference? Are we doing any good? Are we having any real impact on our students.&dquo; This carried over to