Toward Explicating Philosophical Orientations in Organizational Behavior (OB)

Abstract

The article discusses organizational behavior (OB) from a philosophical perspective. Behaviorism, which is subdivided into essentialism and experimentalism, focuses on the impact of external reality on human behavior. Humanism, which covers phenomenology and existentialism, concentrates on internal reality and the subjectivity of human knowledge and relies on insight to bring about change. Behaviorism and humanism are defined by three properties of philosophy--reality or ontology, knowledge or epistemology, and value or axiology--and by their significance to OB and problem solving.