Organizational Behavior and Theory


The second pillar of the Minnesota Model of HRIR is organizational behavior and theory. Students who specialize in this area study how individuals are organized into business or non-business settings, the relationships in these settings, and individual and group behaviors.


Important topics in this area include:

  • Identifying the fundamental economic and psychological factors that determine individual behavior
  • How organizations may be structured at micro- and macro-levels in response to individual behavior
  • How the formal structure of an organization affects recruiting, training, compensation, employment stability, and management style, etc.


CoreCourse

PhD students who specialize in this area will take 2 semesters of HRIR 8840. One semester focuses on organizational behavior, while the other focuses on organizational theory.


HRIR 8840
FACULTY

Areasof Study

Students who specialize in organizational behavior and theory may study the following topics:

  • The importance of organizational culture
  • Organizational design and determinants
  • The nature of leadership
  • Determinants of work motivation
  • Relationships between employee attitudes and behaviors
  • Organizations in other capitalist market economies and post-socialist economies
  • The information structure in organizations and its impact on management-labor relations
  • Human capital investment behavior in organizations

FurtherReading

To become more familiar with the topics currently being studied in this area, we highly recommend that students read articles in the top tier journals in this field:

Journal of Organizational Behavior
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Journal of Applied Psychology
Academy of Management Journal
Academy of Management Review
American Economic Review
Journal of Labor Economics