Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach

Great addition to the workbook. I was not interested in organization psychology but had to take the class to graduate. I was suprised how much I liked the course and reading the text. Became my favorite course of this semester. Easy to read and very informative.

"Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach" has rightfully earned its reputation as a practical applied OD Classic! While traditional primary and secondary education emphasize building mental libraries of `theoretical knowledge,' Osland, Kolb, and Rubin recognize that working professionals learn through applicable experiences that address real-world challenges--thus, `an experiential approach.' I have successfully used lessons from "Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach" during consulting engagements in both private and public sectors, in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and in graduate business education. Consistently, through `experiential approaches' as described in "Organizational Behavior", adults learn more useful lessons from their experiences, learn what their lessons mean, learn how to generalize their learning for other applicable situations, AND apply more of their learning when they are back on the job. Experiential learning goes beyond merely increasing knowledge and actually changes individual (and organizational) behavior. I highly recommend "Organizational Behavior: An Experiential Approach" for everyone working to achieve results through other people--and also for anyone seeking to better understand themselves and how they interact with other people.

This book is great. I bought it thinking that I'd use it just for my organizational behavior class and I was wrong. The group exercises will definitely come in handy in future group assignments and in the workplace.

"The organizational behavior reader" contains twenty chapters, each with two or three readings by recognized academic experts, usually adapted from the original source, e.g., Harvard Business Review. Chapters begin with the psychological contract (1), theories of managing people (2), individual and organizational learning (3), individual and organizational motivation (4), ethics and values (5), personal growth and work stress (6), and later topics include managing diversity (12), leadership (13), decision making (15), performance appraisal (18), and managing change (20). The pantheon of authors features experts such as Henry Mintzberg, Jay Conger, Denise Rousseau, Ed Lawler, Peter Senge, Cary Cooper, Deborah Tannen, Geert Hofstede, Hank Sims, Victor Vroom, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Ray Miles, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. There are numerous charts, diagrams, graphs and models. Anecdotes and examples are plentiful. Self-assessments are rare. Few of the readings offer empirical data; the emphasis is on mental models, images, and concepts.Professors of organizational behavior, looking for readings rather than integrated text, exercises, and cases, as well as a less expensive alternative to traditional college textbooks, will find this book appealing. These authors are, in general, engaging and highly readable. Chapters can be assigned in an order or avoided altogether to please the teacher's preferences. The breadth of topics, the currency of the treatments, and the expertise of the authors provide a solid foundation for the primary college OB course. Graduate students in need of less text structure and faculty in need of less ancillary materials will find the most benefit.The book is rooted in social psychology and emphasizes perception, learning, thinking, images and personality, e.g., interpersonal communication, attribution, creativity. There is less on the `behavior' side of organizational behavior. Several authors use the device of posing `myths' to contrast with the author's learned, alternative state (`fact'), and sometimes the myths read more like `conventional wisdom' or the author's own attempt to make his or her point more vivid by presenting a myth that exists only in the minds of a few people. For business school students, this reader is more about organizations and people than about business. Business faculty and courses adopting this book will likely want and need to provide a management context.

Osland, Kolb, and Rubin continue to make a fine book better. The buyer is well advised to think about the title before making a purchase. Organizational Behavior: an Experiential Approach makes clear that much of the text will be devoted to things like "Learning Style Inventories," "Thematic Apperception Tests," "Past Experience Inventories", "Active Listening Exercises," Case Studies, Role Plays, and the like. Many of these exercises may be easily completed and scored by the reader. Some, like the Thematic Apperception Test, are difficult for the reader to score accurately, but not impossible. Many of the exercises, such as active listening, require a partner, and some simulations require a larger group to complete the work.The introductory text to the experiential exercises at the end of each chapter is well written and instructive. In a few words the authors make valuable points about perception, motivation, leadership, decision-making and problem solving, group work, and team development. They have in mind the professional manager who has on-the-job experience; a younger reader might find it difficult to relate to the tone and style of the book, which is aimed at a literate, educated, intelligent audience.College professors, many of whom are a finicky lot, have adopted this book for their organizational behavior courses for over twenty years. That they continue to select this text is testimony to its enduring appeal and value.For those readers who want a more conventional approach to the subject of organizational behavior, Stephen Robbins has written a variety of OB books that are comprehensive, readable, and even entertaining. Robbins covers more ground than Osland, but has less room for personal application of the material.The reader who wants to learn from concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experiementation will find Organizational Behavior: an Experiential Approach an excellent resource for further study and application.