OVERVIEW

This 7-week seminar will be designed to familiarize the doctoral-level student with a selection of topics, theories, and frustrations associated with the study of individual behavior and social processes in organizations. Readings will include articles and chapters that are conceptual/theoretical in nature, original empirical studies, and the occasional research literature review. The seminar itself will be a co-conspiracy between the students and the alleged instructor aimed at producing thoughtful analysis and inquiry. Each week, a participant or two will be responsible for facilitation that initiates a measure of structure for the seminar session.

READINGS

Readings are from journals and annual review volumes found in the Vanderbilt library system. Most are available electronically, with links provided below within the Seminar Schedule. I will make available hardcopies of the few that are not online. You will need a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer to read articles in PDF file format. If you don't have it, you can download a free copy from Adobe's Web site.

SCHEDULE

The seminar will meet for seven Wednesdays beginning August 29 from 9:00 am-11:00 am in the third-floor conference room in Management Hall (room 300E). The week-to-week schedule of assigned readings is given below. Come to the seminar prepared to discuss all assigned articles.

DELIVERABLES

With respect to formal deliverables, I have these expectations (with corresponding grade weights).

For students taking the course for 1.0 credit hours:

(1) regular, well-prepared participation in the seminar (60% of grade)
(2) seminar leadership on an assigned/selected day (grade incorporated into participation)
(3) two think-piece essays one due in week 3, the other in week 5 (20% of grade)
(4) two written manuscript reviews, one due in week 4, the other in week 6 (20% of grade)

For students taking the course for 2.0 credit hours:

(1) regular, well-prepared participation in the seminar (50% of grade)
(2) seminar leadership on an assigned/selected day (grade incorporated into participation)
(3) two think-piece essays one due in week 3, the other in week 5 (12.5% of grade)
(4) two written manuscript reviews, one due in week 4, the other in week 6 (12.5% of grade)
(5) a research paper on a topic related to the content of the seminar (25% of grade)

A think-piece essay is your cogent analysis/reaction to one or more readings for that week's seminar. You can critique theoretical or empirical approaches, or propose and justify new research questions that spin off from readings, or take some other philosophical or analytical direction related to topic and readings for that week. Appropriate length is 700 or so words.

A manuscript review is a journal reviewer evaluation for a manuscript that I will provide. You are the journal reviewer. Your review should consist of (a) comments for the authors (appropriate length is roughly two pages of comments, single spaced) and (b) comments and editorial recommendation for the editor (a paragraph or so is sufficient).

The research paper is a scholarly paper on a theme related to one of the topics covered in the seminar. It can be either (a) a conceptual paper that reviews literature and develops a model or propositions (a review alone is insufficient), or (b) the front end of an empirical article that reviews literature, develops a hypotheses, and sketches the methods of an empirical study that would test those predictions. Appropriate length is in the vicinity of 15-20 double space pages. Be sure to follow an acceptable widely accepted scholarly format for paper content and citations (my preference is for APA style or Academy of Management style, but others are possible). The research paper is due on December 12; students taking the course for 2.0 credits will receive an incomplete pending submission of the research paper. Clear your topic with me by October 10.

Week 1 -- Aug. 29 -- First Meeting

Belkin (2002). The odds of that. The New York Times Magazine, August 11, 2002.

Pfeffer (1993). Barriers to the advance of organizational science: Paradigm development as a dependent variable. Academy of Management Review, 18: 599-620.

Perrow (1994). Dialogue: "Pfeffer slips". Academy of Management Review, 19: 191-194.

Gurley (2002). What I don't know. The New York Observer, March 4, 2002.

• ASSIGNMENT: After reading this last piece, come to the seminar prepared to
  share your own list of what you don't know.

Week 2 -- Sept. 5 -- Individual Differences

First, a couple of conceptual pieces about the importance (or not) of individual differences in organizational behavior:

Davis-Blake and Pfeffer (1989). Just a mirage: The search for dispositional effects in organizational research. Academy of Management Review, 14: 385-400.

House, Shane and Herold (1996). Rumors of the death of dispositional research are vastly exaggerated. Academy of Management Review, 21: 203-224.

A piece on intelligence:

Sternberg (1997). Managerial intelligence: Why IQ isn't enough. Journal of Management, 23: 475-493.

Two studies on personality, including two emphasizing on the Big Five approach:

Hurtz and Donovan (2000). Personality and job performance: The big five revisited. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85: 869-879. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the December 2000 issue)

Schneider, Smith, Taylor, and Fleenor (1998). Personality and organizations: A test of the homogeneity of personality hypothesis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83: 462-470. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the June 1998 issue)

OPTIONAL (but recommended): an empirical article on the critical issue of board factors (Big Five) vs. narrower facets:

Paunonen and Ashton (2001). Big five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81: 524-539. (find this at Ovid/JPSP in the September 2001 issue)

Lastly, for your dining and dancing pleasure, a magazine piece by Malcolm Gladwell on employers and personality tests:

Gladwell (2004). Personality Plus. The New Yorker, 80(27): 42-48.

Week 3 -- Sept. 12 -- Attitudes, Cognition, Motivation

Due: Think Piece Essay #1

---

first, background on attitudes (don't dwell, but get the gist):

Ajzen (2001). Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual Review of Psychology, 52: 27-58.

next, background on motivation (do dwell, and get the gist):

Latham and Pinder (2005). Work motivation theory and research at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 56: 485-516.

updating last week's debate on individual differences: dispositions and satisfaction:

Staw and Yochi Cohen-Charash (2005). The dispositional approach to job satisfaction: more than a mirage, but not yet an oasis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25: 59-78.

Gerhart (2005). The (affective) dispositional approach to job satisfaction: sorting out the policy implications. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25: 79-97.

the age-old question of satisfaction/performance link: individual-level and organization-level:

Judge, Thoresen, Bono, and Patton (2001). The Job Satisfaction-Job Performance Relationship: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review. Psychological Bulletin, 127: 376-407. (find this at Ovid/PB in the May 2001 issue)

Schneider, Hanges, Smith, and Salvaggio (2003). Which comes first: Employee attitudes or organizational financial and market performance?. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88: 836-851. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the October 2003 issue)

an unusual organizational application:

Rafaeli, Dutton, Harquail and Mackie-Lewis (1997). Navigating by attire: The use of dress by female administrative employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40: 9-45.

Lastly, an important and influential article on objective vs. subjective origins of motivation and job attitudes:

Salancik and Pfeffer (1978). A social information processing approach to job attitudes and task design. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23: 224-253.

Week 4 -- Sept. 19 -- Power, Influence, Politics

Due: Manuscript Review #1

---

First, a sampling of some of Ellen Langer’s early experimental work:

Langer (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32: 311-328. NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE

an up-to-date summary of what we know about the social psychology of compliance:

Cialdini and Goldstein (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55: 591-621.

Crano and Prislin (2006). Attitudes and persuasion. Annual Review of Psychology, 57: 345-374. NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE.

next, a sampling of recent empirical work in the OB literature on managerial influence:

Higgins, Judge, and Ferris (2003). Influence tactics and work outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24: 89-106.

Cable and Judge (2003). Managers' upward influence tactic strategies: the role of manager personality and supervisor leadership style. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24: 197-214.

Yukl, Chavez, and Seifert (2005). Assessing the construct validity and utility of two new influence tactics. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26: 705-725.

a recent and representative study of organizational politics:

Treadway, Hochwarter, Kacmar, and Ferris (2005). Political will, political skill, and political behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26: 229-245.

a paper that comes at this topic from novel theoretical and empirical angles:

Rafaeli and Sutton (1991). Emotional contrast strategies as means of social influence: Lessons from criminal interrogators and bill collectors. Academy of Management Journal, 34: 749-775.

Week 5 -- Sept. 26 -- Groups

Due: Think Piece Essay #2

---

first, two important review pieces, one (2004) focused on the social psychology of small group performance and decision making, and the other (2005) focused on why some groups are more effective than others:

Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, and Jundt (2005). Teams in organizations: From input-process-output models to IMOI models. Annual Review of Psychology, 56: 517-543.

Kerr and Tindale (2004). Group performance and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 55: 623-655. (find this at Ovid/ARP - in the 2004 volume)

two classic perspectives on group development:

Tuckman (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63: 384-399. Not available online.

Gersick (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31: 9-41.

next, empirical pieces on group composition:

Polzer, Milton, and Swann (2002). Capitalizing on diversity: Interpersonal congruence in small work groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47: 296-324. (available through Ebsco via Acorn if this link doesn't work)

Harrison, Price, and Bell (1998). Beyond relational demography: Time and the effects of surface- and deep-level diversity on work group cohesion. Academy of Management Journal, 41: 96-107.

a couple of studies of group process/outcome:

Gibson (1999). Do they do what they believe they can? Group efficacy and group effectiveness across tasks and cultures. Academy of Management Journal, 42: 138-152.

Murnighan and Conlon (1991). The dynamics of intense work groups: A study of British string quartets. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36: 165-186.

optional:

Leavitt (1996). The old days, hot groups, and managers' lib. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41:288-300.

Week 6 -- Oct. 3 -- Conflict, Trust, Emotion

Due: Manuscript Review #2

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an empirical study of intragroup conflict:

Jehn (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40: 256-282.

task vs. relationship conflict: which matters more?:

De Dreu and Weingart (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 741-749. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the August 2003 issue)

a study representative of recent work on group "faultlines":

Lau and Murnighan (2005). Interactions within groups and subgroups: The effects of demographic faultlines. Academy of Management Review, 48: 645-659.

a review piece that gives a little history of research on the social psychology of negotiation:

Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, and Valley (2000). Negotiation. Annual Review of Psychology, 51: 279-314.

a few representative empirical studies on negotiation:

Kray, Thompson, and Galinsky (2001). Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80: 942-958. (find this at Ovid/JPSP in the June 2001 issue)

Barry and Friedman (1998). Bargainer characteristics in distributive and integrative negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74: 345-359. (find this at Ovid/JPSP in the February 1998 issue)

Kim, Diekman, and Tenbrunsel (2003). Flattery may get you somewhere: The strategic implications of providing positive vs. negative feedback about ability vs. ethicality in negotiation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 90: 225-243. (available through Science Direct via Acorn if this link doesn't work)

lastly, trust: a review and a recent empirical piece:

Kramer (1999). Trust and distrust in organizations: Emerging perspectives, enduring questions. Annual Review of Psychology, 50: 569-598.

Mayer and Gavin (2006). Trust in management and performance: Who minds the shop while the employees watch the boss? Academy of Management Journal, 48:874-888.

Week 7 -- Oct. 10 -- Ethics, Justice, Deviance

first, a recent review of behavioral research on ethics and an influential early empirical study:

Trevino, Weaver, and Reynolds (2006). Behavioral ethics in organizations: A review. Journal of Management, 32: 951-990.

Victor and Cullen (1988). The organizational bases of ethical work climates. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33: 101-125.

applications of (in)justice:

van den Bos, Bruins, Wilke and Dronkert (1999). Sometimes unfair procedures have nice aspects: On the psychology of the fair process effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77: 324-336. (find this at Ovid/JPSP in the August 1999 issue)

Chen, Brockner, and Greenberg (2003). When is it "a pleasure to do business with you?" The effects of relative status, outcome favorability, and procedural fairness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 92: 1-21. (available through Science Direct via Acorn if this link doesn't work)

Ragins and Cornwell (2001). Pink triangles: Antecedents and consequences of perceived workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86: 1244-1261. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the December 2001 issue)

Greenberg (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75: 561-568. (find this at Ovid/JAP in the October 1990 issue)

a study of deviance:

Robinson and O'Leary-Kelly (1998). Monkey see, monkey do: The influence of work groups on the antisocial behavior of employees. Academy of Management Journal, 41: 658-672.

And a seminar-closing meditation:

Barley (2006). When I write my masterpiece: Thoughts on what makes a paper interesting. Academy of Management Journal, 49: 16-20.

rev. 4-Sept-2007