برخی از ویژگی های دانش رفتار سازمانی و مباحث ایجاد شده در آموزش رفتار سازمانی Some features of organizational behavior knowledge and the resulting issues in teaching organizational behavior

As a practice implication, this paper may induce OB teachers to reflect about their own experiences of these issues in their OB teaching and about the features of OB knowledge that give rise to these issues. This reflection may help OB teachers to understand and manage their OB teaching experiences. Another practice implication of this paper is that it may suggest a need for actions to devise and implement solutions that may improve the practice of OB teaching by addressing the issues associated with OB teaching. This could occur at various levels e institutional level or individual level of OB teachers-as outlined below. First, guidelines could be developed to facilitate the delivery of OB contents based on the features of OB contents in specific topics or the features of the overall OB contents. For example, based on his assessment of the limitations of motivation theories, Pinder (1977) made some suggestions for teaching motivation theories. Such topic-specific teaching approach adoption by OB teachers could be one action for dealing with some of the OB teaching issues outlined in this paper. As another example, Miner (2003) evaluated 73 OB theories and based on the evaluation provided some suggestions for OB teaching. Along the lines of the suggestions for teaching of motivation theories in particular (Pinder, 1977) and OB theories in general (Miner, 2003) available in the literature, developing guidelines for actions to improve OB teaching by addressing the OB teaching issues outlined in this paper is another practice implication coming from this paper. Second, though knowledge/content and reflection/experience are two elements of OB, the content element remains the main part of OB teaching (Brown et al., 2013). Thus, an OB teaching approach that emphasizes the content element is likely to be affected more by the limiting features of the OB knowledge and the OB teaching issues are likely to manifest more intensely in such an approach. Consider the example of the evidence-based management (EBM) approach. Based on a review of “more than 800 required management course syllabi from 333 programs” in the USA, Charlier, Brown, and Rynes (2011, p. 222) noted that “approximately 25% of core MBA management courses utilize EBM in some form” and that “Evidence-based management-consistent syllabi are most prevalent at the MBA level in organizational behavior.” Some features of this EBM approach are reflected in Rousseau and McCarthy (2007, p. 85) who note that “The first principle in evidence-based teaching is to educate people in principles founded upon a convergent body of research…principles based on evidence are the basis for procedures that translate these principles into action” (emphasis added). Similarly, Erez and Grant (2014, p. 104) suggest that in this approach educators need to focus on teaching evidence-based management. These features of this teaching approach suggest that it is likely to require considerable reliance on the OB contents. Thus, this teaching approach is more likely to be affected by the limiting features of OB knowledge and by the resulting OB teaching issues than other OB teaching approaches that have less emphasis on the scientific evidence/content. By implication, OB teaching approaches that have different levels of relative emphasis on knowledge/content and reflection/experience elements may be affected to a differing extent by the limiting features OB knowledge. Literature has noted the existence of various teaching approaches such as the above mentioned evidence-based management (EBM) approach (e.g., Rousseau, 2006), practical OB education (PROBE) approach (e.g., Shaw, Fisher, & Southey, 1999), experiential learning approach (e.g., Kayes, 2002), problem-based learning approach (e.g., Sherwood, 2004), and learning-centered teaching approach (e.g., Whetten, 2007). Such approaches could be viewed as having differing levels of relative emphasis on knowledge/content and reflection/experience elements. Thus, one implication for practice that this paper yields is to explore OB teaching approaches in which the relative emphasis on knowledge/content and reflection/experience elements is such that they can more effectively deal with the limiting features of OB knowledge and the resulting OB teaching issues. This practice implication would require explorations at the institutional level for devising teaching approaches, guidelines, training, and faculty support frameworks. This practice implication would also require actions at the level of individual teachers for customizing and implementing such OB teaching approaches that may be devised at the institutional level. Third, exploration of various institutional level administrative actions to address the OB teaching issues is another practice implication. For example, institutionally devising appropriate faculty recruitment and development systems to enable the faculty to deal with the limiting features of OB knowledge and the resulting teaching issues could be one possible action. Literature (e.g., Vermeulen, 2007) has provided some suggestions on how faculty members can do relevant research and bring their research into their classroom teaching. Such drawing upon one’s own research-generated knowledge could be one way of at least partly dealing with the limiting features of OB knowledge and the resulting teaching issues. Systematic exploration and design of such actions from an institutional level is another practice implication brought out by this paper. Fourth, as in the present period the relevance and usefulness of management research is being both questioned (e.g., Pearce & Huang, 2012) and defended (e.g., Peng & Dess, 2010) and the resulting debate is touching upon aspects such as the nature and role of research, teaching, and institutions, the OB teaching issues outlined in this paper are likely to acquire greater significance. Thus, an additional implication for practice is to explore institutional policies and structures to facilitate OB research that is more useful to OB teaching which itself may be influenced by factors such as likely information overload and the changing proportion of face-to-face teaching. Thus, the practice implications emerging out of this paper focus on individual level in terms of OB teachers’ reflection on their experience of these teaching issues in order to understand and manage their teaching experiences emerging from these issues. The practice implications also focus on the institutional level actions for exploring, devising, and encouraging teaching approaches that can effectively deal with the limiting features of OB knowledge and the resulting teaching issues and also for adopting various practices such as faculty development to facilitate their dealing with the OB teaching issues.