The history of Organizational Behavior (OB) can be traced back to the Scientific Management approaches from the Industrial Revolution as early as the late 1800’s with the work of Frederic Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) (Wertheim). It is in this case, behavioral disciplines that have shaped Organizational Behavior into a distinguishable discipline.
Of the options as it relates to Organizational Behavior, four sciences have been identified as having significant impact in OB’s development. They are psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Within each major category there exist individual contribution dimensions that carry with it a unit of analysis affecting the individual, group, and organizational system. Each of following dimensions has been assigned to an individual behavioral science (Robbins, Judge, 2007), as follows:
Psychology: As defined, “psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of human and other animals” (Robbins, Judge, 2007).
Through Organizational Behavior’s beginnings the science of psychology had with it particular impact. Scientists saw particular significance to psychology’s contribution through various contributions that helped form the study of Organizational Behavior.
Learning: This are of contribution became a significant element to Organizational Behavior studies when scientists attempted to identify how people would learn new skills within the workplace and how different learning styles would have to address for employees.
Motivation: In order to optimize the performance of members