The findings in the article are persistent in that they show that these themes are important. However, whether they are persistent in the sense that they appear in every organization and are changing with the culture is harder to say. There are so many organizations today, big and small, and they all operate in different ways. No two organizations are completely identical and this must be taken into account more carefully, because one cannot make a blanket statement regarding organizational behavior and culture.
Research that is done into organizing is not only building upon but also extending many of the traditional concepts that have been seen in the field (Rousseau, 1997). This must continue. There are also some assumptions of organizational behavior research which are now finally being superseded by those people and ideas and assumptions that are more responsive to a new era in organizational behavior...
That is important because it shows a lot of progress, but there are still questions to be answered. The most pressing of these questions is whether the changes that are taking place apply to all types of organizations or whether the size of the organization and the culture of it are larger factors than the 'fact' that the organizational behavior seems to be changing overall. Without being able to look at organizations from all different types of groups and cultures it is truly very difficult to say that organizational behavior overall is really that different. One must have a clear definition of what makes up an organization, what kind of behavior that organization had in the past, and then how it changed and why in order to really present a clear picture of the entire issue.
Rousseau, Denise M. 1997. Organizational behavior in the new organizational era. Annual Review…
