Organizational behavior (OB) is devoted to investigating the impact of individuals, groups, and structure on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness. The theoretical content of organizational behavior is drawn mainly from industrial/organizational psychology and organizational sociology, but may also include other social sciences, such as economics, political science, and cultural anthropology.

Doctoral study in organizational behavior combines the development of expertise in particular theoretical content areas with intensive training in the methodologies commonly used to investigate behavioral aspects of organizations. Organizational behavior is a field of study that endeavors to understand, explain, predict, and change human behavior as it occurs in the organizational context. The typical objective of theories in organizational behavior is to describe interrelationships between various behavioral predictors and criteria of organizational effectiveness.

The College’s OB faculty members are nationally recognized for their individual and collective research efforts. The research of both faculty and doctoral students cuts across a wide array of core organizational behavior issues as well as multidisciplinary topics that interface with other functional areas in management and engineering.

• Cross-cultural management issues
• Effectiveness of health service organizations
• Enhancing employee creativity
• Goal setting for individuals and teams
• Influences and consequences of diversity
• Leadership
• Managerial cognition
• Newcomer adjustment process
• Non-profit boards
• Organizational change and turbulence
• Organizational identity
• Organizational justice
• Person-organization fit
• Politics and political behavior
• Provision of optimal performance feedback
• Relational identity identification
• Social entrepreneurship and non-profit organizations
• Strategic human resource management
• Structuring work environments for creativity and innovation
• Team performance and effectiveness
• Work-role relationships

For more information, please view the organizational behavior website at:
http://mgt.gatech.edu/fac_research/acad_areas/org_bhv.html