A volume in the Research in Organizational Sciences
Series Editor Daniel J. Svyantek, Auburn University
This Research in Organizational Sciences volume to explore and question the received wisdom
of organizational sciences. The chapters in this volume (and the companion volume) seek to
establish boundary conditions for important organizational constructs and processes. They
illustrate the importance of context for interpreting the received wisdom of organizational
science by showing when constructs must be adapted to changing circumstances.
The volume begins with four chapters looking at the construct of leadership. Each of these
addresses an important aspect of our understanding of leadership and its practice. The four
chapters on leadership are followed by five chapters dealing with other organizational processes
including motivation, organizational change, the role of diversity in organizations and organizational citizenship. The last three chapters
deal with the issue of knowledge in large systems. Two chapters address how information may be transmitted across organizations and
generations of workers. The final chapter deals with the use of information by organizational decision-makers.
The 12 papers in this volume all, in some way question received wisdom and present alternatives which expand our understanding of
organizational behavior. These chapters each strive to present new ways of understanding organizational constructs, and in so doing
reveal how received wisdom does not always lead to best practice in research or application. It is our hope that these chapters illustrate
how challenging received wisdom in organizational studies can provide new ways of thinking about organizational processes. These
new ways of thinking in turn can provide better understanding of the processes necessary to increase organizational effectiveness.