This article attempts to reappraise over 100 years of theorizing about organizations. It starts by looking again at the chronology of the development of the field and examines problems of categorization and periodization. It reviews the Classical Approaches, including Scientific Management, then Human Relations and the arrival of Organizational Behavior as an interdisciplinary field of study. It then goes on to discuss the challenges to the mainstream paradigm and radical criticisms of its values and methodologies. In the Discussion following, the limitations of mainstream work is further examined vis-A-vis its generalizabilily, its cultural biases, and the gap between theorists and practicing managers. It concludes that O.B. had probably benefitted from these criticisms and from adopting a wider frame of reference, if at the cost of theoretical integration and cohesion.
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