Middle Range Theories

Abstract

The study of organizations and organizational behavior generally focuses on single constructs of organizational phenomenon, e.g., leadership, task design, motivation, organizational design, and so on. For many of these phenomenon, theories have been developed and/or hypotheses have been stated and examined. For some phenomenon, however, theories are still to be articulated. Recently, suggestions for integrating theories of a few of these single phenomena have been made and specific statements of their theoretical relationships explicated (House, 1971; Hackman and Oldham, 1976; Schuler, 1977a). It is suggested here that what is occurring in the study of organizations and organizational behavior, and what is necessary, is efficient and effective integration of those theories of single organizational phenomenon into fewer theories spanning these single theories. These occurrences are descriptive of development, use, and function of middle range theory in organizational behavior and theory. To advance our understanding of all organizational phenomena, it is important to continue to develop more middle range theories, to discuss issues related to the occurrence of these middle range theories, and also to search for middle range theory(ies) to integrate those middle range theories. Middle range theories that integrate other middle range theories are called trans-middle range.