Organizational Behavior Courses for Graduate Students in Business Administration: Views from the Tower and Battlefield

Abstract

A list of 56 topics usually included in Organizational Behavior courses in the Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs was prepared through the content analysis of 195 syllabi provided by the faculty members of different graduate schools of business administration. The topics were grouped into 11 factors on the basis of ratings of their importance provided by the 179 educators and 88 executives, and then the importance of the factors was compared for the two groups. The educators considered broader factors, such as, group and intergroup relations, and development; motivation, job design, and satisfaction; and organizational socialization and roles to be more important for MBA students. The practitioners considered more narrowly defined factors, such as, decision making and communication; management by objectives; and selection, development, and appraisal to be more important. The groups were unanimous in rating leadership to be a very important topic.