Hawthorne, Topeka, and the Issue of Science Versus Advocacy in Organizational Behavior<sup/>

Abstract

Many organizational behaviorists adopt dual roles in the course of their careers: as scientists with an academic responsibility for scholarship and as consultants advocating what they believe to be more effective organizational forms and managerial methods. This paper examines how these dual roles potentially can create problems for the literature of organizational behavior. The Hawthorne studies and the General Foods Topeka Plant are selected us examples.