Abstract

Schools of business administration and in-company training programs are spending more and more money and time on education in the behavioral sciences. The American Management Association, Alcan, ESSO, Pacific Finance, and many other firms and industrial organizations have major residential training programs devoted exclusively to theory and practice in the behavioral sciences. The misunderstanding of what teachers of behavioral science, human relations, organizational behavior, or call it what you will, are trying to say takes two major forms. In its extreme forms, either people believe that the behavioral scientists believe a distortion, or they themselves believe it. Nevertheless, a number of social and psychological investigators have appeared to focus on one side of human behavior, while the businessmen centered their attention on the other. It appears to some observers, however, that human behavior in fact always includes both the aspect in which the behavioral scientists have been interested and the facet on which the businessmen have concentrated.