Abstract

For nearly a decade executives have been exhorted to make more extensive use of the behavioral and social sciences. Most executives would nod in agreement with these admonitions, for the changes in contemporary society and the growing pressures. Administrators make such agreement obvious to nearly all who participate in organizational leadership. This article is directed to those executives who are responsible for the human-social problems in their organizations (in other words, nearly everyone), who are intrigued by behavioral science and who are especially interested in developing a means with which to make sense out of the new knowledge now becoming available. Psychology focuses on man as an individual, sociology on collective man, anthropology on cultural man. Other fields study parts of these major social sciences as, for example, the study of the personality, investigation of the small work group, social change in economic institutions and so on. At the level of the multi-group or organization system micro-economists, cultural anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, organization consultants and others refer to continuity, profit, balance of power and efficiency (system goals); plant parties, teams, capital, staff and agencies (system parts); authority, status, cost and power (system structure); legislating, researching, planning, servicing and producing (system processes).