EXPLORING THE CONCEPTUAL EXPANSION WITHIN THE FIELD OF ORGANIZATIONAL-BEHAVIOR - ORGANIZATIONAL-CLIMATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Developments within social and exact sciences take place because scien tists engage in scientific practices that allow them to further expand and refine the scientific concepts within their scientific discipline s. There is disagreement among scientists as to what the essential pra ctices are that allow scientific concepts within a scientific discipli ne to expand and evolve. One group looks at conceptual expansion as so mething that is being constrained by rational practices. Another group , however, suggests that conceptual expansion proceeds along the lines of 'everything goes'. The goal of this paper is to test whether scien tific concepts expand in a rational way within the field of organizati onal behaviour. We will use organizational climate and culture as exam ples. The essence of this study consists of two core concepts: one wit hin organizational climate and one within organizational culture. It a ppears that several conceptual variations are added around these core concepts. The variations are constrained by rational scientific practi ces. In other terms, there is evidence that the field of organizationa l behaviour develops rationally.