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Top 50 Organizational Behaviour Dissertation Topics Trending in 2021

• July 7, 2021 July 15, 2021

The behaviour of the workforce is directly proportional to the efficiency output in a production cycle. It is the motivation, activities promoting teamwork and on-time grievance redressal that help the worker to nurture his or her skills. Besides, it dynamically contributes to the exponential growth of the organization. The study of organizational behaviour is regarded as an integral part of any management course. It helps a management aspirant to delve into an in-depth study of the human psychology and behaviour in the given organizational settings. It is primarily the study and analysis of the interface between the human behaviour and the organization, as well as the organization itself.

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Introduction

The study of organisational behaviour standardly comprises of many dissertations, case studies, essays, and thesis papers to reflect the conceptual clarity of the student. To successfully clear this management subject with the desired grades, the students are required to attend all the given assignment homework on time. All these submissions are required to be made with an unmatched quality of eloquent writing prowess. The management students who prefer to attend their organisational behaviour homework themselves without professional assignment help , always counter numerous hurdles to begin with.

The selection of the right organisational behaviour assignment topic is one of the quibbling bulwarks that can curtail the pace of swift assignment submission. Here, our prima-facie motto is to help our students irrespective of the fact whether they are hiring our assignment writing services or not.  We have created the list of the top organisational behaviour dissertation topics after conducting an intense number of research and brainstorming sessions. While creating the list, we have made sure that the students from all kinds of management backgrounds, course curriculums, and diversified nations could reap benefits out of the give piece of information. 

The Principle Elements of an Organisational Behaviour Study

There are in total four main elements of a successful organisational behaviour (OB) study –

• People: The people to people contact is somehow extremely crucial to induce the cohesiveness between the team members to improve the overall productivity. The groups of people within the organization may change, form or dissolve. Time to time team-building activities and effectual grievance redressal mechanism could boost a sense of belongingness between the organisation and its manpower.    
• Structure: The structural layout of the organisation and the delegation of authority somehow segregate the rights, duties, functions, and responsibilities of all the members of the organisation in a crystal-clear sense. The behavioural approach and the outlook of the members of the organization is decided on the grounds of the designation and the level in the hierarchy that they are occupying. Yet, right from the designation of the CEO to the executives and supervisors operating at the lower level, certain structural traits like communication, mutual understanding and respect would always remain common at all levels.
• Technology: If we speak in terms of the contemporary scenario of the organisational work culture, then the absence of technology could either make the functioning difficult or impossible. It is primarily because of the intervention of the technology, that we could access physical and economic resources to make the jobs of the people easy. The assistance could be procured through machines, methods, and tools. The technology could enforce restrictions on the freedom of the people but deliver efficiency in terms of the contingent nature of tasks at diverse scale of operations.
• External Environment: The organisational behaviour not only get influenced by the internal environment but the external one as well. The functions of an organization exist in a larger social system and external environmental forces like socio-cultural, political, economic, technological, legal, and geographical forces. These are some of the typical external environmental forces that impact the attitudes, working conditions and motives of the people. In a similar sense, there are circumstances, where the organisations could also have an impact over the environment, but its degree would certainly be less than the vice-versa.

When students seek dissertation help related to different OB topics, these are some of the principle elements that frequently occur in the homework assigned at different stages of the course curriculum.

Read our sample page of a management topic by going through the below link to behold how eloquently our writers could blend diverse topics like management and healthcare in single assignment order.

Must read: change management in the healthcare facility – sample, the organizational behaviour models that are critical for management students to understand.

The online assignment help rendered by the professionals are primarily based upon the time-tested models of organisational behaviour. Let us briefly throw some light over them one after the other –

• Autocratic Model: This OB model emphasises on the rule that the employees are required to be instructed in detail and constantly motivated to perform in their job. Here, it is the job of the manager to conduct all the thinking part. The formalization of the entire process is done by the managers, and they wield the authority to give command to the entire workforce.
• Custodial Model: The model is more revolving around the economic and social security of the employee. Here, the companies do offer high scale pay, financial packaging, health benefits, corporate cars, and other forms of incentives. The model is induced to make sure that the employee shall remain loyal and dependent on the company, rather than the supervisor, manager, or the boss.
• Supportive Model: The model sustains around the motivation and value given to the employee, instead of money and command being the driving factor. The relationship between the manager and the employee goes beyond the day-to-day activity and role. The model is more effective in developed nations, in comparison of developing nations, where monetary gains and delegation of authority play a very pivotal role.
• Collegian Model: How good it would be a model with no worry about the job status or title? How good it would be if our manager would act as a supportive coach, instead of being bossy? Well, this model functions in an organizational structure where all the colleagues work as a team. There is no boss or subordinates and participates coordinate better to achieve the assigned target rate.  
• System Model: One of the most popular and emerging OB models in the contemporary corporate arena. Here, the managers try to nurture a culture sharing authenticity, transparency, and social intelligence. The motto is to link the employees emotionally and psychologically with the interests of the organization and make them more accountable for their actions.

The questions that frequently appear in OB dissertation assignments tend to revolve around the models that we discussed above. Some of the models are comparatively more preferred and practiced than the rest.

What are We Intended to Gain by Sharing a Well-Researched List of 50 Topics?

Well, our motto is to help the students save their time, energy, and resources to focus solely on the content. We have seen a plethora of students spending ridiculous amounts of time just on topic selection. What is essential for the students to understand here is that the selection of the right topic is not going to earn them the premium grades. It is the presentation of the right topic in the right content and format that become game-changer for them. The number of OB topics listed below are the ones that do matter in the prevalent managerial culture and that can help score some brownie points in the eyes of the evaluator.

Explore our business analytics sample at the below link to witness our optimum standards of assignment writing dedicated to quality-oriented students.

Must read: business analytics – demand forecasting – sample, top 50 organizational behaviour dissertation topics for the year 2021.

The following is the list of OB dissertation topics that can turn out to be a prudent choice for the number of assignment submissions that you make in future –

• The resistance of the employees towards organisational change and the right measures to curb the same
• The work environment stressors: The link between the job performance and the well-being of the employees
• Conflict management in the cross-functional project teams in a Singaporean corporate culture
• The role of social networks in the field of global talent management
• Apply the ‘Theory of Planned Behaviour’ in the assessment of the attitude of students towards self-employment
• Measuring the collective mindfulness as well as navigating its nomological network
• Recognizing and rewarding the employees: How the IT professionals in Germany and in France are motivated and rewarded?
• The incorporation of organisational identity in the turnaround research: A case study
• The top 10 findings on the resilience and the engagement of the employee
• The competition straight from the inside out
• How to overcome the virtual meeting fatigue during the pandemic crisis?
• Why good leaders fail?
• Building up better work models to effectively function in the next normal
• Promoting employee wellness within an organization, now and post the Chinese Covid-19 pandemic
• Turbulent times anticipate dynamic rules: Discuss
• The courage to be candid: The merits and demerits in an organisational setup
• The personal network utility to nurture an inclusive culture
• Putting up blinders can actually help us see more clearly: Discuss
• Redesigning the workspace to propel social interaction
• How to set customer satisfaction as one of the key yardsticks for healthy organisational behaviour?
• Counterproductive behaviour at work: The adversities and remedies
• How creative at the workplace could bring in more job satisfaction?
• Cyberloafing at the work: How it is a matter of grave concern than we actually imagine?
• Employee theft: The right measures for the culture of integrity and work ethics
• How technological innovation could enhance the job performance at the workplace?
• Organisational retaliatory behaviour: The causes and the measures to ensure minimal impact
• Whistle-blowing culture and how it changed the American work culture forever?
• Withdrawal Behaviour: Absenteeism and lateness and the countermeasures to prevent the same
• Conflicting value systems and their impact on complex work culture
• Managerial research and pursuit of opportunity: Elaborate
• How TMT diversity and CEO values jointly influence the culture of a corporate world?
• The emerging role of the team-players in a multicultural organisation setup
• How the external factors could actually impact the motivation of an employee, and eventually his or her behaviour?
• The situations of interpersonal conflict and how it can change the overall scheme of things in an organisational setup?
• Emotional responses of entrepreneurs to a situation of bankruptcy
• How the study of correct organizational behaviour could actually increase the chances of survival within an organisation?
• How promoting cultural connections in MNCs can actually promote the organisational culture?
• Need Theory Perspective: Motivational preferences of the workforce
• Investigation and assessment of the motivational factors at work
• A rationalised utility of the link between the social capital and the organisational learning
• Bullying before the occurrences of sexual harassment: Preventing the inevitable
• Conspiracies at the workplace: Recognizing and neutralising the root cause
• Effective strategies for the management at the age of boycotts
• Creation of an OB mentoring program that works at all levels
• The repercussions of bad management on employee behaviour and what are the possible remedies?
• Leveraging the organisational identity to gain a competitive edge
• Spiritual leadership and its impact on the outlook of the organisational workforce
• The role of positive organisational communities pre-and-post organisational goals
• The organisational behaviour for specially-abled workers to make their role more constructive to the organisational settings
• Managing successfully the dark side of the competitive rivalry before it affects the interpersonal relations within an organisational setting

And with that, we come to the end of the top 50 OB assignment topics that can not only fulfil our dissertation topic requirements, but also the assignment writing requirements of various other formats. The requirements related to topic selection for case study help , essay help , research paper writing help , or thesis help can also be referred and met with the given list of topics.

Care to master finest dissertation writing skills in just two weeks? Well, we are more than glad to help! Read the below article to let the experts hone your skills right away!!

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The organisational behaviour dissertation topics enlisted above would cover various dynamic aspects of corporate culture revolving around the human behaviour. The topic list would not only help you cover the assignment topic demand for all the upcoming semesters, but also impressing your colleagues with topic suggestion prowess. It makes the efforts of assignment writing more seamless as the student could customise his or her writing as per the liking or aptitude of a specific type of OB topic.

Nevertheless, the requirements of the students are not merely confined to OB dissertation topic recommendation only. There are situations where management students prefer to hire paid assignment help to get their regular assignments done with perfection. The reasons can be associated with the lack of subject clarity, lack of time and resources or commitment to other critical events like exams or co-curricular activities. You can visit organisational behaviour assignment help at Thoughtful Minds to order online homework help related to all OB topics at the most competitive rates from the industry professionals of more than 15 years of experience.

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4 Organizational Behavior’s Contributions to Evidence-Based Management

Denise M. Rousseau is H. J. Heinz II Professor of Organizational Behavior and Public Policy at the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University.

• Published: 18 September 2012
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Organizational Behavior (OB) is a social science that has discovered general principles regarding the organization and management of work. One of management research’s more mature fields, OB’s contribution to evidence-based Management (EBMgt) stems from its large body of programmatic, cumulative research. This chapter provides an overview of OB research, including its history, standards for evidence, and domains of study. It distinguishes between science- and practice-oriented OB research and their respective evidence criteria to better show different ways OB research can inform EBMgt. OB research has identified several hundred evidence-based principles to inform practice, and this chapter provides examples. The chapter concludes by discussing how OB scholars, educators, and practitioners can further EBMgt practice.

Organizational Behavior’s Contribution to Evidence-Based Management

This chapter provides an overview of the background and focus of the OB field and its findings. It uses examples of well-established findings to demonstrate the sort of actionable principles OB contributes to guide evidence-informed practice. It then assesses the state of OB practice and education. The chapter concludes with implications for how practitioners, educators, and researchers can further the development and use of OB knowledge in evidence-based management (EBMgt).

Organizational behavior has been a mainstay in professional management education for decades. The field’s goals are to understand human behavior in organizations and provide knowledge useful to practitioners. These two goals often coincide. Here’s an example from one manager’s experience: Jim Fuchs, a midlevel manager in an American firm, came up to me after a session on change management in my business school’s executive program. “Let me show you what I do when I see a need to convince the supervisors reporting to me that we need to change something about how we manage our people,” he said, going over to one of the classroom’s flip charts. “I learned Porter and Lawler’s model of motivation back while I was an undergraduate [business major],” he said, as he sketched out a diagram (Figure 4.1 ). “First, to get people to put out effort in new ways, they have to see that a certain kind of new behavior is more likely to bring them rewards [effort-reward probability] they care about [value of reward]. Then, they need to put out the right kind of effort to produce the performance we need [effort→performance accomplishment], which means they need to know what new thing they’re supposed to be doing [role perceptions] and have the ability to do it [abilities and traits]. If you put the right rewards, skills, and expectations in place, you get the right results and your employees stay motivated.” I commented that this might be one of the best examples of how an undergraduate OB course can be useful. Jim laughed and said, “At this point, my supervisors know this model by heart.”

Jim Fuch’s diagram for discussing design and change adapted from Porter and Lawler.

This classic evidence-based motivation model, as Lyman Porter and Edward Lawler ( 1968 ) formally presented it, is a bit more detailed (Figure 4.2 ) than Jim’s diagram—consistent with the large and diverse body of evidence on which it is based. Yet Jim’s adaptation of it has the essentials. Importantly, Jim drew upon this scientifically developed framework in his day-to-day management practice, applying it wherever he judged it to be useful. By using this model regularly, his staff learned how to think more systematically about why employees do what they do on the job and how to motivate them to do more and do better. Jim Fuchs’s approach fulfills an important objective of science: to think clearly about the social and physical world and make informed interventions in it. It also exemplifies a simple but adaptable way in which OB research (and well-supported theory) can contribute to EBMgt.

Porter and Lawler’s motivational model.

At this writing, OB is arguably one of the more developed bodies of scientific knowledge relevant to management practice. Like the broader field of managerial and organizational research of which it is a part, OB is a social science. MBA and undergraduate business programs incorporate a good deal of the field’s evidence into courses on decision making, leadership, and teams (Chartiers, Brown & Rynes, 2011 ). Along with other research-oriented fields such as marketing and advertising (Armstrong, 2011 ), OB offers a substantial research base to inform management education and practice. Some OB findings are already distilled into useable form (e.g., Locke, 2009 ) for management education, professional and personal development, and problem solving. At the same time, making it easier for practitioners to know about and use the OB evidence base continues to be a work in progress.

A Century of Research

Research on fundamental processes in organizing and managing work began with the activities of OB’s parent disciplines, industrial-organizational psychology (known as work and organization psychology in Europe; Munsterberg, 1913 ), industrial sociology (Miller & Form, 1951 ), public administration (Follett, 1918 ; Gulick, & Urwick, 1937 ; Simon, 1997 ) and general management (Drucker, 1974 ; McGregor, 1960 ). Early empirical work focused on employee selection, testing, vocational choice, and performance (Munsterberg, 1913 ); group dynamics, supervisory relations and incentives (e.g., Hawthorne studies, Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939 ); worker attitudes (Likert, 1932 ; Kornhauser, 1922 ); and leadership, authority, and control (Selznick, 1945; Braverman, 1974 ).

The formal label “organizational behavior” emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, as business schools responded to criticism that what they were teaching was more opinion and armchair theorizing than validated knowledge (Gordon & Howell, 1959 ). Schools began hiring social scientists to promote the use of research to understand and solve organizational problems and provide more science-based business education (Porter & McKibbin, 1988 ). OB departments sprang up where once stood more eclectic “management” or “personnel” units.

Today’s OB researchers come from many fields. Some identify OB as their home discipline, typically completing doctorates in business schools. Others originate in and often continue to identify with psychology, sociology, human development, or economics. All these researchers share an interest in how humans behave in organizations. As just one example of the cross-pollination between behavioral science and business disciplines prevalent in OB, the author of this chapter is an OB professor with a doctorate in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology who has taught in both psychology departments and schools of business and public-sector management.

Today, OB research is prevalent worldwide, with thousands of researchers currently at work expanding the OB knowledge base. The largest professional association focused management research is the Academy of Management. In 2011, the Academy had over 19,000 members. Its OB division had nearly 4,000 active academic members and more than 400 executive/practitioner members, and the human-resources division, whose research (and some of its members) overlap OB, had almost 2,500 academic members and 300 executive/practitioner members. Other professional associations outside the United States also have members who are actively adding to the OB knowledge base.

Forces at multiple levels drive how humans behave in organizations. OB research investigates individual and group behavior along with formal and informal organization-wide dynamics. The types of phenomena that intersect the OB field range from the oil-rig worker trying to decide whether to report hazardous job conditions to the conflict-ridden top- management team whose infighting undermines how the company’s frontline managers perform. As a multilevel field, OB scholarship rides the organizational elevator from individual personality, beliefs, and behavior to group dynamics to organizational- and industry-level practices that affect how people act and respond in organizations.

The largest body of OB research addresses individual and group behaviors and their ultimate causal connections with organizational performance and member well-being. This wide array of studies on individuals and groups is the reason academics sometimes refer to OB scholars and their research as “micro” (as opposed to more “macro” areas of organizational theory or strategic management, see Madhavan & Mahoney, chapter 5 of this volume), as in “she’s a micro person.” However, the term micro is not a particularly accurate description for the OB field (Rousseau, 2011 ). A good deal of OB research examines such organization-level phenomena as culture or change implementation (e.g., Schein, 2010 ), but the micro/macro distinction remains common in academic OB-speak.

OB Research Philosophy and Objectives

The research philosophy underlying OB is largely in-line with evidence-based management (Briner, Denyer & Rousseau, 2009 ; Rousseau, chapter 1 of this volume), with its aspiration to improve organization-based decision making and to tackle applied problems in ways that balance economic interests with the well-being of workers (Argyris, 1960 ; Katz & Kahn, 1966 ; Munsterberg, 1913 ; Viteles, 1932 ).

Historically, OB research has been responsive to business trends and practice concerns. Over time, its emphasis has shifted—from productivity to global competitiveness and quality; from employee security to employability (see Rousseau, 1997 , for an assessment of trends from 1970s to 1990s). Indeed, critics inside and outside the field have long argued that it tends to emphasize managerial and performance-related concerns over the concerns of workers and other stakeholders (Baratz, 1965 ; Ghoshal, 2005 )—an appraisal echoed by Hornung (chapter 22 of this volume) and other critical theorists.

On the other hand, OB research addressed the worker experience on the job even prior to the famous Hawthorne studies at Western Electric (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939 ) or the popularity of work-satisfaction questionnaires (originally developed for Kimberly Clark by Kornhauser and Sharp ( 1932 ; Zickar, 2003 ). Since then, a good deal of research concentrates on the effects of work and organizations on the well-being of workers, families, clients, and the general public (e.g., Gardell, 1977 ; Karasek, 2004 , Kossek & Lambert, 2005 ). More recently, the “Positive Organizational Behavior” movement has expanded both the goals of organizational research and the outcomes it studies to include how workers can thrive in organizational settings (Dutton & Ragins, 2006 ). The large and growing body of OB research is wide-ranging in its economic and social implications.

Focus on Cumulative Findings

My sense is that supporting EBMgt comes relatively naturally to many OB scholars and educators. As Chartier and colleagues ( 2011 ) report, OB educators typically rely on evidence more than do faculty in the fields they surveyed, such as international business or strategy. Part of this reliance is attributable to the cumulative findings in certain core OB research areas. The field’s history and tendency toward sustained interest in particular topics makes possible the cumulative research that is generally valued in the evidence-based practice movement (Barends, ten Have, & Huisman, chapter 2 of this volume). OB’s accumulated findings contrast with newer management-research fields, such as strategy and organizational theory (Madhavan & Mahoney, chapter 5 of this volume) where less attention has yet been paid to creating integrative knowledge (cf. Whitley, 1984 ; 2000 ). As such, OB scholars have, over time, pulled together and built on the available evidence on an array of management issues. The result provides evidence-informed practitioners and educators with numerous well-supported principles of human behavior, organizing, and managing, with considerable practical value (e.g., Locke, 2009 ). I present examples of these principles later, after discussing a key reason that cumulative findings in OB research can produce these principles, that is, the largely agreed-on norms for what constitutes evidence in the OB field.

Criteria for Evidence

Generally speaking, the OB field has certain widely held norms about what constitutes sufficient evidence to make claims regarding the truth of a research finding. Norms are particularly well articulated for what I refer to here as OB’s “science-oriented evidence.” These norms, exemplified by the seminal work of Cook and Campbell ( 1979 ), emphasize the value of (1) controlled observations to rule out bias and (2) consistency with the real world to promote the generalizability of findings. Classic academic or scholarly research is motivated to understand the world (i.e., to develop and test theory). Less widely discussed or, perhaps, agreed upon, are the norms or standards for OB’s “practice-oriented evidence.” Practice-oriented research investigates what practitioners actually do in organizations. In particular, a practice orientation demonstrates what happens when scientific evidence is acted upon in real-world settings. The goals of science- and practice-oriented research differ. Thus, each necessarily emphasizes somewhat different indicators of evidence quality.

Note that the same study can have both science and practice goals. For example, employee participation systems have been investigated to test scientific theories of voice and motivation as well as such systems’ practical impacts on productivity and their sustainability over time (e.g., the Rushton project, Goodman, 1979 ). Equitable pay practices have been examined to evaluate equity and justice theories and impact on employee theft (Greenberg, 1990 ). Job enrichment interventions have tested both theory regarding optimal levels of job autonomy and impact on the quality of wastewater treatment (Cordery, Morrison, Wright, & Wall, 2010 ). Such studies are proof that science and practice goals can go hand-in-hand.

Criteria for Science-Oriented OB Evidence

The general goal of science-oriented research is to interpret and understand. OB research pursues this goal by relying largely on a body of studies , rather than on the results of any single study, in evaluating a particular finding’s validity. Because all studies are limited in some fashion, no single study is sufficient to establish a scientific fact. Good evidence constitutes a “study of studies,” where individual or primary studies are considered together in order to allow the credibility of their overall findings to be assessed (Briner & Denyer, chapter 7 of this volume; Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 . Systematically interpreting all relevant studies is the general standard for determining the merit of any claims regarding evidence (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990 ). (N.B.: Practitioners are more likely to use rapid reviews, that is, quick searches through a few studies to see if agreed-upon findings exist, and other expedient assessments of published evidence when no systematic review is available.) The most common form of systematic review in OB is the meta-analysis , a quantitative analysis of multiple studies to determine the overall strength or consistency of an observed effect (e.g., job satisfaction’s effect on performance). It is not unusual for OB meta-analyses to review hundreds of studies, combining results for 30,000+ individuals—as in the case of the impact of general mental ability on occupational attainment and job performance (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004 ). OB’s roots in psychology have shaped its research methods and aligned its culture of evidence largely with that of psychology, where use of meta-analysis is common. Say, for example, that 90 studies exist on the relationship of flexible work hours with staff retention and performance. Meta-analysis standards typically mandate examination of all 90 studies—whether published or not—to see what findings, if any, the studies together support and to examine the nature of any inconsistencies across the studies.

There is a world of difference between a systematic review of a body of studies (e.g., a meta-analysis) and a more casual or “unsystematic” literature review. A systematic review has a methods section that details how the review was conducted and what specific technical requirements were used (Briner & Denyer, chapter 7 of this volume). In contrast, conventional literature reviews are highly vulnerable to the biases authors display in their choice of studies to include. Studies included in conventional literature reviews reflect the author’s priorities and focus and, thus, may not represent the body of research. In conducting a systematic review of science-oriented studies, the following indicators of evidence quality are evaluated.

Construct validity: Is the purported phenomenon real? A basic requirement of evidence is construct validity, which asks whether the underlying notion or concept jibes with the observed facts. In the case of flexible hours, is there a set of common practices companies pursuing flexible hours actually use? Or do many different kinds of practices go by the label “flexible hours”? Do we have reason to treat the “flexible hours” of a 4/40 workweek as the same as the flexibility workers exercise over their own daily stop-and-start times? If research findings reveal that the 4/40 work week and personal control over work hours differ in their consequences for workers and employers, we are likely to conclude that “flexibility” in reality takes several distinct forms. As in the case of flexibility’s potential effects on worker motivation or company performance, any test of cause-effect relationship needs to first establish a clear meaning and construct validity for the concept of interest. In the case of flexibility, concepts of flexibility with clearer construct validity are “reduced hours”—where the hours worked are fewer than the normal work week—and “working-time control”—where workers exercise personal control over when they work (not how many hours per se ).

As illustrated, the term “flexible hours” can have so many different meanings that it is not a single coherent construct. Similar issues exist for popular notions like “morale” or “emotional intelligence,” phrases used colloquially to refer to a variety of things. Morale can mean group esprit de corps or individual satisfaction, each driven by very different forces in organizations. Similarly, emotional intelligence (EI) is used to refer to an emotional competency (Goleman, 1995 ) or a form of intelligence in social relations distinct from general intelligence (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000 ). Further, some object to equating emotion and reason, arguing that EI cannot be a form of intelligence (Locke, 2005 ). As with the preceding flexibility example, the key is to develop a clear definition of the construct being studied, so that the study’s findings can best be interpreted and used by others.

Because scholars tend to be concerned with construct clarity (terminology, definition, and distinctions), practitioners looking into the OB literature to answer a practice question usually need to try a variety of key words or seek out an academic for guidance, in order to identify the proper scientific terms (which may include some jargon specific to the field) that the relevant research uses (Werner, chapter 15 of this volume).

Internal validity: Do the observed effects or relationships indicate causality? Internal validity is the degree to which a study’s results are free of bias (Cook & Campbell, 1979 ). If bias cannot be ruled out, then any relationship we observe, such as a correlation between rewards and performance, may be due to measurement error, methodological problems, or some uncontrolled third variable like the state of the economy. It’s unlikely any single study will be bias-free. In contrast, several studies with different settings, methods, and so forth can cancel out potential biases. Internal validity is established when a body of studies show comparable findings across different research designs, such as experiments and longitudinal studies. As we are able to use these comparable findings to rule out the potential effects from measurement error, methodological problems, and other alternative explanations, it is more likely that the observed effect is real and caused by the particular factor(s) investigated.

External validity: How widespread is the effect? Why does it hold sometimes and not others? External validity (sometimes called generalizability) refers to the extent to which a result holds across populations, settings, procedures, and time periods (Cook & Campbell, 1979 ). A study might provide information about the conditions under which a phenomenon is likely to be observed or repeated elsewhere. Attention to the circumstances surrounding the finding helps us understand its generalizability and provides information regarding why a finding might apply in some circumstances and not others. Relevant details can tell us if there are conditions, not part of the phenomenon itself, which influence its occurrence or consequences. Such is the case where the effects of rewards on performance depend on the way rewards are distributed (to all employees vs. only high performers vs. various employees, but unsystematically, Lawler, 1971 ; 1990 ) or the extent to which the effects of high-involvement work systems depend on appropriate workforce training and rewards (cf. MacDuffie, 1995 ). Another way context impacts generalizability is by changing the meanings people give to the event, behavior, practice, or phenomenon studied. Prior events or historical factors, such as a previously failed change, can lead an otherwise promising practice to fail because people view the new practice through the lens of that previous failure. Or, society itself can give the phenomenon a distinct meaning: how people experience “close supervision” in the relatively authoritarian culture of Turkey is likely to differ from egalitarian Norway (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004 ). The same set of directive behaviors from a boss might appropriately coordinate work in one culture but be viewed as controlling micro-management in the other.

Criteria for Practice-Oriented OB Evidence

The goals of practice-oriented research are to identify what works (or doesn’t) in real-life settings and to learn which circumstances affect how those practices work. Both scholars and practitioners conduct practice-oriented research. Scholars seek to obtain information on how practitioners approach the decisions they make and the actions they take. Practitioners conduct their own research, often in the form of pilot tests or evaluation studies, to gauge the impact of a company policy or program. Practice-oriented research is directed toward particular problems and settings that practitioners care about. Design science’s collaborations among academics, end users, and an organization’s technical experts are a form of practice-oriented research (Van Aken & Romme, chapter 3 of this volume). Key criteria for practice-oriented evidence are discussed next.

Detailed description: What are the conditions of practice? Practice-oriented evidence is useful in part because it describes what practitioners actually do and the conditions under which they do it. Data can be gathered in many ways: via interviews, observations, and surveys, in forms both qualitative and quantitative. Perlow’s ( 1997 ) study of how a company implemented its flexibility policy used interviews and observations. This study uncovered how employees received mixed signals about the acceptability of flexibility and the role that position and status in the company played in determining whose requests for flexibility were granted.

Another example of practice-oriented research is investigations of how practitioners actually use an evidence-based process. Pritchard, Harrell, DiazGranadeos & Guzman ( 2008 ) investigated why differences existed in the results of an organizational analysis and assessment system known as PROMES. Their investigation revealed the kinds of implementation behaviors that affected PROMES’s outcomes. The extent to which PROMES implementers adhered to the system’s specified procedures affected their overall productivity gains, as did the quality of the information they provided the organization.

Given the widespread variation in how organizations implement routines (e.g., performance appraisals) or interventions (e.g., quality programs) there is a lot of value in practitioner-oriented studies that examine how sensitive the expected outcomes are to whether practitioners adhere to specified procedures. In medical research, for example, practice-oriented research indicates that diabetics who adjust or fine-tune their regimen for self-testing and administering insulin enjoy better health outcomes than those strictly following their clinicians’ orders (e.g., Campbell et al., 2003 ). Despite this example, noncompliance with standard procedures can be associated with poorer outcomes as in the case of PROMES just mentioned. Practice-oriented research provides crucial information about the sensitivity of interventions and practices to variability in compliance.

The variability in adherence to prescribed processes and procedures is referred to as implementation compliance . Implementation compliance is a major issue in implementing evidence-based practices. In the case of PROMES, consultants and managers who implemented the technique but did not fully follow its standard instructions oversaw programs with fewer performance gains than did those who adhered more closely to the specified PROMES procedures. Companies that follow fads have been known to “implement the label” but not the actual practices on which the evidence is based. So-called engagement or talent management programs, for example, might really be the same old training and development activities the company has always followed, with a catchy new name. Attention to the actual activities implemented is critical to understanding what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Real-world applicability: Are the outcome variables relevant to practice ? Practice-oriented research focuses on end points that are important to managers, customers, employees, and their organizations. In recent years, research/practice gaps in health care have been reduced by more patient-oriented research, tapping the patient outcomes that clinicians and their patients care about, such as morbidity, mortality, symptom reduction, and quality of life. This focus on practice-oriented outcomes in medicine contrasts with the theory-centric outcomes of science- (or disease-) oriented medical research. In the latter, outcomes typically take the form of specific physiological indicators (e.g., left ventricular end-diastolic volume or the percentage of coronary artery stenosis [Ebell, Barry, Slawson, & Shaughnessy, 1999 ]). Similarly, practice-oriented OB evidence includes outcomes of practical significance, such as the level of savings or improved employee retention, data often available from an organization’s own records. In contrast, theory-centric outcomes in OB research might include interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior or employee role-based self-efficacy, typically using indicators that academics have developed.

As part of his executive master’s thesis, banker Tom Weber took up the challenge of testing whether a leadership training program for the bank’s managers would actually change their behavior and the bank’s performance. In contrast to the typical large sample sizes of academic research, this study relied on numbers more typical of the bank’s actual training programs. Using a sample of 20 managers, 9 were randomly assigned to the training group, and the remainder to the control group, which received no training. To provide the kind of support training often required in a busy work setting, leadership development (“the treatment”) consisted of a one-day group session followed by four individual monthly booster sessions. Results demonstrated that subordinates of the trained managers reported increases in their managers’ charisma, intellectual stimulation, and consideration than did subordinates of control-group managers. Using archival data from his bank’s branches, Weber found that the training led to increased personal loan and credit card sales in the branches supervised by the trained managers. These outcomes were selected for their real-world relevance, rather than theoretical interest (cf. Verschuren, 2009 ). This study, undertaken because a practicing manager questioned the practical value of transformational leadership training, ultimately was published in a major research journal (Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996 ).

Effect size: How strong is the effect or relationship? The effect size is a measure of the strength of the relationship observed between two variables (Hedges & Okin, 1985 ). It is a statistical criterion useful to practitioners and academics. Academic researchers rely on effect sizes to interpret experimental results. For example, where two or more treatment conditions are manipulated, effect sizes can tell which treatment is more powerful. Effect sizes are also central to meta-analyses and allow comparison of the relative effects of several factors (e.g., whether personality or intelligence is more important to worker performance).

From a practice perspective, a large effect size for the relationship between mental ability and job performance means that increasing the general intelligence of the workforce can have substantial impact on worker contributions to the firm. Small effect sizes can mean that practitioners looking for an intervention that improves outcomes ought to look elsewhere. Such is the case in a study of software engineering, where a collection of technologies used in actual projects had only a 30 percent impact on reliability and no effect on productivity (Card, McGarry, & Page, 1987 ). Instead, human and organizational factors appear to have stronger effects on software productivity than tools and methods (Curtis, Crasner, & Iscoe, 1988 ).

In the context of practice, effect sizes are often most useful when judged in relation to costs. Even a small effect can be important in practice. If it can be gained at minimal cost, it may be worth the slight effort required. For example, it is relatively easy to create a general sense of group identity (where co-workers in a department view themselves as an in-group, distinct from others). Group identity is positively related to willingness to help peers (and negatively related to helping outsiders.). Its benefits (and costs) are relatively easy to induce, one reason why logos and group nicknames are so popular (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000 ). Systematic research reviews can be very useful to practice when they provide both effect sizes and cost/benefit information. Now we turn to the kinds of well-established findings OB research produces.

Some Well-Established OB Findings

The primary knowledge products of OB research are principles , that is, general truths about the way the world works. Massive amounts of data have been accumulated and integrated to develop these principles, each of which sums up a regularity manifest in organizations and their members. For purposes of this chapter, a few well-established OB principles are summarized to illustrate OB’s relevance to the practice of EBMgt. (Additional evidence-based OB principles are summarized in Cialdini, 2009 ; Latham, 2009 ; and Locke, 2009 ).

Readers will note that these principles take one of two forms. The majority are forms of declarative knowledge (“what is”)—facts or truth claims of a general nature, such as the goal-setting principle, “Specific goals tend to be associated with higher performance than general goals” (Latham, 2009 ). Less often, these principles represent procedural knowledge (“how to”); these are task behaviors or applications found to be effective in acting on the general principle or fact. As an example, take the finding, “The goal and the measure of performance effectiveness used should be aligned,” as is the case when a goal of 15 percent increase in logger productivity is measured as the number of trees cut down divided by the hours it takes to cut down those trees (Latham, 2009 , p.162). By its very nature, declarative knowledge tends to be general and applicable to lots of different circumstances. Specific goals can take many forms across countless work settings. In contrast, procedural knowledge is more situation-specific and may need to be adapted as circumstances change (Anderson, 2010 ). In some situations, no single goal may be adequate to reflect productivity, and thus more than one measure of performance effectiveness may need to be used.

Making Decisions

Decision making is a fundamental process in organizations. Making decisions is the core activity managers perform. A prominent principle in management education is bounded rationality: Human decision makers are limited in the amount of information they can pay attention to at one time and in their capacity to think about and process information fully (Simon, 1997 ). Indeed, such are the limits of individual decision-making capabilities that having too much choice tends to keep people from making any decision at all (Schwartz, 2004 , pp. 19–20). Schwartz’s research demonstrated that giving shoppers at an upscale grocery only six choices (in this case, of jam) increased the likelihood that they would choose to buy some, in contrast to giving them 24 choices. In the case of Schwartz’s study of customer choices, these findings also have practical utility in terms of both boosting sales and making the best use of shelf space.

The pervasive effects of bounded rationality make it necessary for EBMgt practices to be structured in a fashion that is compatible with our cognitive limits as human beings. To aid more systematic and informed decisions, another evidence-based principle of a procedural nature applies, that is, develop and use a few standard but adaptable procedures or tools to improve the success of organizational decisions (Larrick, 2009 ). Decision supports are pragmatic tools that can be designed to aid practitioners in making evidence-informed decisions. A checklist, for example, might use Yates’s 10 Cardinal Rules (Yates, 2003 ; Yates & Potwoworski, chapter 12 of this volume) as steps to follow in making a good decision. Evidence-informed decision-making procedures need to be simple to use, because complexity or perceived difficulty can keep people from using them. Contemporary medical practice has numerous decision supports (Gawande, 2009 ) such as patient care protocols, handbooks on drug interactions, online decision trees, and specific tests indicating whether a course of treatment applies. In contrast, business practices in OB’s domain appear to make limited use of decision supports (e.g., hiring, giving feedback, running meetings, dealing with performance problems, etc.).

Hiring Talent

In the long history of selection research (e.g., Munsterberg, 1913 ), perhaps the most prominent principle is that unstructured interviews are poor predictors of job performance . Interviewers using their own idiosyncratic questions have low inter-interviewer agreement on applicants and virtually no reliable capacity to identify the candidate who is best able to do a job. Recruiters, personnel interviewers, and the people who manage them are known to be quite limited in the information they gather (Highhouse, 2008 ). In addition, because they typically lack quality feedback on their success rates in identifying good employees, interviewers are unaware of their own poor performance in hiring talent. On the other hand, structured interviews using well-designed job-related questions can be good predictors of job performance (Stevens, 2009 ). This second principle in evidence-based selection provides a basis for improving the way personnel decisions are made, by developing specific interview questions directly tied to job content and success on the job.

Other evidence-based principles for hiring talent reflect the kind of individual qualities known to widely predict future job success. A third principle is that general mental ability is the single best predictor of individual productivity and other job performance indicators. It is thus the case that for skilled jobs, top workers can produce 15 times as much as the poorest performers (Schmidt, 2009 ). A fourth principle is that hiring people who are conscientious and emotionally stable is typically a better decision than hiring agreeable people who try to get along with others (Barrick & Mount, 2009 ). Employers spend a lot of time screening potential recruits for interpersonal fit, yet the fact is that getting along with others tends to be far less valuable for performance than having sufficient self-discipline to work in a thoughtful manner (conscientiousness) and being free of anxiety and neuroticism (emotional stability).

Motivating People

Motivating employees is a critical managerial concern. A central factor in individual and group performance is the existence and acceptance of challenging performance goals (Locke & Latham, 1984 ). The likelihood that setting specific, challenging goals improves performance is as high as 0.90 (Latham, 2009 ). Moreover, accurate feedback generally increases both performance and learning . Feedback effects are nuanced (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996 ): Performance is increased when the feedback focuses on providing task-related information rather than self-referencing information. Thus, the subordinate receiving feedback that highlights the goals she attained and those on which she fell short tends to demonstrate performance improvement whereas another subordinate who is told that her personality is great with customers but annoys her colleagues probably will not. Similarly, performance feedback aids learning when given intermittently rather than constantly, to allow learners to reflect on their learning (see Goodman & O’Brien, chapter 18 of this volume).

Another body of research indicates that money does motivate people under certain conditions ; in particular, pay for performance can increase the particular type of performance targeted if money is important to the performer (Rynes, Gerhart & Parks, 2005 ). However, the effects of individual-level pay for performance are limited. Incentive pay increases individual performance in tasks that are not cognitively challenging (Ariely, Gneezy, Loewenstein, & Mazar, 2009 ) Similarly, pay for individual performance doesn’t work very well when employees have a lot to learn before performing at a desired level (Durham & Bartol, 2009 ) or when employees are highly interdependent (Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2002 ).

There are other motivation outcomes, such as commitment and job satisfaction. Offering rewards that create a compelling future, such as development opportunities, engender greater commitment to the organization than short-term rewards (Hornung, Rousseau, & Glaser, 2009 ; Rousseau, Hornung, & Kim, 2009 ). Job satisfaction is an important predictor of life satisfaction in general—and mental challenge is a key cause of job satisfaction (Judge & Klinger, 2009 ). The optimal level of challenge to promote job satisfaction depends on the individual’s mental ability and skills (what’s known as an inverted-U-shaped distribution).

How managers behave affects their capacity to direct the attention and behavior of others. One well-established principle is managers need to cultivate power or influence beyond the authority that comes with their position (Yukl, 2009 ). Gaining the respect of subordinates, co-workers, and superiors gives managers an important source of influence. Top managers who set a vision for their organization typically outperform executives who don’t (Kirkpatrick, 2009 ). Such managers develop and reinforce values and norms that affect how employees behave.

Additional Research Findings

These well-established findings from a small set of OB’s many research areas have broad practical use. Additional findings are found in Locke’s ( 2009 ) compendium detailing 33 sets of practitioner-oriented findings, Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior: Indispensible Knowledge for Evidence-Based Management and Latham’s ( 2009 ) guide to Becoming the Evidence-Based Manager: Making the Science of Management Work for You . Pearce’s textbook (2009) Organizational Behavior: Real Evidence for Real Managers provides other generalizable OB principles (see Pearce, chapter 21 of this volume, for a discussion of the role of textbooks in EBMgt).

Current Use of OB Findings in Practice

Given the facts that OB research offers about decision making, hiring talent, and motivating people, is there any evidence that practitioners actually use this knowledge? No definitive indicators exist to assess the extent to which educated managers use OB’s knowledge base. Without actual data on evidence use, I looked for other practice-related indicators likely to occur with use of OB evidence. First, I surmise that OB evidence use is more likely when practitioners hold beliefs consistent with the OB findings regarding management practices. Second, I surmise that practitioners who conduct OB-related research themselves are more likely to apply such evidence in their own professional decisions. Thus, this chapter presents two kinds of information to assess the likelihood that practitioners make use of OB research: whether practitioners are aware of relevant OB findings and whether they undertake or participate in practice-oriented OB research themselves.

Practitioner Awareness of OB Findings

Of all the conditions needed to motivate practitioners to use evidence-based practices, perhaps the most basic is awareness of research findings (see Speicher-Bocija & Adams, chapter 17 of this volume, for other conditions). To examine the extent of practitioner knowledge of OB findings, Rynes, Colbert, and Brown (2002) developed a quiz regarding 35 well-established findings in OB related to the effectiveness of various company practices. (These findings were selected because management professors think them to be important.) Nearly 960 midlevel managers and senior executives who were members of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) took the quiz. They averaged 13 years of experience in management or HR.

Results revealed wide gaps between replicated OB research findings and practitioner beliefs. The greatest gaps involved research findings about hiring talent. For example, the item, “Companies that screen job applicants for values have higher performance than those that screen for intelligence,” is false. Only 16 percent of practitioner respondents got it right. In emphasizing values over ability, respondents may actually be reflecting the preference for informal methods to size up job applicants and make personnel decisions (Highhouse, 2008 ), which, as we now know, is less effective than using structured interviews. People in general (not just HR folks), are known to be reluctant to substitute scores and formulas for their own intuitions, despite consistent evidence that intuition is a poor substitute for evidence-based indicators. The preference to rely on personal judgment instead of systematic criteria has a long history (Grove & Lloyd, 2006 ; Highhouse, 2008 ; Meehl, 1954 ). Interestingly, criminal profilers who attempt to identify serial killers from the details of crime scenes turn out to be only slightly more accurate at the task than lay people (Snook, Eastwood, Gendreau, Goggin, & Cullen, 2007 ).

On other topics, SHRM members gave more research-consistent answers. A full 96 percent accurately rated as false the item, “Leadership training is ineffective because good leaders are born, not made.” A total of 88 percent of SHRM respondents accurately answered as true, “Teams with members from different functional backgrounds are likely to reach better solutions to complex problems than teams from a single area;” as did a total of 81 percent who correctly answered true to, “Most employees prefer to be paid on the basis of individual performance rather than on a group or organizational performance.” Similarly, 62 percent correctly answered true on two items related to specific management practices and performance: “There is a positive relationship between the proportion of managers receiving organizationally based pay incentives and company profitability,” and, “Companies with vision statements perform better than those without them.”

The average SHRM sample score on this quiz was 57 (based on the percentage of items answered correctly). Still, there was a lot of variation. Beliefs consistent with the research findings were greatest for practitioners in higher organizational positions, for those with advanced certification in HR, or for those who read the academic literature. For example, practitioners who indicated that they usually read HR journals averaged 3 points (i.e., 11%) higher. Notably, more than 75 percent of those surveyed indicated they had never read any of the top three OB journals.

Sanders, van Riemsdijk, and Groen ( 2008 ) replicated the SHRM study in a survey of 646 Dutch HR managers. Their results are similar to SHRM’s American sample. Again, the greatest differences between beliefs and evidence were for items related to employee selection and recruiting. Dutch HR managers scored higher when they were more highly educated or read journals, as did the SHRM members. In addition, Dutch respondents scored more highly when they held positive attitudes toward research and evidence use.

Additional studies tested the generalizability of these findings to other populations. Pepitone ( 2009 ) assessed the knowledge of 336 mid- to high-level U.S. organization managers using the same quiz Rynes and her colleagues developed. His findings reveal virtually identical knowledge levels, with the same average of 57 percent correct. Timmerman ( 2010 ) found a similar knowledge level among undergraduate college students (58% average), although MBAs scored slightly but significantly higher (62%). Undergraduates and MBAs consistently missed the same seven items, which overlapped six of the most commonly missed items by HR managers. Across all four groups, the pattern of right answers (from highest percentage correct to lowest) was similar.

These results, if representative of the larger populations from which participants are drawn, suggest that none of these groups is particularly aware of OB findings. Note that the test items focus on common organizational practices, not arcane or rarely needed information. The items are in no way esoteric. It is also the case that MBA education may modestly increase knowledge levels, a finding that provides educators a ray of hope.

These results beg the question, Why do educated managers believe what they do? Results from the quiz may be due to lack of knowledge. Or, it may be that practitioner misperceptions and false beliefs develop prior to their becoming managers, consultants, or HR professionals—and unless education focuses considerable attention on evidence, what “they know that ain’t so” remains unchallenged. How we can effectively address this “awareness problem” depends on its underlying cause. If the pattern of results stems from fundamental contradictions between evidence-based principles and deeply held beliefs, merely providing more information may be insufficient to change minds (Highhouse, 2008 ).

Practitioner Involvement in Research

Part of the professional activities of practitioners in evidence-informed fields is participation in research. In medicine and nursing, practicing physicians and nurses frequently are involved in carrying out both basic research and clinical studies. In much the same way, organizational practitioners have the potential to conduct and/or participate in research. Indeed, historically practitioners have been quite active in OB research. As reported by Anderson, Herriot, and Hodgkinson ( 2001 ), between 1949 and 1965 practitioners authored 36 percent of the articles in one of the field’s most prestigious journals, Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP), including 31 percent of articles written by practitioners alone. Tom Weber’s study evaluating leadership training, described earlier, is one such study. More recently, from 1990 to 2000 (the terminal year of the Anderson et al. survey), practitioners authored only 4 percent of JAP articles (1% by practitioners alone). Other similar journals manifest a comparable decline in practitioner-authored research. Where in-house researchers and external consultants once actively contributed to OB research, academics now dominate.

Why have practitioners gone missing from OB research? This shift toward academic production of OB research has several reasons. First, the decline in practitioner research coincided with the rise in global competition and a short-term business focus during the last quarter of the twentieth century. I suspect that one reason for the decline in practitioner-oriented research in our journals is the reduced support for in-house research on management and organizational practices. Historically, industry sponsorship has been a major source of support, funding, and expertise for OB research. From ATT to Sears, to the military in the United States, to Cadbury in the United Kingdom, to myriad consulting firms in North America and Europe, practitioners both sponsored and produced organizational research. I suspect that cutbacks in practitioner-conducted research ceded journal pages to academics. Over time, academics exerted stronger control over the publication criteria for journals by virtue of the predominance of their work within those journals, making it more difficult to publish practitioner-conducted research. Interestingly, practitioner-oriented journals (e.g., Harvard Business Review , California Management Review ) are major consumers of academic research, especially from the applied psychology area that overlaps OB (McWilliams, Lockett, Katz, & Van Fleet, 2009 ).

Despite the aspiration for OB research to be useful to practice, lack of practitioner involvement in research is a big problem. Without practitioners helping to focus research on the actual conditions and challenges they face, we know less than is optimal to make findings actionable. Science-oriented OB research tends to tell us about a single effect in isolation. Thus, we may know that A tends to increase B, yet a real situation can also involve C, D, and Z (perhaps adding the layers of a challenging job, limited information, and several people with a say in the situation). A decision maker trying to take all these matters into account doesn’t have a straight path to an answer—a problem that confronts evidence use in other fields, too. DeAngelis ( 2008 ) notes that practicing clinical psychologists face such problems in treating their patients. Mental-health service providers can confront patients who are not only depressed but interpersonally challenged and substance-abusing, too. Little basic research can prepare mental-health professionals to treat this combination of patient conditions. Practice conditions aren’t as neat and tidy as the effects that targeted, science-oriented studies identify. Without practitioner participation in the research process, we are less likely to know the kinds of actual everyday decisions they face for which evidence is needed. Thus, lack of practitioner involvement in research is a double whammy for EBMgt. Their low participation levels suggest that practitioners typically don’t see organizational research as useful or relevant. Further, their nonparticipation exacerbates the research-practice gap by limiting the kind of research that gets done. The result is research even less widely known, used, or useful in the eyes of practitioners.

Implications

Evidence suggests that OB research is not widely used. This research-practice gap has motivated many calls for EBMgt (e.g., Latham, 2007 ; Rousseau, 2006 ; Rynes, Giluk, & Brown, 2007 ). The gap has multiple explanations, including the lack of knowledge on the part of many practitioners about what might be called basic “OB 101.” At the same time, awareness and knowledge aren’t quite the same. Practitioners can be familiar with what the science says but not believe it. Taken-for-granted beliefs that are at odds with scientific evidence are at the core of Pfeffer and Sutton’s ( 2006 ) well-stated notion that EBMgt’s challenge isn’t just what practitioners don’t know but “what they know that isn’t so.”

Practitioner involvement in research, endemic in other evidence-based professions, is nearly absent in management. Limited practitioner involvement in research limits real-world managers’ exposure to research ideas. It also affects the very nature of the research available to help tackle managerial and o problems. Thus, we are likely to have both a communication and a knowledge-production problem. At the same time, evidence exists that companies whose HR managers read the academic literature perform better than companies where they don’t (Terpstra & Rozell, 1997 ). We next consider what we can do to turn the evidence-informed practice of a few savvy managers into a way of life for more practitioners in contemporary organizations.

So What Next?

The central mission of EBMgt is not new to OB: to conduct research that both advances scientific inquiry and enlightens practice. So how might we best proceed to realize this heretofore “elusive ideal” (Van de Ven, 2007 )? I suspect the necessary steps involve things we already do, as well as some new activities. Because EBMgt is something that practitioners do with the support of researchers and educators, let’s explore the contributions each might make to closing OB’s research-practice gap.

Practitioners

Regardless of the management field involved, the need to close the research-practice gap has many of the same implications for practitioners. Recommendations of a more general nature are presented in Rousseau (chapter 1 of this volume) and Speicher-Bocija and Adams (chapter 17 of this volume). Here, I offer two recommendations that capitalize on the reasonably advanced state of OB’s knowledge base.

The first is learning fundamental evidence-based OB principles. Formal training, directed reading, and developing a network of evidence-savvy contacts are some ways evidence-based managers acquire this knowledge (see Zanardelli, chapter 11 of this volume). In a similar fashion, Locke’s Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behavior (2009) offers and gives guidance for how to use its practitioner-friendly research summaries. Such reading can help develop a more sophisticated understanding of why certain practices work and others don’t. Practitioners—managers in particular—often need to act quickly. Thus, evidence use comes more readily to the practitioner, like Jim Fuchs in our opening discussion, who acquired the knowledge before it was needed. User-friendly models and other heuristics that help busy practitioners recall and use evidence-based findings can support both learning and use (Larrick, 2009 ; Rousseau, chapter 1 of this volume).

Second, practitioners can become involved in research themselves. This involvement can take many forms. Pilot studies can be used to test interventions suggested by scientific evidence for use in a particular work setting. For example, to see how best to implement flexible hours, a group of supervisors might be trained in ways to promote flexible schedules. Then, the resulting outcomes (new scheduling arrangements, employee satisfaction, attendance, etc.) can be contrasted with the outcomes of a comparable group of supervisors not yet trained. Or, managers can collaborate with local academics to obtain evidence via systematic review or new research on a practice question. No matter the approach taken, direct experience with research problem formulation, design/measurement, testing, and interpretation is a powerful tool for enhancing critical thinking and knowledge of what works and how. Providing a site for research in collaboration with academic researchers can be a way to ease into this mode of professional practice (Zanardelli, chapter 11 of this volume). Many OB-related practice questions are particularly well suited to a single firm or work setting as Barling, Weber, and Kelloway ( 1996 ) demonstrate.

Educators are inadvertently contributing to the research-practice gap by not teaching the evidence or teaching it in a fashion that is not readily applied (Rousseau & McCarthy, 2007 ). Primary reading materials in many management programs include popular writings by armchair theorists and nonscientific opinion pieces by consultants and executives. In an evidence-based curriculum, students would learn both the principal research findings relevant to a practice area as well as how to apply them (Rousseau & McCarthy, 2007 ). Educator neglect of OB’s well-established evidence base undermines the professional development of organizational practitioners. It fosters reliance on gut and intuition over facts and systematic knowledge. In contrast, teaching with an emphasis on evidence-based practice helps students identify and pursue the goal of greater cumulated knowledge and expertise over the course of their careers.

OB courses need to be taught by faculty familiar with relevant research. In their study of the evidence base of MBA teaching, Chartier et al., (2011) found that faculty lacking PhDs did not base their courses on evidence. Adjuncts often taught these non-evidence-based courses and based their teaching upon their own experiences. There were no effects on the teaching of OB evidence from the nature of the business school itself, its rankings, or whether it had a doctoral program or research-active faculty. These findings suggest that our central concern should be that the faculty teaching in OB courses are knowledgeable about OB research and know how to teach that evidence. Evidence-based textbooks (Pearce, chapter 21 of this volume) and research syntheses (Briner & Denyer, chapter 7 of this volume) are useful in helping faculty to update their teaching with relevant research. Otherwise popular textbooks, reputed to present up-to-date research findings, often fail to meet to mark (Rynes & Trank, 1999 ; Trank & Rynes, 2003 ).

Specific teaching practices in OB can reinforce the relevance of evidence to the well-informed practitioner. In-class demonstrations of research findings play to the tendency to value what we experience ourselves. A good illustration of this tendency is demonstrating the effects of positive illusions, where people tend to harbor overly positive beliefs about themselves on attributes for which they receive little feedback (Taylor & Brown, 1988 ). Ask students to write down the percentile at which they stand individually compared to people in general on driving skills, looks, and intelligence. (The average answer is almost never less than 70–80 percent! On driving skills, no less!) Class participation in research also drives home core behavioral principles and stimulates the critical questioning that deepens understanding. Consider Latham’s ( 2007 , p. 1029) approach of involving managers in executive programs and MBA students in his research:

I present a question to them in the classroom (e.g., Do you think bias can be minimized, if not eliminated, in a performance appraisal?). I encourage strong debate among them regarding the questions I pose. Then I immediately involve them in an experiment to obtain the answer…[they] love the suspense as much as I do in seeking the answers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the research results are subsequently applied by the managers in their respective work settings. Of further benefit is the participants’ newfound appreciation of how the answers were obtained—through systematic empirical research.

Transferring this knowledge from the classroom to real-world practice needs to be woven into the fabric of our courses. Concepts and principles should be presented in ways consistent with how they will be used in practice (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, & Norman, 2010 ; Goodman & O’Brien, chapter 18 of this volume). Articulating a vision is a case in point. As noted earlier, successful managers commonly convey a vision for the future to their organization’s members. However, accompanying support practices, such as goal setting and rewards aligned with the vision, are probably used a lot less frequently and possibly not very effectively. Teaching concepts in modules that demonstrate how they can be used together can increase their effective use. For example, concepts such as vision, reward contingencies, and goal setting combine to form a bundle of mutually supportive practices in shaping behavior. Such factors can, for example, be presented as facets of change implementation (Goodman & Rousseau, 2004 ) or part of the infrastructure for high- performance teams (MacDuffie, 1995 ). Helping practitioners think through the connections among sets of concepts or practices can make it easier to apply them successfully.

Lastly, educators need to more actively investigate the conditions that promote or interfere with student acquisition of knowledge and skills in our educational settings. Identifying how lay beliefs influence reactions to research may prove key to improving our ability to help students acquire and apply OB-related knowledge. Given the social and interpersonal nature of OB research, practitioners are particularly likely to have developed their own beliefs about OB phenomena—beliefs that fall into Pfeffer and Sutton’s category of what we know that isn’t so. Thus, OB education has to recognize and work to overcome false beliefs learners hold and then to more effectively educate them in threshold concepts, insights that, if not acquired, keep students from fully understanding certain basic OB principles. Consider why intuition, though a poor prognosticator, remains so seductive. It turns out that most people reason backward (“the person I hired was successful, so I made the right decision”). People tend to forget that in the real world, decisions are made looking forward, without the results in hand. We typically have no information about what might have been if we had hired the people we chose not to at the time. Management educators need to identify and overcome such likely impediments to learning We then need to develop activities that lead to insight and mastery of threshold concepts (e.g., forward focus). Both may be critical in order for learners to understand, accept, and be willing to use evidence (cf. Ambrose et al., 2010 ).

Researchers

I have three recommendations specific to OB researchers. First, let’s capitalize on the field’s strengths—namely, its accumulation of programmatic research—and more systematically review and evaluate the conclusions that can be drawn from its bodies of evidence. OB’s cumulative advantage contrasts with other management fields that are less concerned with replication and cumulative findings (Mone & McKinley, 1993 ). Replication and cumulative findings in OB have not always been viewed positively. Critics have raised concern that the field lacks openness to innovative topics (cf. O’Reilly, 1991 ). I don’t believe that is a valid criticism (Rousseau, 1997 ) and see OB’s focus on the accumulation of knowledge as a sign of the field’s maturity and scientific values (Whitley, 2000 ). Along these lines, OB’s body of work is methodologically diverse, with many of its principles derived from findings that hold across experiments, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, and in-depth qualitative work. As such, research demonstrating convergent findings across multiple methodologies characterizes the more advanced sciences (Whitley, 1984 , 2000). At this juncture, contributing to EBMgt offers OB opportunities to expand its activities to include greater research synthesis and greater involvement in and support for practice-based evidence.

A huge volume of potentially relevant OB research findings awaits synthesis to figure out what we know, what we don’t know, and the concomitant implications for practice (Barends, ten Haven & Huisman, chapter 2 of this volume; Briner & Denyer, chapter 7 of this volume). Ensuring practitioners have access to summaries of OB evidence is a major stumbling block to the field’s EBMgt contribution. Journals can be expensive. It also is difficult to draw conclusions from the single studies they tend to publish. Systematic reviews about important practice questions are in short supply, despite the available research base. When they are undertaken, these summaries and syntheses need to go beyond quantitative meta-analyses. In many cases, practice questions necessitate syntheses of qualitative information (Denzin, 1978 ; Van de Ven, 2007 ). Research synthesis takes many forms (Rousseau, Manning, & Denyer, 2008 ). All are valid components in the EBMgt repertoire and in advancing our science. Researchers, beginning with their doctoral training, can contribute to our knowledge accumulation and capacity to ask new and important questions by more adequately synthesizing existing research to figure out what we already know now. We may know more than we think we do. (N.B. Orlitzky, Schmidt, and Rynes ( 2003 ) do a nice job of demonstrating this point in their meta-analysis of the link between corporate social responsibility and firms’ financial outcomes.)

The practical goals of OB are more readily accomplished with better understanding of the conditions of practice and practitioner needs. EBMgt implementation, as in the case of EBMgt teaching discussed earlier, would benefit from greater insight into practitioner intuitions and beliefs. Such research can help identify the conditions and perceptions that interfere with or aid the uptake of evidence-based practices. Practice-oriented research lends itself to collaboration. It can bring practitioners and academics together to make sense of and solve real-life problems. Practitioner participation is key to insights into organizations, real-world practices, and conditions of use (Vermeulen, 2005 , 2007). Practice-oriented research also allows the testing of practitioner “(lay”) theory, since false knowledge is a barrier to effective practice (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006 ). Persistent faith in the accuracy of intuition is perhaps the most significant (and most often incorrect) lay belief (Highhouse, 2008 ). Research is needed to investigate both the conditions that sustain ineffective practice and those that facilitate effective practice. Significant opportunities for knowledge generation and application lie in the intersection of research/education, education/practice, and research/practice.

A final research implication is the need to begin developing knowledge products particularly focused on the end user: action guides and implementation manuals based on evidence. Action guides provide procedural knowledge about ways to act upon evidence-based facts (the declarative or what-is knowledge described earlier). These guides help make effective practice easier by taking organizational facilitators and barriers into account. Frese and his colleagues (chapter 6 of this volume) describe a series of studies evaluating implementation manuals developed to support evidence-based practice among African entrepreneurs (Koop, De Reu, & Frese, 2000 ; Krauss, Frese, Friedrich, & Unger, 2005 ). These action guides detail steps in proactive business planning, relevant metrics for success, and ways to correct or adapt plans that failed or were difficult to implement. Their development benefits from researcher-practitioner collaboration.

Picking up our example of the impact of flexible scheduling on workers and firms, recall Perlow’s ( 1997 ) study of the kinds of problems flexible schedules create. An action guide might be developed based on such research to address how to carry out flexibility effectively. A guide of this nature might describe the kinds of adjustments flexible schedules need if their initial implementation creates problems. The guide’s use can then be evaluated and redesigned for impact on effective practice, according to the approach taken by Frese and his colleagues (Koop et al., 2000 ; Krauss et al., 2005 ). With its focus on the actual practices managers and organizations use, OB’s practice-oriented evidence can aid training and development to support implementation and provide insights into the facilitators, barriers, and adjustments that affect it.

Hundreds of evidence-based principles from OB contribute to the scientific basis of EBMgt, a foundation that continues to expand and deepen. OB’s scientific research can be relevant to practice, just as its practice research can produce valid knowledge in the scientific sense. Recognizing the value of both types of research promotes new forms of knowledge. Such knowledge makes it easier to create and inform evidence-based decision making and practices. Furthering OB’s contribution to EBMgt requires certain activities on the part of practitioners, educators, and researchers: greater involvement by practitioners in research creation, interpretation/translation, and use; greater effort by OB educators in helping practitioners learn to use evidence; and the union of their forces with researchers to better evaluate, synthesize, and make available OB research to practitioners. Making the use of OB evidence a reality requires the complementary and joint efforts of practitioners, educators, and researchers.

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Organizational Behavior Topics

Organizational behavior (OB) can be defined as the study of human behavior in the workplace. More specifically, investigators employ the principles of the scientific method to help them understand, predict, and manage employee behavior. The knowledge that follows rigorous, systematic study is used to enhance the productivity of organizations and the quality of work life for its employees. Read more about  Organizational Behavior .

Organizational Behavior Research Topics

• Counterproductive Work Behavior: CWB-I
• Counterproductive Work Behavior: CWB-O
• Creativity at Work
• Customer Satisfaction
• Cyberloafing at Work
• Employee Theft
• Job Performance
• Organizational Behavior Management
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior
• Organizational Retaliatory Behavior
• Time Management
• Whistleblowing
• Withdrawal Behavior: Absenteeism
• Withdrawal Behavior: Lateness
• Withdrawal Behavior: Turnover
• Workplace Incivility
• Workplace Violence

Some research topics of interest within the Micro-OB subfield deal with selecting and training employees, employee motivation, evaluating performance of individual employees, decision making, and employee satisfaction and stress. Areas of investigation within Meso-OB include group dynamics, team effectiveness, job design, and leadership, to name a few. Some main areas of investigation at the Macro-OB level are organizational culture and climate, organizational change and development, employee socialization, power and politics within the organization, conflict management and negotiation, and the interaction of the organization with its environment.

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Definition and Introduction

Case analysis is a problem-based teaching and learning method that involves critically analyzing complex scenarios within an organizational setting for the purpose of placing the student in a “real world” situation and applying reflection and critical thinking skills to contemplate appropriate solutions, decisions, or recommended courses of action. It is considered a more effective teaching technique than in-class role playing or simulation activities. The analytical process is often guided by questions provided by the instructor that ask students to contemplate relationships between the facts and critical incidents described in the case.

Cases generally include both descriptive and statistical elements and rely on students applying abductive reasoning to develop and argue for preferred or best outcomes [i.e., case scenarios rarely have a single correct or perfect answer based on the evidence provided]. Rather than emphasizing theories or concepts, case analysis assignments emphasize building a bridge of relevancy between abstract thinking and practical application and, by so doing, teaches the value of both within a specific area of professional practice.

Given this, the purpose of a case analysis paper is to present a structured and logically organized format for analyzing the case situation. It can be assigned to students individually or as a small group assignment and it may include an in-class presentation component. Case analysis is predominately taught in economics and business-related courses, but it is also a method of teaching and learning found in other applied social sciences disciplines, such as, social work, public relations, education, journalism, and public administration.

Ellet, William. The Case Study Handbook: A Student's Guide . Revised Edition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2018; Christoph Rasche and Achim Seisreiner. Guidelines for Business Case Analysis . University of Potsdam; Writing a Case Analysis . Writing Center, Baruch College; Volpe, Guglielmo. "Case Teaching in Economics: History, Practice and Evidence." Cogent Economics and Finance 3 (December 2015). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2015.1120977.

How to Approach Writing a Case Analysis Paper

The organization and structure of a case analysis paper can vary depending on the organizational setting, the situation, and how your professor wants you to approach the assignment. Nevertheless, preparing to write a case analysis paper involves several important steps. As Hawes notes, a case analysis assignment “...is useful in developing the ability to get to the heart of a problem, analyze it thoroughly, and to indicate the appropriate solution as well as how it should be implemented” [p.48]. This statement encapsulates how you should approach preparing to write a case analysis paper.

Before you begin to write your paper, consider the following analytical procedures:

• Review the case to get an overview of the situation . A case can be only a few pages in length, however, it is most often very lengthy and contains a significant amount of detailed background information and statistics, with multilayered descriptions of the scenario, the roles and behaviors of various stakeholder groups, and situational events. Therefore, a quick reading of the case will help you gain an overall sense of the situation and illuminate the types of issues and problems that you will need to address in your paper. If your professor has provided questions intended to help frame your analysis, use them to guide your initial reading of the case.
• Read the case thoroughly . After gaining a general overview of the case, carefully read the content again with the purpose of understanding key circumstances, events, and behaviors among stakeholder groups. Look for information or data that appears contradictory, extraneous, or misleading. At this point, you should be taking notes as you read because this will help you develop a general outline of your paper. The aim is to obtain a complete understanding of the situation so that you can begin contemplating tentative answers to any questions your professor has provided or, if they have not provided, developing answers to your own questions about the case scenario and its connection to the course readings,lectures, and class discussions.
• Determine key stakeholder groups, issues, and events and the relationships they all have to each other . As you analyze the content, pay particular attention to identifying individuals, groups, or organizations described in the case and identify evidence of any problems or issues of concern that impact the situation in a negative way. Other things to look for include identifying any assumptions being made by or about each stakeholder, potential biased explanations or actions, explicit demands or ultimatums , and the underlying concerns that motivate these behaviors among stakeholders. The goal at this stage is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the situational and behavioral dynamics of the case and the explicit and implicit consequences of each of these actions.
• Identify the core problems . The next step in most case analysis assignments is to discern what the core [i.e., most damaging, detrimental, injurious] problems are within the organizational setting and to determine their implications. The purpose at this stage of preparing to write your analysis paper is to distinguish between the symptoms of core problems and the core problems themselves and to decide which of these must be addressed immediately and which problems do not appear critical but may escalate over time. Identify evidence from the case to support your decisions by determining what information or data is essential to addressing the core problems and what information is not relevant or is misleading.
• Explore alternative solutions . As noted, case analysis scenarios rarely have only one correct answer. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that the process of analyzing the case and diagnosing core problems, while based on evidence, is a subjective process open to various avenues of interpretation. This means that you must consider alternative solutions or courses of action by critically examining strengths and weaknesses, risk factors, and the differences between short and long-term solutions. For each possible solution or course of action, consider the consequences they may have related to their implementation and how these recommendations might lead to new problems. Also, consider thinking about your recommended solutions or courses of action in relation to issues of fairness, equity, and inclusion.
• Decide on a final set of recommendations . The last stage in preparing to write a case analysis paper is to assert an opinion or viewpoint about the recommendations needed to help resolve the core problems as you see them and to make a persuasive argument for supporting this point of view. Prepare a clear rationale for your recommendations based on examining each element of your analysis. Anticipate possible obstacles that could derail their implementation. Consider any counter-arguments that could be made concerning the validity of your recommended actions. Finally, describe a set of criteria and measurable indicators that could be applied to evaluating the effectiveness of your implementation plan.

Use these steps as the framework for writing your paper. Remember that the more detailed you are in taking notes as you critically examine each element of the case, the more information you will have to draw from when you begin to write. This will save you time.

NOTE : If the process of preparing to write a case analysis paper is assigned as a student group project, consider having each member of the group analyze a specific element of the case, including drafting answers to the corresponding questions used by your professor to frame the analysis. This will help make the analytical process more efficient and ensure that the distribution of work is equitable. This can also facilitate who is responsible for drafting each part of the final case analysis paper and, if applicable, the in-class presentation.

Framework for Case Analysis . College of Management. University of Massachusetts; Hawes, Jon M. "Teaching is Not Telling: The Case Method as a Form of Interactive Learning." Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education 5 (Winter 2004): 47-54; Rasche, Christoph and Achim Seisreiner. Guidelines for Business Case Analysis . University of Potsdam; Writing a Case Study Analysis . University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center; Van Ness, Raymond K. A Guide to Case Analysis . School of Business. State University of New York, Albany; Writing a Case Analysis . Business School, University of New South Wales.

Structure and Writing Style

A case analysis paper should be detailed, concise, persuasive, clearly written, and professional in tone and in the use of language . As with other forms of college-level academic writing, declarative statements that convey information, provide a fact, or offer an explanation or any recommended courses of action should be based on evidence. If allowed by your professor, any external sources used to support your analysis, such as course readings, should be properly cited under a list of references. The organization and structure of case analysis papers can vary depending on your professor’s preferred format, but its structure generally follows the steps used for analyzing the case.

Introduction

The introduction should provide a succinct but thorough descriptive overview of the main facts, issues, and core problems of the case . The introduction should also include a brief summary of the most relevant details about the situation and organizational setting. This includes defining the theoretical framework or conceptual model on which any questions were used to frame your analysis.

Following the rules of most college-level research papers, the introduction should then inform the reader how the paper will be organized. This includes describing the major sections of the paper and the order in which they will be presented. Unless you are told to do so by your professor, you do not need to preview your final recommendations in the introduction. U nlike most college-level research papers , the introduction does not include a statement about the significance of your findings because a case analysis assignment does not involve contributing new knowledge about a research problem.

Background Analysis

Background analysis can vary depending on any guiding questions provided by your professor and the underlying concept or theory that the case is based upon. In general, however, this section of your paper should focus on:

• Providing an overarching analysis of problems identified from the case scenario, including identifying events that stakeholders find challenging or troublesome,
• Identifying assumptions made by each stakeholder and any apparent biases they may exhibit,
• Describing any demands or claims made by or forced upon key stakeholders, and
• Highlighting any issues of concern or complaints expressed by stakeholders in response to those demands or claims.

These aspects of the case are often in the form of behavioral responses expressed by individuals or groups within the organizational setting. However, note that problems in a case situation can also be reflected in data [or the lack thereof] and in the decision-making, operational, cultural, or institutional structure of the organization. Additionally, demands or claims can be either internal and external to the organization [e.g., a case analysis involving a president considering arms sales to Saudi Arabia could include managing internal demands from White House advisors as well as demands from members of Congress].

Throughout this section, present all relevant evidence from the case that supports your analysis. Do not simply claim there is a problem, an assumption, a demand, or a concern; tell the reader what part of the case informed how you identified these background elements.

Identification of Problems

In most case analysis assignments, there are problems, and then there are problems . Each problem can reflect a multitude of underlying symptoms that are detrimental to the interests of the organization. The purpose of identifying problems is to teach students how to differentiate between problems that vary in severity, impact, and relative importance. Given this, problems can be described in three general forms: those that must be addressed immediately, those that should be addressed but the impact is not severe, and those that do not require immediate attention and can be set aside for the time being.

All of the problems you identify from the case should be identified in this section of your paper, with a description based on evidence explaining the problem variances. If the assignment asks you to conduct research to further support your assessment of the problems, include this in your explanation. Remember to cite those sources in a list of references. Use specific evidence from the case and apply appropriate concepts, theories, and models discussed in class or in relevant course readings to highlight and explain the key problems [or problem] that you believe must be solved immediately and describe the underlying symptoms and why they are so critical.

Alternative Solutions

This section is where you provide specific, realistic, and evidence-based solutions to the problems you have identified and make recommendations about how to alleviate the underlying symptomatic conditions impacting the organizational setting. For each solution, you must explain why it was chosen and provide clear evidence to support your reasoning. This can include, for example, course readings and class discussions as well as research resources, such as, books, journal articles, research reports, or government documents. In some cases, your professor may encourage you to include personal, anecdotal experiences as evidence to support why you chose a particular solution or set of solutions. Using anecdotal evidence helps promote reflective thinking about the process of determining what qualifies as a core problem and relevant solution .

Throughout this part of the paper, keep in mind the entire array of problems that must be addressed and describe in detail the solutions that might be implemented to resolve these problems.

Recommended Courses of Action

In some case analysis assignments, your professor may ask you to combine the alternative solutions section with your recommended courses of action. However, it is important to know the difference between the two. A solution refers to the answer to a problem. A course of action refers to a procedure or deliberate sequence of activities adopted to proactively confront a situation, often in the context of accomplishing a goal. In this context, proposed courses of action are based on your analysis of alternative solutions. Your description and justification for pursuing each course of action should represent the overall plan for implementing your recommendations.

For each course of action, you need to explain the rationale for your recommendation in a way that confronts challenges, explains risks, and anticipates any counter-arguments from stakeholders. Do this by considering the strengths and weaknesses of each course of action framed in relation to how the action is expected to resolve the core problems presented, the possible ways the action may affect remaining problems, and how the recommended action will be perceived by each stakeholder.

In addition, you should describe the criteria needed to measure how well the implementation of these actions is working and explain which individuals or groups are responsible for ensuring your recommendations are successful. In addition, always consider the law of unintended consequences. Outline difficulties that may arise in implementing each course of action and describe how implementing the proposed courses of action [either individually or collectively] may lead to new problems [both large and small].

Throughout this section, you must consider the costs and benefits of recommending your courses of action in relation to uncertainties or missing information and the negative consequences of success.

The conclusion should be brief and introspective. Unlike a research paper, the conclusion in a case analysis paper does not include a summary of key findings and their significance, a statement about how the study contributed to existing knowledge, or indicate opportunities for future research.

Begin by synthesizing the core problems presented in the case and the relevance of your recommended solutions. This can include an explanation of what you have learned about the case in the context of your answers to the questions provided by your professor. The conclusion is also where you link what you learned from analyzing the case with the course readings or class discussions. This can further demonstrate your understanding of the relationships between the practical case situation and the theoretical and abstract content of assigned readings and other course content.

Problems to Avoid

The literature on case analysis assignments often includes examples of difficulties students have with applying methods of critical analysis and effectively reporting the results of their assessment of the situation. A common reason cited by scholars is that the application of this type of teaching and learning method is limited to applied fields of social and behavioral sciences and, as a result, writing a case analysis paper can be unfamiliar to most students entering college.

After you have drafted your paper, proofread the narrative flow and revise any of these common errors:

• Unnecessary detail in the background section . The background section should highlight the essential elements of the case based on your analysis. Focus on summarizing the facts and highlighting the key factors that become relevant in the other sections of the paper by eliminating any unnecessary information.
• Analysis relies too much on opinion . Your analysis is interpretive, but the narrative must be connected clearly to evidence from the case and any models and theories discussed in class or in course readings. Any positions or arguments you make should be supported by evidence.
• Analysis does not focus on the most important elements of the case . Your paper should provide a thorough overview of the case. However, the analysis should focus on providing evidence about what you identify are the key events, stakeholders, issues, and problems. Emphasize what you identify as the most critical aspects of the case to be developed throughout your analysis. Be thorough but succinct.
• Writing is too descriptive . A paper with too much descriptive information detracts from your analysis of the complexities of the case situation. Questions about what happened, where, when, and by whom should only be included as essential information leading to your examination of questions related to why, how, and for what purpose.
• Inadequate definition of a core problem and associated symptoms . A common error found in case analysis papers is recommending a solution or course of action without adequately defining or demonstrating that you understand the problem. Make sure you have clearly described the problem and its impact and scope within the organizational setting. Ensure that you have adequately described the root causes w hen describing the symptoms of the problem.
• Recommendations lack specificity . Identify any use of vague statements and indeterminate terminology, such as, “A particular experience” or “a large increase to the budget.” These statements cannot be measured and, as a result, there is no way to evaluate their successful implementation. Provide specific data and use direct language in describing recommended actions.
• Unrealistic, exaggerated, or unattainable recommendations . Review your recommendations to ensure that they are based on the situational facts of the case. Your recommended solutions and courses of action must be based on realistic assumptions and fit within the constraints of the situation. Also note that the case scenario has already happened, therefore, any speculation or arguments about what could have occurred if the circumstances were different should be revised or eliminated.

Bee, Lian Song et al. "Business Students' Perspectives on Case Method Coaching for Problem-Based Learning: Impacts on Student Engagement and Learning Performance in Higher Education." Education & Training 64 (2022): 416-432; The Case Analysis . Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors. Grand Valley State University; Georgallis, Panikos and Kayleigh Bruijn. "Sustainability Teaching using Case-Based Debates." Journal of International Education in Business 15 (2022): 147-163; Hawes, Jon M. "Teaching is Not Telling: The Case Method as a Form of Interactive Learning." Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education 5 (Winter 2004): 47-54; Georgallis, Panikos, and Kayleigh Bruijn. "Sustainability Teaching Using Case-based Debates." Journal of International Education in Business 15 (2022): 147-163; .Dean,  Kathy Lund and Charles J. Fornaciari. "How to Create and Use Experiential Case-Based Exercises in a Management Classroom." Journal of Management Education 26 (October 2002): 586-603; Klebba, Joanne M. and Janet G. Hamilton. "Structured Case Analysis: Developing Critical Thinking Skills in a Marketing Case Course." Journal of Marketing Education 29 (August 2007): 132-137, 139; Klein, Norman. "The Case Discussion Method Revisited: Some Questions about Student Skills." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 30-32; Mukherjee, Arup. "Effective Use of In-Class Mini Case Analysis for Discovery Learning in an Undergraduate MIS Course." The Journal of Computer Information Systems 40 (Spring 2000): 15-23; Pessoa, Silviaet al. "Scaffolding the Case Analysis in an Organizational Behavior Course: Making Analytical Language Explicit." Journal of Management Education 46 (2022): 226-251: Ramsey, V. J. and L. D. Dodge. "Case Analysis: A Structured Approach." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 27-29; Schweitzer, Karen. "How to Write and Format a Business Case Study." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-write-and-format-a-business-case-study-466324 (accessed December 5, 2022); Reddy, C. D. "Teaching Research Methodology: Everything's a Case." Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods 18 (December 2020): 178-188; Volpe, Guglielmo. "Case Teaching in Economics: History, Practice and Evidence." Cogent Economics and Finance 3 (December 2015). doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/23322039.2015.1120977.

Writing Tip

Ca se Study and Case Analysis Are Not the Same!

Confusion often exists between what it means to write a paper that uses a case study research design and writing a paper that analyzes a case; they are two different types of approaches to learning in the social and behavioral sciences. Professors as well as educational researchers contribute to this confusion because they often use the term "case study" when describing the subject of analysis for a case analysis paper. But you are not studying a case for the purpose of generating a comprehensive, multi-faceted understanding of a research problem. R ather, you are critically analyzing a specific scenario to argue logically for recommended solutions and courses of action that lead to optimal outcomes applicable to professional practice.

To avoid any confusion, here are twelve characteristics that delineate the differences between writing a paper using the case study research method and writing a case analysis paper:

• Case study is a method of in-depth research and rigorous inquiry ; case analysis is a reliable method of teaching and learning . A case study is a modality of research that investigates a phenomenon for the purpose of creating new knowledge, solving a problem, or testing a hypothesis using empirical evidence derived from the case being studied. Often, the results are used to generalize about a larger population or within a wider context. The writing adheres to the traditional standards of a scholarly research study. A case analysis is a pedagogical tool used to teach students how to reflect and think critically about a practical, real-life problem in an organizational setting.
• The researcher is responsible for identifying the case to study; a case analysis is assigned by your professor . As the researcher, you choose the case study to investigate in support of obtaining new knowledge and understanding about the research problem. The case in a case analysis assignment is almost always provided, and sometimes written, by your professor and either given to every student in class to analyze individually or to a small group of students, or students select a case to analyze from a predetermined list.
• A case study is indeterminate and boundless; a case analysis is predetermined and confined . A case study can be almost anything [see item 9 below] as long as it relates directly to examining the research problem. This relationship is the only limit to what a researcher can choose as the subject of their case study. The content of a case analysis is determined by your professor and its parameters are well-defined and limited to elucidating insights of practical value applied to practice.
• Case study is fact-based and describes actual events or situations; case analysis can be entirely fictional or adapted from an actual situation . The entire content of a case study must be grounded in reality to be a valid subject of investigation in an empirical research study. A case analysis only needs to set the stage for critically examining a situation in practice and, therefore, can be entirely fictional or adapted, all or in-part, from an actual situation.
• Research using a case study method must adhere to principles of intellectual honesty and academic integrity; a case analysis scenario can include misleading or false information . A case study paper must report research objectively and factually to ensure that any findings are understood to be logically correct and trustworthy. A case analysis scenario may include misleading or false information intended to deliberately distract from the central issues of the case. The purpose is to teach students how to sort through conflicting or useless information in order to come up with the preferred solution. Any use of misleading or false information in academic research is considered unethical.
• Case study is linked to a research problem; case analysis is linked to a practical situation or scenario . In the social sciences, the subject of an investigation is most often framed as a problem that must be researched in order to generate new knowledge leading to a solution. Case analysis narratives are grounded in real life scenarios for the purpose of examining the realities of decision-making behavior and processes within organizational settings. A case analysis assignments include a problem or set of problems to be analyzed. However, the goal is centered around the act of identifying and evaluating courses of action leading to best possible outcomes.
• The purpose of a case study is to create new knowledge through research; the purpose of a case analysis is to teach new understanding . Case studies are a choice of methodological design intended to create new knowledge about resolving a research problem. A case analysis is a mode of teaching and learning intended to create new understanding and an awareness of uncertainty applied to practice through acts of critical thinking and reflection.
• A case study seeks to identify the best possible solution to a research problem; case analysis can have an indeterminate set of solutions or outcomes . Your role in studying a case is to discover the most logical, evidence-based ways to address a research problem. A case analysis assignment rarely has a single correct answer because one of the goals is to force students to confront the real life dynamics of uncertainly, ambiguity, and missing or conflicting information within professional practice. Under these conditions, a perfect outcome or solution almost never exists.
• Case study is unbounded and relies on gathering external information; case analysis is a self-contained subject of analysis . The scope of a case study chosen as a method of research is bounded. However, the researcher is free to gather whatever information and data is necessary to investigate its relevance to understanding the research problem. For a case analysis assignment, your professor will often ask you to examine solutions or recommended courses of action based solely on facts and information from the case.
• Case study can be a person, place, object, issue, event, condition, or phenomenon; a case analysis is a carefully constructed synopsis of events, situations, and behaviors . The research problem dictates the type of case being studied and, therefore, the design can encompass almost anything tangible as long as it fulfills the objective of generating new knowledge and understanding. A case analysis is in the form of a narrative containing descriptions of facts, situations, processes, rules, and behaviors within a particular setting and under a specific set of circumstances.
• Case study can represent an open-ended subject of inquiry; a case analysis is a narrative about something that has happened in the past . A case study is not restricted by time and can encompass an event or issue with no temporal limit or end. For example, the current war in Ukraine can be used as a case study of how medical personnel help civilians during a large military conflict, even though circumstances around this event are still evolving. A case analysis can be used to elicit critical thinking about current or future situations in practice, but the case itself is a narrative about something finite and that has taken place in the past.
• Multiple case studies can be used in a research study; case analysis involves examining a single scenario . Case study research can use two or more cases to examine a problem, often for the purpose of conducting a comparative investigation intended to discover hidden relationships, document emerging trends, or determine variations among different examples. A case analysis assignment typically describes a stand-alone, self-contained situation and any comparisons among cases are conducted during in-class discussions and/or student presentations.

The Case Analysis . Fred Meijer Center for Writing and Michigan Authors. Grand Valley State University; Mills, Albert J. , Gabrielle Durepos, and Eiden Wiebe, editors. Encyclopedia of Case Study Research . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2010; Ramsey, V. J. and L. D. Dodge. "Case Analysis: A Structured Approach." Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6 (November 1981): 27-29; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . 6th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2017; Crowe, Sarah et al. “The Case Study Approach.” BMC Medical Research Methodology 11 (2011):  doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-11-100; Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods . 4th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing; 1994.

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Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing Research Paper Topics

The diverse array of obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics underscores the critical importance of this specialized field of nursing. Obstetric and gynecological nursing encompasses a wide range of topics that address the health and wellness of women from adolescence through menopause and beyond. This includes the management of pregnancy and childbirth, preventive care, and the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders specific to women. As the healthcare needs of women continue to evolve, so does the need for ongoing research and development of evidence-based practices in obstetric and gynecological nursing. This article provides a comprehensive list of research paper topics that will be of interest to students and professionals seeking to expand their knowledge and contribute to the body of knowledge in this vital area of healthcare.

100 Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing Research Paper Topics

Obstetric and gynecological nursing is a specialized field of nursing that focuses on the health and well-being of women throughout their lifespan. It encompasses a wide range of topics including pregnancy and prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care, gynecological disorders, reproductive health, maternal and newborn health, high-risk pregnancy, women’s health across the lifespan, menopausal health, and ethical and legal issues in obstetric and gynecological nursing. The significance of this field cannot be overstated as it plays a crucial role in ensuring the health and well-being of both women and newborns. This article provides a comprehensive list of obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics, divided into 10 categories, each containing 10 topics.

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Pregnancy and Prenatal Care:

• The role of prenatal vitamins in preventing birth defects.
• The effects of maternal stress on fetal development.
• The impact of prenatal exercise on maternal and fetal health.
• The role of routine ultrasound examinations in prenatal care.
• The effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions for nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.
• The impact of maternal obesity on pregnancy outcomes.
• The role of folic acid supplementation in the prevention of neural tube defects.
• The effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions during pregnancy.
• The impact of maternal alcohol consumption on fetal development.
• The role of prenatal education in preparing expectant mothers for childbirth.

Labor and Delivery:

• The effectiveness of epidural analgesia in managing labor pain.
• The impact of birthing positions on labor outcomes.
• The role of continuous support during labor and delivery.
• The effectiveness of non-pharmacological pain relief methods during labor.
• The impact of induced labor on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• The role of midwives in managing labor and delivery.
• The effectiveness of water birth in reducing labor pain.
• The impact of cesarean section on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• The role of intrapartum fetal monitoring in preventing adverse outcomes.
• The effectiveness of active management of the third stage of labor in preventing postpartum hemorrhage.

Postpartum Care:

• The role of breastfeeding support in promoting successful breastfeeding.
• The impact of postpartum depression on mother-infant bonding.
• The effectiveness of skin-to-skin contact in promoting neonatal thermoregulation.
• The role of postpartum exercise in promoting maternal physical and mental health.
• The impact of early postpartum discharge on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• The effectiveness of postpartum contraceptive counseling in preventing unplanned pregnancies.
• The role of routine newborn screening in the early detection of congenital disorders.
• The impact of maternal-infant rooming-in on breastfeeding success.
• The effectiveness of postpartum home visits in promoting maternal and newborn health.
• The role of pelvic floor exercises in preventing postpartum urinary incontinence.

Gynecological Disorders:

• The effectiveness of hormonal therapy in managing polycystic ovary syndrome.
• The impact of lifestyle modifications on the management of endometriosis.
• The role of screening in the early detection of cervical cancer.
• The effectiveness of non-surgical interventions for uterine fibroids.
• The impact of human papillomavirus vaccination on the incidence of cervical cancer.
• The role of hormonal replacement therapy in managing menopausal symptoms.
• The effectiveness of conservative management for ovarian cysts.
• The impact of early detection and treatment on the prognosis of ovarian cancer.
• The role of lifestyle modifications in the prevention of gynecological cancers.
• The effectiveness of surgical interventions for pelvic organ prolapse.

Reproductive Health:

• The role of contraceptive counseling in preventing unplanned pregnancies.
• The impact of long-acting reversible contraceptives on reducing the rate of unintended pregnancies.
• The effectiveness of fertility awareness-based methods in preventing pregnancy.
• The role of preconception care in promoting healthy pregnancies.
• The impact of sexually transmitted infections on reproductive health.
• The effectiveness of barrier methods in preventing sexually transmitted infections.
• The role of hormonal contraceptives in managing menstrual disorders.
• The impact of infertility on mental health.
• The effectiveness of assisted reproductive technologies in managing infertility.
• The role of male involvement in promoting reproductive health.

Maternal and Newborn Health:

• The impact of gestational diabetes on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• The effectiveness of kangaroo mother care in promoting neonatal health.
• The role of antenatal corticosteroids in preventing neonatal respiratory distress syndrome.
• The impact of maternal anemia on neonatal outcomes.
• The effectiveness of newborn resuscitation in preventing neonatal mortality.
• The role of immunization in promoting maternal and newborn health.
• The impact of maternal mental health on neonatal outcomes.
• The effectiveness of neonatal intensive care in improving the survival of preterm infants.
• The role of early intervention services in promoting the development of high-risk infants.
• The impact of maternal-infant bonding on neonatal outcomes.

High-Risk Pregnancy:

• The role of antenatal care in managing high-risk pregnancies.
• The impact of multiple pregnancies on maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• The effectiveness of nutritional interventions in managing gestational diabetes.
• The role of bed rest in managing preterm labor.
• The impact of advanced maternal age on pregnancy outcomes.
• The effectiveness of antihypertensive medications in managing preeclampsia.
• The role of fetal surveillance in managing intrauterine growth restriction.
• The impact of preconception care on the outcomes of high-risk pregnancies.
• The effectiveness of interventions for preventing recurrent preterm birth.
• The role of specialist care in managing high-risk pregnancies.

Women’s Health Across the Lifespan:

• The impact of lifestyle modifications on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases in women.
• The effectiveness of breast cancer screening in early detection and treatment.
• The role of hormone replacement therapy in managing menopausal symptoms.
• The impact of osteoporosis on women’s health.
• The effectiveness of interventions for preventing urinary incontinence in women.
• The role of regular exercise in promoting mental health in women.
• The impact of domestic violence on women’s health.
• The effectiveness of interventions for promoting healthy eating in women.
• The role of stress management in preventing chronic diseases in women.
• The impact of depression on women’s health.

Menopausal Health:

• The impact of menopause on cardiovascular health.
• The effectiveness of hormonal replacement therapy in managing menopausal symptoms.
• The role of lifestyle modifications in managing menopausal weight gain.
• The impact of menopause on mental health.
• The effectiveness of non-hormonal interventions for managing hot flashes.
• The role of regular exercise in preventing osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
• The impact of menopause on sexual health.
• The effectiveness of dietary interventions in managing menopausal symptoms.
• The role of stress management in promoting menopausal health.
• The impact of menopause on the risk of developing gynecological cancers.

Ethical and Legal Issues in Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing:

• The role of informed consent in obstetric and gynecological procedures.
• The impact of religious and cultural beliefs on women’s health decisions.
• The effectiveness of mandatory reporting of domestic violence in promoting women’s safety.
• The role of confidentiality in obstetric and gynecological care.
• The impact of legal restrictions on abortion services.
• The effectiveness of legal interventions in preventing female genital mutilation.
• The role of ethical considerations in assisted reproductive technologies.
• The impact of legal and ethical issues on the practice of obstetric and gynecological nursing.
• The effectiveness of legal interventions in promoting maternal and newborn health.
• The role of ethical considerations in the management of high-risk pregnancies.

The importance of research in obstetric and gynecological nursing cannot be overstated as it plays a crucial role in ensuring the health and well-being of both women and newborns. The diverse range of topics listed above provides a comprehensive overview of the various aspects of obstetric and gynecological nursing. It is our hope that this list will serve as a valuable resource for students and professionals seeking to expand their knowledge and contribute to the body of knowledge in this vital area of healthcare.

The Range of Obstetric and Gynecological Nursing Research Paper Topics

Obstetric and gynecological nursing is an essential branch of healthcare that focuses on the well-being of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the female reproductive system. The significance of this field is immense, as it plays a crucial role in ensuring the health and safety of both mothers and newborns, and in managing and preventing gynecological disorders. The scope of obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics is vast, encompassing a wide range of issues from pregnancy and prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care, gynecological disorders, and much more.

Pregnancy and Prenatal Care

Proper care during pregnancy is essential for the health and well-being of both the mother and the baby. Prenatal care involves a series of regular check-ups and screenings to monitor the health of the mother and the developing fetus. Obstetric nurses play a crucial role in providing this care, educating expectant mothers about proper nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle habits, monitoring the progress of the pregnancy, and identifying and managing any potential complications. Some obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics in this area could include the effectiveness of different prenatal screening tests, the impact of maternal lifestyle habits on fetal development, or the role of prenatal education in preparing expectant mothers for childbirth.

Labor and Delivery

The process of labor and delivery is a critical period that requires skilled care and management to ensure the safety of both the mother and the baby. Obstetric nurses are involved in every stage of this process, from monitoring the progress of labor, providing pain relief, assisting with the delivery, and caring for the mother and newborn immediately after birth. Research topics in this area could include the effectiveness of different pain relief methods during labor, the impact of birthing positions on labor outcomes, or the role of continuous support during labor and delivery.

Postpartum Care

The postpartum period, or the time after childbirth, is a crucial time for both the mother and the newborn. Obstetric nurses provide care to the mother as she recovers from childbirth, monitor the newborn’s health and development, provide breastfeeding support, and educate the new parents on infant care. Some potential obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics in this area could include the impact of postpartum depression on mother-infant bonding, the effectiveness of skin-to-skin contact in promoting neonatal thermoregulation, or the role of postpartum exercise in promoting maternal physical and mental health.

Gynecological Disorders

Gynecological nursing involves the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the female reproductive system. Gynecological nurses provide care to women with a variety of gynecological disorders such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, cervical cancer, and more. Research topics in this area could include the effectiveness of hormonal therapy in managing PCOS, the impact of lifestyle modifications on the management of endometriosis, or the role of screening in the early detection of cervical cancer.

The diverse range of obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics provides an opportunity for researchers to explore a variety of issues that affect women’s health. By conducting research in this field, nurses can contribute to the body of knowledge that informs clinical practice and helps improve outcomes for women and newborns.

In conclusion, obstetric and gynecological nursing is a vital field that plays a crucial role in ensuring the health and well-being of women and newborns. From pregnancy and prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care, and the management of gynecological disorders, the scope of this field is vast. The wide range of obstetric and gynecological nursing research paper topics provides an opportunity for researchers to explore various aspects of this field and contribute to the improvement of women’s health.

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Lilibeth Al-Kofahy * and Linda James

Background: The reflective journal, a tool in students’ learning that helps student reflecting on and store their clinical learning in their memory. It also helps in better understanding of clinical practice as well as understanding of what they experienced and learned, provided the clinical instructors are not available for every student all the times. The outcome increases the confidence of the students and facilitates the ability of the instructor to customize clinical experiences for individual students based on their learning gaps. Method: Reflective journals of 40 nursing students from fall and spring 2013-2014 assigned to their Obstetric (OB) clinical placement were analyzed. Of them, 12 were interviewed face-to-face and were asking to relay their experiences in the postpartum units, labor and delivery, antepartum, and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used to explore the basic social process, which attempts to transcend student nurses’ experience regarding clinical reflection as a continual process and move it from a description of what is happening to an understanding of the process by which it happens. Findings: The findings of this study have the potential to contribute new knowledge concerning the process of experiential learning using reflection. Through reflection, nursing students in their obstetric clinical rotations demonstrated progress towards professional nursing status by developing confidence, and knowledge in nursing. Conclusion: Reflective journals as an educational strategy for facilitating learning in the extent of practice setting, and level of reflection achieved. Maternal-child nursing student was the participant in the process of his/her own clinical experience in various areas in the OB clinical unit. Reflective journaling also facilitates the nursing students’ learning and progress towards building confidence and knowledge, which are main components in providing quality of care.

1. Introduction

The aims of the current study were to analyze reflective journals written by nursing students while enrolled in the maternal-child nursing course at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) during fall, 2013 and spring, 2014 as well as to examine the use of reflective journals as an educational strategy for facilitating learning in the practice setting; and extent and level of reflection achieved.

The study was focused on the maternal and newborn experience of reflection within the Obstetric (OB) unit accessed by nursing students, in the clinical unit. Through an interpretive and descriptive approach, the organizational and contextual impact upon teaching and learning interactions and the use of reflection therein has been explored. Data has been collected from written reflection and interviews of nursing student’s experiences during clinical rotation in the OB unit (antepartum, postpartum, labor and delivery, and neonatal intensive care unit).

The reflective journal, a tool in students’ learning that helps student reflecting on and store their clinical learning in their memory. It also helps in better understanding of clinical practice as well as understanding of what they experienced and learned, provided the clinical instructors are not available for every student all the times. The outcome increases the confidence of the students and facilitates the ability of the instructor to customize clinical experiences for individual students based on their learning gaps.

2. Review of the Literature

Reflective journal writing has frequently been used in nursing and other health care fields as an educational approach to promote reflection and learning outcomes. Studies on evaluate its use as a teaching strategy for nursing students in the Obstetric and related units are scarce.

Reflective learning is of particular significance to the education of nursing students as it inspires them to integrate theory and practice and through reflective writing, turns every experience into a new prospective learning experience [1] . The nursing literature focuses the need to promote the concept of reflective practice to assist students in reflection of their experiences [2 - 6] . Many studies, demonstrate various approaches to the use reflective writing to teach nursing concepts. These approaches include the use of reflective diaries or journals [5 , 7 , 8] and the use of reflection within group discussion. Most of the literature relating to these approaches however is anecdotal in nature. The requirement to develop increasingly self-aware or selfreflective in practice is strongly encouraged.

A number of challenges including the effects of market instabilities and government-led social and health care methods have influence health care with a goal of improving health outcomes for clients. There is an acknowledgement that constant change is now an ongoing feature of health care delivery. Nursing students are expected to be able to respond to changes in the nursing profession with flexibility. According to Williams et al. [9] major changes in attitudes and practices are required in order to work confidently and to maintain professional growth as professional nurses. The researchers [9] believed that the motivation to learn from reflective processes has the potential to enhance and educate the practical learning experience and can aid the nursing students in labeling and recognizing their thoughts, actions, and it is resulting impact in a given situation.

Within nursing there has presently been an evolving awareness of the way students learn. Nursing students’ encounter situations within practice and need flexible ways of responding to and learning from these situations. It has been acknowledged in the literature that it is essential for practicum experiences in nursing education to be a central component of education for quality learning McCaugnerty, [10] ; Mouniford and Rogers [11] . Without this emphasis on practicum it is unlikely that the skills required for proficient practice will be developed. It is therefore, essential that approaches that facilitate learning through practice be considered. The need for a tool, which experts can use to facilitate learning through practice, is vital. One such tool, which may support quality learning through practice, is reflection.

Two thousand, nine hundred and eight registered nurses (including part-time workers) participated in the study, all of whom were working at the 11 subject hospitals and all of whom had three or more years career experience.

According to Mezirow [12] critical reflection involves the scrutiny of previously held views or perceptions by reflecting back on prior learning in demand to assess the validity of these assumptions within a new situation. Schön [7] has argued that student nurse’s must modify their clinical practice to becoming more reflective so that they may meet the essentials needs of their patients. He also mentions that the rules or theories need to maintain to guide nursing student’s use and practice may be effective at times, given to each patient or as a unique situation. There are no pre-set solutions to real life problems. Nursing students need develop their worldview of nursing [7] . Therefore, the challenge for educators is to help individual learner’s process everyday clinical situations in a competent manner to become independent student nurses while developing expert clinical judgment.

Reflection has been identified as an effective learning strategy that can assist nursing students to become independent with sound clinical judgment [5 , 7 , 13 , 14] . However, Schön [7] has argued that traditional nursing schools are not preparing students for confident in real life situations. He claims that the educational preparation of nursing professionals should be centered on enhancing the nursing student's ability to reflect since it can facilitate the integration of theory and practice [15] . A number of recent experimental studies by Clarke, James, and Kelly [5 , 16] ; Wong et al., [1] and Jasper [17] conclude that the nursing profession has embraced reflection as a teaching and learning method. Nursing student’s reflection used as a teaching and learning tool to improve nursing practice through the advancement of their ability to contextualize knowledge with flexibility to meet patients' needs. This involves the student being able to think clearly, to reason and to use effective problem-solving approaches in the practical situations. Problem solving demands that the student nurse thinks critically about the knowledge needed in practice to provide quality care.

The difficulty of the nursing situation is assessed critically and intuitively and situational knowledge grounded in practical experience is accessed to solve context-bound situations. This is what is known as professional practice [18] . Also, the author mentions that clinical experiences are in continual learning with the context of the nursing situation by analyzing, reviewing, grasping, and interacting with it. There is further reviewing their intentions and refining their actions. He points out those nursing students have a depth of personal knowledge and insights that may not be demanded of other occupations [18] . Nursing actions are developed and may then practice when nursing experiences are examined through reflection. The nursing student becomes aware of the various components of an experience that helps them to integrate the knowledge, which forms the basis of professional practice.

The writing of a journal as a means of promoting reflection and learning in educational settings has been encouraged [8,13,19- 21]. There is an association between the skills required for journal writing and that for reflection. These skills include open-mindedness, motivation, self-awareness, ability to describe and observe, as well as critically analyze, problem solve, synthesize and evaluate [14] . As a result, some advocate for the development and use of a tool to support reflective writing to enhance the qualities and skills required for reflection. Reflective journal writing was also introduced into different courses where the researchers are employed, as a tool to promote reflection in learning and as a form of self-evaluation of students' learning. Students' comments on the evaluation of their usefulness have been variable. Some students are more easily able to perform reflective writing and demonstrate higher-level learning benefiting them more than those who find the process challenging.

The researchers have therefore become increasingly interested in the role of journal writing in promoting reflection and learning in nursing students. There is some evidence to suggest that journals can be used as an effective tool to promote reflection; however, there is scope for further evaluation of their role in relation to their effectiveness [1 , 22] . The current study was involved nursing students who were assigned in antepartum, postpartum, labor and delivery, and NICU unit and have used a reflective journal as a tool to promote reflection during a fifteen-week semester. While undertaking a number of the clinical assignments as part of these programs, the students benefit from a shared learning experience, as a number of assigned units, which are common to both pathways. The nursing students have variable years of experience and attend the clinical education setting one day each week in order to undertake their studies.

3. Definitions of Reflection

The absence of a clear definition of reflection is apparent within the literature [12 , 19 , 23] . Schön [7] defines clinical reflection in terms of action, both as reflection-in-action, where a student 'reflects on his/her own experience during clinical practice by challenging and clarifying problems. Where-as, reflection-on-action occurs after the clinical experience where the student critically examines what has been done and learns about what work and what did not work. This reflection-on-action is similar to what Emden [4] believes to be the kind of action that allows for effective problem solving and learning taking place. Dewey further describes reflection as a learning loop frequently feeding back and forth between the experience and relationships being gathered. Foster & Greenwood [6] described the experiential learning sequence, which begins with a concrete experience followed by observation and reflection. The reflective observations are translated into a theory for use in future experience. In addition, learning is both an experiential and a reflective process, in which observations and reflections are interpreted and integrated into cognitive processes to become new, or expanded as wholes [6] .

In addition, Schön [7] defines clinical reflection in terms of action, both as reflection-in-action, where a student 'reflects on his/her own experience were developing and challenging clarifications when they encounter problems in clinical practice, and reflection-on-action, where a student looks back at what has been done and, through reflecting on it learns lessons from what did or did not work. This reflection-on-action is similar to what Foster and Greenwood [6] believes to be the kind of action that allows effective problem solving to take place and he also suggests that it improves the effectiveness of learning. Foster and Greenwood [6] also describes it as a learning loop, frequently feeding back and forth between the experience and relationships being gathered. Cameron and Mitchell [8] described the experiential learning sequence, which begins with a concrete experience followed by observation and reflection. The reflective observations are translated into a theory for use in future experience. In addition, learning is both an experiential and a reflective process, in which observations and reflections are interpreted and integrated into cognitive processes to become new, or expanded as wholes [20] .

Boud et al. [13] defined reflection as a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences on order to lead to new understanding and appreciations. [13] . However, Leino-Kilpi [15] suggest that reflective learning is the process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by and experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self, and which results in a changed perspective. Also, Mezirow [12] defined reflective thought as active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further evidence by which the reliability and worth of a belief can be established so as to justify its acceptance [12] .

It was clear from the latter two subsequent definitions that the authors understand the processes of reflection as involving the nature, and the outcome of reflection as a changed theoretical perspective. A number of other author's definitions were less clear although most acknowledge an active element to the reflective process [4 , 17] . These authors also adopt that reflective practice founded in action to bring about deliverance and authorization primarily for the individual, but also influence the practice of others, through nurse-patient interactions, clinical decision-making and ethical debate. However, other authors [12 , 14] definition does not include the individual, and while they states that reflective practice is a potential learning situation that does not indicate that it necessarily results in a changed conceptual perspective. What all these authors have in common, however, is that they discuss the processes of reflection.

Reflective journals of 40 nursing students from fall and spring 2013-2014 assigned to their Obstetric (OB) clinical placement were analyzed. Of them, 12 were interviewed face-to-face and were asking to relay their experiences in the postpartum units, labor and delivery, antepartum, and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim [24] . The following questions were addressed: (1) Discuss the process you used to develop your reflective writing? (2) What were the benefits if any to you in writing the reflective journal during your maternal-child clinical experience? (3) Could you talk about development of your ability and performance in maternal-child nursing as you progressed through the semester? (4) Do you think that reflective journaling had any impact on your experience?

Reflective journals and interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Qualitative content analysis is an interpretive process, focusing on subject and context, and dealing with differences and similarities between, and within, parts of the text. It is a systematic method of analyzing written or verbal communication [25] , which is useful in the analyses of a person's experiences, reflections, and attitudes.

5. Data analysis

A qualitative phenomenological approach [26] was used to explore the basic social process, which attempts to transcend nursing students’ experience regarding clinical reflection as a continual process and move it from a description of what is happening to an understanding of the process by which it happens. The authors reviewed significant statements that explicated from 40 reflective journals and the nursing students’ interview transcripts were then reread several times to obtain a sense of their respective meanings. Ways related to the participants' experiences of reflection through practice were then extracted and brought together in to a single text. From this, meaning units, each comprising several words, sentences, or paragraphs related to each other through their statements were condensed and labeled with numbers. The numbers and meaning units were interpreted in context, matched for differences and similarities, and abstracted to build tentative subthemes comprising recurrent threads of meaning [27] .

The study findings have the potential to contribute new knowledge concerning the process of experiential learning using reflection. Through reflection, nursing students in their obstetric clinical rotations demonstrated progress towards professional nursing status by developing confidence, and knowledge in nursing.

The reflection is continuously to enable the nursing students to tell their stories of what experience they have had in the clinical practice [28] . Nursing students tell their stories intensely because these experiences develop as significant for them in confident and knowledgeable approach. Nursing students have recognize, challenge, and determine the conflicts between what the actual practice achieved with the intent to achieve more desirable and effective work [28] . In order to develop clinical experience, nursing students must reflect on what they do and what they would want to do better.

According to participants’ experience always provides an opportunity to make a link between theory and practice. One student commented: “I think the best way to learn it is to practice it”.

The findings showed that experience was not limited to direct involvement in an activity and may embrace other routes such as observing and listening to people who have had more or different experience. One student said: “I like to listen to more experienced nurses’ clinical stories. They gave me many useful indications” . The importance of indirect experiences through observation and demonstration in clinical learning unit has been emphasized in the literature. The findings indicated that the handover (the report at the change of shifts) is a powerful means of transferring knowledge that could increase the nursing student’s confidence it is considered appropriately [28 , 29] . One student stated: “being present at handovers . . .especially in morning handovers is very useful. When the nurse in charge is reporting the previous night’s situations, I learn a lot about how I should act if those happen to me sometimes later” .

As time passes and the anticipated work becomes familiar, the nursing student becomes eager to be engaged in performing the work directly, a situation that is called direct experience. At this time, the nursing student often begins this type of experience conventionally by doing a part of the work. A student commented: “you should be patient, do it step by step, and you will be a confident nursing student” . The nurse obeys the rules or procedure strictly and is apparently dependent on other skilled professional nurses in doing the anticipated work. Certainly, in this experience the nursing student needs a clinical instructor/preceptor who provides appropriate help and, more importantly, support. For example, one student said: “when you are doing a patient care for the first time, you actually need a person who says ‘this is what you need to do… this is the way to perform” . At this point, nursing students highly value expert feedback because it can increase the student’s self-esteem and ultimately improve performance. If there is no appropriate feedback on progress, the student may feel unsure of how others perceive his or her ability.

The nursing student needs experience to confirm his or her ability to work and needs relevant feedback and support to progress to the following level. Consistent practicing is important, and any delay in the association of experience may lead to loss of even existing confidence. One student stated: “until you’ve got experience on realities. On clinical unit, you can’t start understanding how things go together” . The nursing student experience of the process becomes merged with the level of confidence development. In this experience, the student tries to gain complete mastery of the procedure and improves the performance through frequent practice and challenging new, interesting situations. Therefore, practicing and challenging different situations provide the student with good opportunities to employ what has been cited in literature as reflection for improving performance [30] . As one student stated: “sometimes I think to myself ‘what was the best result to that clinical situation”? The nursing student enjoys practicing and facing challenges, especially when these are accompanied by learning success. The impact of these successes in enhancing the student’s confidence has been highlighted in the literature [29] . And also notices others’ feedback wisely but mostly values self-evaluation of the work. A student stated: “at first I was eager to know my instructor/ preceptor’s feedback about my tasks, but now I know exactly what my weaknesses and strengths are myself” .

Clinical setting was also indication of one of the important factors that could strongly affect, positively or negatively in the process of confidence development in the nursing students. Clinical setting, both physical and emotional, was recognized in this study as being important to the development of nursing students’ confidence. Factors such as rapid change due to the introduction of new technology or working in a highly specialized unit with a variety of equipment (e.g., operating room-C/section) require student to do or/and perform their best to become confident. However, working in obstetric units, in teaching hospitals where most hands-on jobs are performed by registered nurses, and license vocational nurses were seen as providing less chance for confidence development for nursing students. Many students have similar statements were working in a labor and delivery and postpartum unit stated: “I have no authority, I have to call assigned registered nurse for everything even doing a ambulating of a post surgery C-section patient” .

However, those participants who assigned in the Obstetric antepartum unit believed these settings were more appropriate for confidence and knowledge development because there were no instructors with them, and no enough registered nurses in these settings; so they had to learn whatever a License Vocational Nurses (LVNs) must do. In addition, the emphasis on effectiveness in these settings, sometimes nursing student assigned to work in different areas in a rotating manner, enabling them to be familiar with many different procedures in different units. One student said: “ . . .in this settings we have to rotate in different units and this made us familiar with different procedures” .

Units’ setting as communicated by participants could have an impact on their nursing confidence development. Working in different settings (clinical rotation) where there was mutual respect, support, and trust from preceptors who valued, motivated and provided supportive relationships could fulfill nursing students’ self-actualization needs. Furthermore, keeping of nursing improvement effective, providing a natural and pleasant working environment, and subsequently inspire nursing students to a greater readiness for learning and taking roles and responsibilities are significantly contributed in the development of students confidence. Usually, this setting could be best found in university-affiliated hospitals units in particular. In such settings, there were numerous learning opportunities combined with constructive scientific discussion provided by attending physicians and students of different disciplines. One student who was assigned in the NICU stated: “here in contrast to Labor and Delivery or postpartum unit, I am comfortable everything is nice here, I loved it”. We work alongside pleasant nurses from different disciplines and ask each other everything we don’t know”.

The value of personal characteristics such as curiosity, and readiness to know more about anything relating to working in the clinical area, willingness to ask questions or to get help, and involvement in any activities that could increase professional abilities were seen as important personal characteristics that influence confidence development in nursing students. Many students stated, “if I don’t know something, I will ask from everyone who could help me doctors, co-students or even auxiliary nurses. I think that’s mystrength.” Another student stated: “I haven’t turned down any work that has been offered to me so far. I have accepted it all. I’ve realized it will all be a learning experience” . Some student nurses stated: “I ask for help when I need it but at the same time, you know, I can use my own initiative. I can get on with things on my own. I don’t need a great deal of guidance.”

The importance of the above-mentioned factors in confidence development has been cited in the literature. Jonsen et al., [29] acknowledged the value of having confidence and commitment, which ultimately affect the learner’s motivation to learn in the clinical practice, and Ganzer and Zauderer [31] suggested “lifelong learning requires nurses to depend on themselves to learn what is needed to enhance their confidence and knowledge after graduation” (p. 246).

Data revealed that the nursing students in the current study prioritized patients’ benefits over their own self-interest, which could be interpreted as their commitment to the clinical practice. This in turn increased their eagerness to improve their clinical confidence and knowledge. Two students said, “I think the patient is more important than my self-importance” . According to Jonsen et al. [29] , commitment to the importance of the clinical setting is a primary factor that affects the extent to which professionals are positive in taking advantage of available learning opportunities.

The findings of this current study suggest that nursing student’s confidence and knowledge develop during a gradual process and requires patience and deliberation. The constant interaction process that emerged from this study indicates that nursing students need to take an active role in their own confidence development if the efforts they employ in this way are to be successful. Meanwhile, the study has generated a substantive theory that can provide useful insights into the reality of the confidence development process within the nursing profession. This theory, if confirmed in further testing, could enable preceptors and educators to have a new perspective on this important phenomenon. This could enable them to create new plans for the development of clinical confidence and knowledge for nursing students that eventually could result in better patient care and improved standards of nursing.

7. Discussion

The important significance of findings in this current study are the level where confidence and knowledge increase into place, which appears in reflection, filled with challenges that appeal to the nursing students. These include sensitivity towards their development of confidence and their needs for interconnecting theory and practice to build their knowledge. Confidence and knowledge meet in a productive collaboration in of positive response that offers appealing challenges. The nursing student then has the courage to dare to progress in his/her caring and learning process. In knowledge, it is possible to face up to exhilarating challenges. Appealing challenges, such as taking more responsibility and gaining greater independence, help to integrate students’ confidence and knowledge. A new understanding and confirmation of thoughts and actions are revealed in an experience containing reaction, conversation and reflection. Statements, responses, both verbatim and through body language, provide guidance about confidence and knowledge. The desire to develop in a new role as a nursing student in the Obstetric unit encourages them to make progress and accept the challenges. The drive to find one’s own personal style is supported in an experience where this desire is understood, where there is opportunity for developing independence and where the possibility for providing care supports the learning. A clinical reflection can thus be seen as one that is flexible, from providing a secure foundation to providing the opportunity for increasing the nursing student’s responsibility and independence on the way to finding a new role and personal style. The following themes confidence and knowledge find a new role; further explicate the meaning of the phenomenon.

8. Conclusion

Reflective journal is an educational strategy for facilitating learning in the extent of practice setting, and level of reflection achieved. Maternal-child nursing student was the participant in the process of his/her own clinical experience in various areas in the OB clinical unit. Reflective journaling also facilitates the nursing students’ learning and progress towards building confidence and knowledge, which are main components in providing quality of care.

Competing Interests

The authors have no competing interests with the work presented in this manuscript.

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The Provision of Information and Incentives in School Assignment Mechanisms

Research on centralized school assignment mechanisms often focuses on whether parents who participate in specific mechanisms are likely to truthfully report their preferences or engage in various costly strategic behaviors. However, a growing literature suggests that parents may not know enough about the school options available to them to form complete preference rankings. We develop a simple model that explains why it is not surprising that many participants in school assignment mechanisms possess limited information about the schools available to them. We then discuss policies that could improve both the information that participants bring to school assignment mechanisms and the quality of the schools in their choice sets.

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Column generation based solution for bi-objective gate assignment problems

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• Published: 29 April 2024

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• Gülesin Sena Daş 1 , 2 &
• Fatma Gzara 3  

In this paper, we present a column generation-based algorithm for the bi-objective gate assignment problem (GAP) to generate gate schedules that minimize squared slack time at the gates while satisfying passenger expectations by minimizing their walking distance. While most of the literature focuses on heuristic or metaheuristic solutions for the bi-objective GAP, we propose flow-based and column-based models that lead to exact or near optimal solution approaches. The developed algorithm calculates a set of solutions to approximate the Pareto front. The algorithm is applied to the over-constrained GAP where gates are a limited resource and it is not possible to serve every flight using a gate. Our test cases are based on real data from an international airport and include various instances with flight-to-gate ratios between 23.9 and 34.7. Numerical results reveal that a set of solutions representing a compromise between the passenger-oriented and robustness-oriented objectives may be obtained with a tight optimality gap and within reasonable computational time even for these difficult problems.

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The first author is supported by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) (Grant No. 1059B191700275) 2219 Post Doctoral Research Fellowship Program during her research at WAnOpt Lab, University of Waterloo.

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Department of Industrial Engineering, Kırıkkale University, Kırıkkale, Turkey

Gülesin Sena Daş

Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

Department of Management Science and Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

Fatma Gzara

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Daş, G.S., Gzara, F. Column generation based solution for bi-objective gate assignment problems. Math Meth Oper Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00186-024-00856-1

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Received : 26 June 2022

Revised : 22 February 2024

Accepted : 03 March 2024

Published : 29 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00186-024-00856-1

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