Journal of Organizational Behavior gives a sympathetic reception to submissions incorporating context into their research methods and reporting. In this effort, we join with several articles in this issue of JOB: Chip Heath and Sim Sitkin's critique regarding what is organizational about organizational behavior; Alice Gaudine and Alan Sak's contextualized treatment of a hospital's absenteeism intervention; and Gary Johns's provocative commentary upon it. We offer some guidelines for writing scholarly articles that address context in a way that enhances our understanding of organizational behavior and the validity of our work.
The term context' comes from a Latin root meaning to knit together' or `to make a connection.' Contextualizing entails linking observations to a set of relevant facts, events, or points of view that make possible research and theory that form part of a larger whole. Contextualization can occur in many stages of the reseach process, from question formulation, site selection, and measurement to data analysis, interpretation, and reporting. The need to contextualize is reinforced by the emergence of a worldwide community of organizational scholars adding ever-greater diversity in settings as well as perspectives.
Contextualization is more important in contemporary organizational behavior research than it has been in the past. Two reasons in particular motivate this editorial. First, the domain of organizational research is becoming more international, giving rise to challenges in transporting social science models from one society to another. Second, the rapidly diversifying nature of work and work settings can substantially alter the underlying causal dynamics of workerΒ±organizational relations.
Research in OB is increasingly drawn from many nations, as the review board, authors, and readership of this journal indicate. Our research encompasses numerous settings (e.g. governmental