Reading Organizational Behavior Approaches through Alternative Theories: A Critical Approach

Recently, some approaches, or "organizational trends" that are robust in rhetoric but weak in epistemological and factual content, have frequently appeared in organizational behavior literature. The expectation that the employee will continuously sacrifice the organization's favor rather than the scientific explanation of any phenomenon is expressed in pro-organizational approaches. Critically reviewing these explanations, this study aims to analyze the concepts of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors from the "rational choice" and "social exchange theory" perspectives. The pro-organizational approaches attempt to explain and discuss employee organizational behaviors based on sacrifice, but is this the case? Can these approaches be proved or empirically justified by the basic assumptions of psychology, economics, and behavioral economics? Moreover, does the natural world function based on sacrifice? Does the organism maintain its life based on its interests, benefits, needs, or emotional orientation and self-sacrifice? This study significantly draws attention to the necessity of creating literature based on scientific, objective, and factual concepts instead of fictional and rhetorical concepts without any real equivalents in the real world. The study is a critical thematic review based on the variables of organizational commitment, organizational citizenship, rational choice theory, and "social exchange theory." The obtained results consist of assumptions based on the comparative critical analysis of these approaches.