This is “Preface”, article 4 from the book An Introduction to Organizational Behavior (v. 1.0). For details on it (including licensing), click here.
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To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything be more fun?
Katherine Graham
This quote sums up how we feel about teaching. What could be better than teaching? It is fun, at times exciting, and it really matters. And one of the best courses in the world to teach is Organizational Behavior. Together we have been teaching for over twenty-nine years and have taught thousands of students at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. Our teaching styles are different, but we share some common values when it comes to teaching, including the beliefs that:
When we thought about writing a textbook, we knew we didn’t want to write “just another” OB book. Enter Unnamed Publisher. Their model solves many of the common challenges faculty and students face when it comes to textbooks. Here are a few that have always bothered us and that Flat World has solved:
Our journey in creating this book has been a long one. After we wrote the first draft of this book, each chapter went through multiple reviews and revisions, as well as beta tests with real students before this textbook made its way to you. A truly virtual team of authors, copy editors, managing editors, graphic designers, technology gurus, and publishing experts worked together to create something that has never been done before.
Our book emphasizes active learning, meaningful examples, and tools you can use today or put into your OB Toolbox for the years to come. How did we do this?
End-of-chapter materials
So welcome to the textbook revolution—we are happy to have you on the Bauer and Erdogan’s Organizational Behavior team! Given that Organizational Behavior is an important management course, our objective in developing this material was to provide students and instructors with a solid and comprehensive foundation on Organizational Behavior that is accessible and fun. Each of the fifteen chapters is comprehensive but succinct, and action-oriented whether you are just starting out in the world of work or if you are an experienced manager. Moreover, the book and supplements have been written in a direct and active style that we hope students and instructors find both readily accessible and relevant.
In reading Bauer and Erdogan, you are quietly joining the revolution that is otherwise known as Unnamed Publisher, our partner and publisher. For this we thank you. The people at Unnamed Publisher and your author team share a common vision about the future of management education that is based on powerful but fun and simple-to-use teaching and learning tools. Moreover, Unnamed Publisher gives you—you the student and you the instructor—the power to choose. Our fifteen chapters are written using a “modular” format with self-contained sections that can be reorganized, deleted, “added to,” and even edited at the sentence level. Using our build-a-book platform, you can easily customize your book to suit your needs and those of your students.
Only with Unnamed Publisher learning platforms do you have the power to choose what your Organizational Behavior book looks like, when and how you access your Organizational Behavior material, what you use and don’t use, when it will be changed, how much you pay for it, and what other study vehicles you leverage. These innovative study vehicles range from book podcasts, flash cards, and peer discussion groups organized in social network formats. Nowhere on the planet can this combination of user-friendliness, user choice, and leading edge technologies be found for business education and learning.
We hope you find Organizational Behavior to be informative, accessible, and fun!