Organizational Communication Commons^™

The Potential Of Erin Brokovitch To Introduce Organizaitonal Behavior Topics, J. Benjamin Forbes, Jonathan E. Smith

Organization Management Journal

Real organizational behavior is rich, and messy, and emotional, and at times painful, but at other times immensely rewarding. The movie, Erin Brockovich, captures this richness and provides an exciting means to introduce a variety of individual or micro- organizational behavior concepts (such as perception, personality, and motivation) typically covered at the beginning of the Organizational Behavior course. In this paper, we describe the use of the film, including a takehome viewing assignment, an in-class assignment, a description of clips and comments for in-class use, and suggestions for the types of issues to discuss in relation to the major topics …