Organizational Behavior: Using Film to Visualize Principles and Practices

Rating:
Summary: Useful service for teachers and trainers.
Review: For teachers or trainers who use film to bring variety and excitement to the classoom, Prof. Champoux has written two useful film guides, one with a focus on management and the other on organizational behavior. Both have similar tables of contents and it is unlikely that students who have purchased one book would feel their money was well spent in the purchase of the second volume. Additionally, students may feel cheated by the formatting decisions made by the author and the publisher. Each book could easily be reduced in page numbers by at least half with no loss of content.

With these reservations considered, Champoux does provide a useful service for the reader. A few examples will serve to demonstrate the value of his work.

In Chapter 3 of the Organizational Behavior text Champoux reviews the 1970 Jack Nicholson film, "Five Easy Pieces." The category for this film is Quality Management and the scene Champoux uses to illustrate a breakdown in customer service is the now famous roadside restaurant confrontation where Nicholson attempts to customize his order with a waitress who advises him that he can't make any substitutions for any items on the menu. At first Nicholson attempts to use reason with the waitress in order to get the food he wants to eat, but when reason fails, his anger and savage wit combine in one of the most memorable putdowns ever filmed.

Champoux makes it convenient for the viewer to find the scene with fairly accurate tape start and stop times listed prominently before his accurate description of what the viewer will see. He then asks three open ended questions which seem obvious at first, but in reality are difficult to answer. Teachers will find it easy to add their own questions such as: Is the customer always right? Our conditioned response is yes, but the scene Champoux gives us requires us to think more deeply about this question. More than this, Nicholson is a difficult customer. How does a person in the service industry work effectively with such people? Students will be eager to discuss such questions and instructors will discover many teachable moments stimulated by the interest generated by the film clip.

As mentioned, this guide has been formatted into a workbook and always after the questions for discussion is a page for analysis of concepts or examples and then a place to write personal reactions to the film clip. All the content mentioned could easily have been formatted on one page and students can use their own notebooks or learning logs, which they are likely to do anyway, to record their observations.

With these reservations noted, I am still able to recommend this book. Prof. Champoux shares with us his years of experience watching popular films. The eighty-two films cited in the text are divided into twenty-five chapters that correspond to topics that students will find in the typical organizational behavior text like perception, motivation, and leadership. As in the Five Easy Pieces example mentioned, his selections are appropriate, entertaining, and thought provoking. Students and teachers will discover in Champoux's book many good reasons to bring a thoughtful attention to their next film viewing.