orgtheory.net

Brayden

Google has invented a new way for me to waste time on the internet (and thanks to Jeremy for pointing it out). It's called Google Trends, and it's a fun toy for internet nerds like me. It allows you to compare trends across searches beginning in 2003 to the present.

Just for fun, I compared searches for a few social science disciplines. I was not surprised by what I found.

(click on thumbnail for full-size image; click on the image again to magnify it)

Using search rank as an indicator, economics and psychology are clearly the two disciplines that most capture the public's attention. Sociology and anthropology are about equal in their relevance. Organizational behavior ranks well below all of the disciplines, which is not entirely surprising given that org. behavior is sort of an amalgamation of disciplines.

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This search compares some of the buzzwords describing various sorts of organizational research. As you can see, all of the areas of organizational research get about the same amount of attention (management theory at the top of the heap). Perhaps it's not that the public doesn't know what organizational theory is; it's just that the public doesn't know what to call what we do.

UPDATE: As JC points out, there isn't a real upward or downward trend among any of the disciplines over time.  The only striking contrast is the time-invariant difference in attention paid to the different disciplines.  The latter image was meant to show that the public seems to show about the same interest in all of the various buzzwords used to describe org. theory.  There might be a slight downward trend in searches for "management theory."