A holistic approach to the explanation of organizational behavior: the theory of “Analysis of demand”

In the realm of applied psychology, the major factors explaining organizational behavior in the context of organizational intervention are emotion, cognition, and context (Kramer & Staw, 2003). In organizational analysis and intervention, however, organizational behavior models explicitly rooted in a theory of mind that assumes and thoroughly addresses their conjoint interplay are rare. To address this issue, we review definitions of emotion and cognition with a view to clarifying their specificity, as well as their differences from similar but potentially confounding constructs (e.g., perception, consciousness and awareness). We also review the most common definitions of unconscious as a relevant intersection between cognition and emotion. Our ultimate objective therefore is to introduce an interactionist (individual-context) model of both cognitive and emotional levels of functioning of mind, based on what we refer to as the Theory of Analysis of Demand (TAD). Finally, we outline and discuss its related intervention methodology, the Individual-Setting of intervention-Organization (I-S-O) technique.