The obvious response is that if these assumptions are, in fact, incorrect and the
resulting human resource practices inefficient, companies will learn this fact over
time and adjust their decisions accordingly. But many theories of behavior are
self-fulfilling, in that in acting as if they were true and setting up organizational
arrangements accordingly, the norms, presumptions, and organizational arrangements
create precisely the behaviors consistent with the theoretical suppositions
that they imply. As Frank (1988, p. 237) noted, “Our beliefs about human nature
help shape human nature itself.”