Cognition means the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. As per cognitive framework of organizational behaviour, before the behaviour of a person cognition starts and giving input to the thinking, perception and problem solving of the person. This framework is based o the concept of Expectancy, demand and Intention of the human being.

According to Edward Tolman, learning consists of the expectancy that a particular event will lead to a particular consequence. If we use this to represent cognitive framework it simply means every individual set his goal and he also know the behaviour will we take him to achieve the goal.

This cognitive frame work is useful in analyzing perception, personality, motivation, decision making of human in the organisation.