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Organization behaviour

Industrial/ Organizational Psychology (University of Delhi)

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PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT- I
‘ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR’

KATY J
170688

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Organization
A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people,
that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or
set of goals. Manufacturing and service firms are organizations and so are
schools, hospitals, churches, military units, non-profits, police department,
and local, state and federal government agencies. (Robbins, Judge and
Vohra).
Greenberg and Baron defines organization as a structured social system
consisting of groups and individuals working together to meet some agreed-
upon objectives.

Management skills
A manager does their work in an organization. They are an individual who
achieves their goals through other people. The work of managers can be
categorized into four activities: Planning, organizing, leading ad
controlling. Another way to consider what managers do is to look at the
skills or competencies they need to achieve their goal. To become an
effective manager researcher have identified some skills:
Technical Skills: This skill encompass the ability to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise. Such skills are learned through extensive formal
education. Though not all technical skills have to be learned in school or
formal training programs. Some people develop their technical skills on the
job.
Human skills: The ability to understand, communicate with, motivate and
support other people both individually and in group. Manager need to have
such skills because they need to get things done through other people.
Conceptual skills: Managers must have the mentality ability to analyse and
diagnose complex situations such tasks require conceptual skills. The

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abilities to integrate new ideas with existing processes and to innovate the
job are also crucial conceptual skills for managers.

Organizational Behaviour
to know how well managers does their work we need to know what is an
organization behaviour. Organizational behaviour deals with organisation.
It is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and
structure have on behaviour within organizations for the purpose of
applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
The above definition has three main elements; first organizational
behaviour is an investigative study of individuals and groups, second, the
impact of organizational structure on human behaviour and the third, the
application of knowledge to achieve organizational effectiveness. These
factors are interactive in nature and the impact of such behaviour is applied
to various systems so that the goals are achieved. The nature of study of
organizational behaviour is investigative to establish cause and effect
relationship.
Organizational behaviour can be defined as – “the study and application of
knowledge about human behaviour related to other elements of an
organization such as structure, technology and social systems (LM Prasad).
Stephen P Robins defines “Organizational behaviour as a systematic study
of the actions and attitudes that people exhibit within organizations.”
To sum up, OB is the study of what people do in an organization and the
way their behaviour affects the organization’s performance. It examines
behaviour in the context of job satisfaction, absenteeism, employment
turnover, productivity, human performance and management.

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History of Organisational Behaviour

It was 100 years back that people first became interested in studying
behaviour in organization, and only during the last 50 years that in gained
widespread acceptance.
The first attempt to study behaviour in organizations came out of a desire
by industrial efficiency experts to improve work productivity. Among the
earliest pioneers in this area was Frederick Winslow Taylor, who noticed
the inefficient practices of the employees in the steel mill in which he
worked and attempted to change them. In 1911, he advanced the concept of
scientific management, which not only identified ways to design manual
labour jobs more efficient but also emphasized carefully selecting and
training people to perform them. He was the first to study behaviour at
work. Later more humanistic approaches were introduced. Elton W. Mayo,
an organizational scientist introduced a different approach called human
relations movement. This approach emphasized that the social conditions
existing in organizations—the way employees are treated by management
and the relationships they have with each other—influence job
performance. Mayo’s orientation was developed in the first investigations
of OB, known as the Hawthorne studies. This is the earliest systematic
research in the field of OB, this work was performed to determine how the
design of work environments affected performance.
During the same time that proponents of scientific management got people
to begin thinking about the interrelationships between people and their jobs,
another approach to management emerged. This perspective, known as
classical organizational theory, focused on the most efficient way of
structuring organizations.
Based on different contribution, the realization that behaviour in work
settings is shaped by a wide range of individual, group and organizational
factors set the stage for the emergence of the science of organizational
behaviour. By the late1950s and early 1960s, OB was clearly a going

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concern. By the 1970s, active programs of research were going on—

investigations into such key processes as motivation and leadership, and the
impact of organizational structure. Unfortunately, by middle twentieth
century the development of scientific investigations into managerial and
organizational issues was uneven and unsystematic. In response, Ford
Foundation published a report. In this work, it was recommended that the
study of management pay greater attention to basic academic discipline,
especially the social sciences. This had great influence on business school
curricula during the 1960s and promote the development of the field of OB.
After all, it is a field that draws heavily on the basic social science
disciplines recommended for incorporation into business curricula in this
report.
Simultaneously the field of OB grew into one that borrowed heavily from
other disciplines. In fact, the field may be characterized as a hybrid science
that draws from many social science fields. By the time the twentieth
century drew to close, OB clearly was multidisciplinary field that was
making important contributions to both science and practice.
Today, in what has been called the infotech age, computer technology has
made it possible to eliminate vast amount of grunt-work that labourers used
to have to perform. Much boring, monotonous, and dangerous physical
labour has been eliminated by computer technology, and this has changed
the way people work.
To fully appreciate the nature of OB as a contemporary field, it is important
to recognize its connection to the various economic, social, and culture
trends and forces that shape’s today society. Specifically, theses include
three prominent trends: the rise of global businesses with culturally diverse
workforces, rapid advances in technology and the rising expectations of
people in general.

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Nature of Organisational behaviour

Organizational behaviour has emerged as a separate field of study. The

nature it has acquired is identified as follows:

A Separate Field of Study and not a Discipline Only: OB has a multi-

interdisciplinary orientation and is, thus, not based on a specific theoretical
background. Therefore, it is better reasonable to call O.B. a separate field of
study rather than a discipline only.

An Interdisciplinary Approach: Organizational behaviour is essentially an

interdisciplinary approach to study human behaviour at work. It tries to
integrate the relevant knowledge drawn from related disciplines like
psychology, sociology and anthropology to make them applicable for
studying and analysing organizational behaviour.

An Applied Science: The very nature of OB is applied. What OB basically

does is the application of various researches to solve the organizational
problems related to human behaviour. OB involves both applied research
and its application in organizational analysis. Hence, O.B. can be called
both science as well as art.

A Normative Science: Organizational Behaviour is a normative science

also. OB prescribes how the findings of applied researches can be applied
to socially accepted organizational goals. Thus, O.B. deals with what is
accepted by individuals and society engaged in an organization.

A Humanistic and Optimistic Approach: Organizational Behaviour applies

humanistic approach towards people working in the organization. It, deals
with the thinking and feeling of human beings. OB is based on the belief
that people have an innate desire to be independent, creative and
productive. It also realizes that people working in the organization can and

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will actualize these potentials if they are given proper conditions and
environment.

A Total System Approach: The system approach is one that integrates all
the variables, affecting organizational functioning. The systems approach
has been developed by the behavioural scientists to analyse human
behaviour in view of his/her socio-psychological framework. Man's socio-
psychological framework makes man a complex one and the systems
approach tries to study his/her complexity and find solution to it.

Three level of analysis

To understand the behaviour in organizations fully, we must consider three
levels of analysis: processes occurring within individual, groups, and
organizations.
In individual level, organizational behavior involves the study of learning,
perception, creativity, motivation, personality, turnover, task performance,
cooperative behavior, deviant behavior, ethics, and cognition. At this level
of analysis, organizational behavior draws heavily upon psychology,
engineering, and medicine. At this level of analysis, it might focus on the
impact of different types of overhead lighting on such factors as
productivity and absenteeism.
At the group level of analysis, organizational behavior involves the study of
group dynamics, intra- and inter group conflict and cohesion, leadership,
power, norms, interpersonal communication, networks, and roles. At this
level of analysis, organizational behavior draws upon the sociological and
socio-psychological sciences A study of how different personality types
correspond to different leadership styles and levels of results operates at the
group level of analysis.
At the organization level of analysis, organizational behavior involves the
study of topics, such as, organizational culture, organizational structure,

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cultural diversity, inter-organizational cooperation and conflict, change,

technology, and external environmental forces. At this level of analysis,
organizational behavior draws upon anthropology and political science. The
study on organizational cultures, by William Ouchi's classic Theory Z: How
American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (1981) is example of
organizational behavior conducted at the organization level of analysis.

Research Method
OB researchers have many tools they use to discover how individuals,
groups, and organizations behave. Researchers have working hypotheses
based on their own observations, readings on the subject, and information
from individuals within organizations. Based on these ideas, they set out to
understand the relationships among different variables. There are a number
of different research methods that researchers use.
Surveys are one of the primary methods management researchers use to
learn about OB. A basic survey involves asking individuals to respond to a
number of questions. The questions can be open-ended or close-ended. An
example of an open-ended question that could be used to address your
manager’s question would be to ask employees how they feel about goal
setting in relation to productivity, then summarize your findings. This might
work if you have a small organization, but open-ended surveys can be time
consuming to summarize and hard to interpret at a glance. One could get
more specific by asking employees a series of close-ended questions in
which you supply the response key, such as a rating of 1 to 5. Today it is
easy to create online surveys that quickly compile the results automatically.
Field studies are also effective ways to learn about what is truly going on
within organizations. In this method researchers may conduct a lab study in
which one group is assigned one condition and the other group is assigned
the control condition (generally the control condition involves no change at
all). One of the most important concepts to understand with lab studies is
that they give the researcher a great deal of control over the environment

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they are studying but do so in a less “realistic” way, since they are not
studying real employees in real work settings. For example, in a lab study, a
researcher could simulate hiring and firing employees to see if firing some
employees affected the goal-setting behavior of the remaining employees.
While this wouldn’t be legal or ethical to do in a real organization, it could
be a compelling lab study. At the same time, however, firing someone in a
lab setting does not necessarily carry the same consequences as it would in
real life.
Case Studies are in-depth descriptions of a single industry or company.
Case writers typically employ a systematic approach to gathering data and
explaining an event or situation in great detail. The benefits of case studies
are that they provide rich information for drawing conclusions about the
circumstances and people involved in the topics studied. The downside is
that it is sometimes difficult to generalize what worked in a single situation
at a single organization to other situations and organizations.
Meta-Analysis is a technique used by researchers to summarize what other
researchers have found on a given topic. This analysis is based on taking
observed correlations from multiple studies, weighting them by the number
of observations in each study, and finding out if, overall, the effect holds or
not. The advantage of meta-analysis is that it gives a more definitive answer
to a question than a single study ever could. The downside is that meta-
analysis is only possible if sufficient research has been done on the topic in
question.

Challenges and opportunities

In today’s challenges bring opportunities for managers to use OB concepts.
OB offers solution or at least meaningful insights toward solution to critical
issues. Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Behaviour are:
Improving People Skills: Skills of people need to improved and upgraded as
per the requirements from time to time. In the business area, there are always
lots of changes which occur at a faster rate in terms of technology, environment

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and structure. These changes need to be addressed in order to achieve efficiency

and increase productivity. Employees and other executives of the organisation
should possess the required skills in order to easily adapt to these changes.
Failure to adopt these changes will make it difficult to achieve targeted goals
timely. There are basically 2 sets of employee skills that are technical and
managerial skills. Managers should, therefore, focus on designing a proper
performance appraisal program consisting of various training and development
programmes for their employees. This will help them in improving their skills.

Improving Quality and Productivity: Maintaining the quality of its products

is a challenging task for every organisation. It is the driving force through
which companies are able to attract more and more customers and hold
them for the long term. Quality is simply the degree to which products are
able to satisfy the customer’s needs and wants. It is the main factor which
affects the customer satisfaction level. Better quality products more easily
satisfy customer needs and wants. Every organisation should focus on
quality factor to increase its customer base. The main dimensions covered
under the quality factors are Features, Reliability, Durability, Performance,
Conformance with standards, Responses and Reputation. Managers are
focusing more and more to meet the quality expectations of customers. In
order to improve quality and productivity, they are even engaging programs
like Total Quality Management (TQM) and Reengineering. These two
techniques mainly focus on customer needs and continuously make efforts
to increase the customer satisfaction level. These techniques too involve
extensive employee involvement in order to increase productivity.
Managing Workforce Diversity: Every organisation has employees who
differ from each other in terms of race, culture, religion, gender, and
ethnicity. Employing person with distinct cultures help organisations in
getting fresh and new talents and potentialities. Maintaining peace and
cooperation among its different employees is a challenging task for every
organisation. Every employee working in an organisation wants to retain
their own values and cultures although they are working in the same
company where they need to follow some rules and regulations. Same
decision of organisation may be welcomed and accepted by people of one

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culture and opposed by people from another culture. Therefore, managers

need to treat every employee differently as per their individual differences
in order to ensure cooperation and increase productivity.
Responding to Globalization: Today globalisation of business is something
that is increasing worldwide at a great pace. Now the operations of the
business are not limited to one particular location or nation, but they are
performed internationally. Business nowadays are conducted beyond the
national boundary of one country and have their presence in different
countries of the world. Products of companies are selling more by various
online portals over the internet rather than by their physical outlets. Faster
transportation and communication network have an efficient role in
providing services to customers via online portals. Online presence of
companies becomes the most emerging requirement of every business. For
example, Amazon conducts the majority of its business operations
worldwide via its internet portals rather its physical outlets.
Empowering People: Empowerment of employees is another challenging
task for every organisation. Productivity of employees generally gets
reduced when kept under stringent rules and regulations as compared when
they are allotted some freedom. Delegating appropriate responsibility and
power to employees at different level is important and challenging task for
managers. Employees should be allowed and encouraged to participate in
various work-related decisions. This will improve employer-employee
relations in the organisation and also the commitment of employees to
work.
Stimulating Innovation and Change: Today every business needs to focus
on innovative ideas in order to bring changes to beat the tough competition
in the market. Business should always focus to differentiate their product
from their competitor’s product. It will help them in getting more and more
customers. Business will fail and eventually forced to shut down if unable
to keep flexibility as per market demand. It should always bring innovative
products and services to market with minimum cost. For example, MI is

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presently beating the tough competition in the market by presenting a wide

range of innovative products at a minimised cost,
Improving Ethical behaviour: Better ethical behaviour in working culture
is a must for an organisation to increase its productivity. It should always be
ensured that employees behave positively and abide by all rules and
regulations of the organisation. Healthy working environment for
employees with minimal ambiguity should be created. This will help in
increasing their productivity and reducing conflicts. Clear cut instruction
should be given regarding what is right behaviour and what is wrong. All
unethical practices like the use of insider information for personal gains
should be avoided. Managers should organise various workshops, seminars
and training programmes in order to improve ethical behaviour of
employees.

Organisational Behavioural Model

Model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-
world phenomenon
There are five different types of models in OB. We will throw some light
on each of these four models.

Autocratic Model: The root level of this model is power with a managerial
orientation of authority. The employees in this model are oriented towards
obedience and discipline. They are dependent on their boss. The employee
requirement that is met is subsistence. The performance result is less. The
major drawbacks of this model are people are easily frustrated, insecurity,
dependency on the superiors, minimum performance because of minimum
wage.

Custodial Model: The root level of this model is economic resources with a
managerial orientation of money. The employees in this model are oriented

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towards security and benefits provided to them. They are dependent on the
organization. The employee requirement that is met is security.

This model is adapted by firms having high resources as the name suggest.
It is dependent on economic resources. This approach directs to depend on
firm rather than on manager or boss. They give passive cooperation as they
are satisfied but not strongly encouraged.

Supportive Model: The root level of this model is leadership with a

managerial orientation of support. The employees in this model are oriented
towards their job performance and participation. The employee requirement
that is met is status and recognition. The performance result is awakened
drives.

This model is dependent on leadership strive. It gives a climate to help

employees grow and accomplish the job in the interest of the organization.
Management job is to assist the employee’s job performance. Employees
feel a sense of participation.

Collegial Model: The root level of this model is partnership with a

managerial orientation of teamwork. The employees in this model are
oriented towards responsible behavior and self-discipline. The employee
requirement that is met is self-actualization. The performance result is
moderate zeal.

This is an extension of supportive model. The team work approach is

adapted for this model. Self-discipline is maintained. Workers feel an
obligation to uphold quality standard for the better image of the company. A
sense of “accept” and “respect” is seen.

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System model: The final organisational model is referred to as the system

model. This is the most contemporary model of the five models discussed
in this article. In the system model, the organisation looks at the overall
structure and team environment, and considers that individuals have
different goals, talents and potential. The intent of the system model is to
try and balance the goals of the individual with the goals of the
organisation. Individuals obviously want good remuneration, job security,
but also want to work in a positive work environment where the
organisation adds value to the community and/or its customers. The system
of model should be an overall partnership of managers and employees with
a common goal, and where everybody feels that they have a stake in the
organisation.

Scope of Organisational Behaviour

The scope of the organizational behaviour is as follows: Impact of
personality on performance; Employee motivation; Leadership; How to
create effective teams and groups; Study of different organizational
structures; Individual behaviour; attitude and learning; Perception; Design
and development of effective organization; Job design; Impact of culture on
organizational behaviour; Management of change; Management of conflict
and stress; Organizational development; Organizational culture;
Transactional analysis; Group behaviour, power and politics; Job design;
and Study of emotions.

Organisational Behaviour in Modern Era

In 1960, Douglas McGregore wrote a book which has become an important
philosophical base for the modern view of people at work. He formulated
two sharply contrasting sets of assumptions about human nature. His theory
X assumptions were pessimistic and negative were typical of how managers
traditionally perceived employees. To help managers break with negative

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traditions he formulated his theory Y, a modern and positive set of

assumptions about people, he believe that managers could accomplish more
through others by viewing them as self-energized, committed responsible,
and creative being.
Due to the society rapid change McGregory’s theory Y qualifies as an
inspiring beginning rather than an adequate end.
Scholar responded the increasing complexity by introducing contingency
theory. This theory propose that the appropriate organisational structure and
management styles are dependent upon a set of contingency factors, usually
the uncertainty and instability of the environment. (Tosi and Slocum,1984)
This approach encourages managers to view organisational behaviour
within a situational context. According to modern perspective, evolving
situation, not hard and fast rules, determine when and where various
management techniques are appropriate. OB scholars should embrace the
contingency approach because it helps them realistically interrelate
individuals, group, and organizations.
OB today may be characterized as a hybrid science that draws from many
of the social science. OB is truly a multidisciplinary field.

Current status of Organisational Behaviour in Indian context

In the Indian context, the goal to share a major burden of reconstructing the
psychological bases of human assets in formal settings has to be achieved
within the matrix of demand posed by the forces of globalization and
market driven economy on the one hand and local constrain and resources
of traditional and post-colonial society on the other.
Historically speaking the initial OB studies in India used to focus on themes
of motivation, job satisfaction, leadership, organisational structure and
organizational development (Sinha, 1970;1980).

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India is a diverse country. The diverse workforce in Indian business

organization is an out growth of many related factors like increasing
education level of employee, uplifting of disadvantage group, spreading
awareness about right and empowerment of women, organizational issues,
increasing rate of immigration from rural India to the more developed
urban areas, and increase in the age level of employee entering the
corporate world. This has bought about significant change in the
organisational cultures and ways of operations. The last quarter of twentieth
century has been witness to the formal entry of women in business
organizations. There is a big difference in the attitude and perception of
women and men employee toward their work methods and practices.
Women have a much more positive attitude towards themselves for most of
the managerial attributes as compared to men (Bhatnagar,1987). Result of
one of the studies have suggested that women are more competent and
serious about their jot compare to men. (Sekaran 1981). Women are of the
strong view that organizations must work towards hiring and retaining more
women and ensuring development opportunities of women (Kundu 2001)
It has also been observed that socially disadvantage group tend to suffer in
organizations because of age-old prejudices; organisations have to go
beyond paying lip service and begin with proper-interventions that would
aim at their acceptance by others on a psychological plane. This would help
to eradicate and reduce employee frustrations that arise on account of
discrimination.

References:
Overview and History of Organisation Behaviour, Borkowski N
Organizational Behaviour, Kondalkar V.G , 2007, New Age International
Organizational Behaviour, Singh K, Pearson
Organizational Behaviour, Robbins, Judge& Vohra, Pearson
Behaviour in organizations, Greenberg&Baron, 2010

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