Controlling is an important function of management which all the managers are required to

perform. In order to contribute towards achievement of Organisational objectives, a manager

is required to exercise effective control over the activities of his subordinates

“Control is the process of bringing about conformity of performance with planned action.”
Dale Henning

[Link] of Controlling:

The significance of the controlling function in an organisation is as follows:

1. Accomplishing Organisational Goals:
Controlling helps in comparing the actual performance with the predetermined standards,
finding out deviation and taking corrective measures to ensure that the activities are
performed according to plans. Thus, it helps in achieving organisational goals.
2. Judging Accuracy of Standards:
An efficient control system helps in judging the accuracy of standards. It further helps in
reviewing & revising the standards according to the changes in the organisation and the
environment.
3. Making Efficient Use of Resources:
Controlling checks the working of employees at each and every stage of operations. Hence, it
ensures effective and efficient use of all resources in an organisation with minimum wastage
or spoilage.
4. Improving Employee Motivation:
Employees know the standards against which their performance will be judged.
Systematic evaluation of performance and consequent rewards in the form of increment,
bonus, promotion etc. motivate the employees to put in their best efforts.
5. Ensuring Order and Discipline:
Controlling ensures a close check on the activities of the employees. Hence, it helps in
reducing the dishonest behaviour of the employees and in creating order and discipline in an
organization.
6. Facilitating Coordination in Action:
Controlling helps in providing a common direction to the all the activities of different
departments and efforts of individuals for attaining the organizational objectives.

[Link] of effective control system

Managers are responsible for controlling in organization and it is a manager’s duty to

improve the effectiveness of organization’s control system; as can do a great deal to improve
the effectiveness of their control systems.

1. Matching controls to plans and position

Control techniques should reflect the plans they are designed to follow. Managers need the
information that will tell them how the plans for which they are responsible are
progressing.
Controls should also be tailored to positions, i.e. they may differ in between positions.
 Some control techniques, such as those involving standard hours and costs, budgets, and
various financial ratios, have general application in various situations.
2. Ensuring flexibility to control
Flexibility is another essential characteristic of an effective control system. This means
that the control system itself must be flexible enough to accommodate change. In other
words, controls should remain workable in the face of changed plans, unforeseen
circumstances, or outright failures.
3. Ensuring accuracy
Control systems must also be accurate Managerial decisions based on inaccurate
information may prove costly and harmful.
If, for example, sales estimates are artificially high, a manager might either cut advertising
on the assumption that it is no longer needed or increase advertising to enhance sale.
4. Seeking objectivity of controls
As far as possible the information provided by the control system should be objective. If,
on the other hand, controls are subjective, a manager’s or an executive’s personality may
influence judgments of performance and make them less accurate.
5. Achieving economy of controls
A limiting factor of control: systems are their cost. So in order to be effective, controls
must be worth their cost.
Although it sounds simple, it is very difficult to accomplish. If tailored to the job and to
the size of the enterprise, control will probably be economical.
To be precise, control techniques and approaches can be called efficient when they bring
to light actual or potential deviations from plans with the minimum of cost.
6. Tailoring control to individual managers
Control systems and information are, of course, intended to help individual managers
carry out their function of control. If they are not of a type that a manager can or will
understand, they will not be useful.
What managers cannot understand they will not be useful; what managers cannot
understand they will not trust; and what they do not trust they will not use.
7. Pointing up exceptions
One of the best ways to make control effective is to make sure that it is designed to point
up exceptions.
In fact, controls that concentrate on exceptions from planned performance allow managers
to benefit from the time-honoured exception principle and detect those are as require their
attention.
8. Fitting the system of control to the organizational culture
An effective control system must fit in with organizational culture. For example, if
employees have been managed without allowing them any participation in decision
making, the sudden introduction of a permissive control system will hardly succeed.
9. Ensuring corrective action through control
An effective control system will disclose where failures are occurring and who is/are
responsible for the failures and it will ensure that some corrective action is taken.

3. Principles of co-ordination

1. Direct Contact:
Coordination can be achieved by direct contact among the individuals concerned. Direct
personal communications bring about agreement on methods, actions and ultimate
achievement. It also eliminates red-tapism and ensures prompt action.

2. Early Beginning:

Coordination can be achieved more readily in the early stages of planning and policy making.
Therefore direct contact must begin in the very early stages of the process. If an order for the
supply of a particular variety of the goods has been booked and the raw materials to produce
them are not available, there will be trouble. Contact among the three functional managers at
an earlier stage would have made it possible to know whether the order could be executed.

3. Reciprocity:

All factors in a situation are reciprocally related and should be coordinated. For example,
when A works with B and B in turn works with C and D, each of the four finds himself
influenced by the others, influenced by all the persons in the total situation.

4. Continuity:

Coordination is a continuing process, something which must go on all the time. It cannot be
left to chance, but the manager must constantly work at it.

Nature of Organizational Behaviour

1. A Separate Field of Study and not a Discipline Only
By definition, a discipline is an accepted science that is based on a theoretical foundation.
But, O.B. 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.
2. 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.
3. An Applied Science
The very nature of O.B. is applied. What O.B. basically does is the application of various
researches to solve the organizational problems related to human behaviour. The basic line of
difference between pure science and O.B. is that while the former concentrates of
fundamental researches, the latter concentrates on applied researches. O.B. involves both
applied research and its application in organizational analysis. Hence, O.B. can be called both
science as well as art.
4. A Normative Science
Organizational Behaviour is a normative science also. While the positive science discusses
only cause effect relationship, O.B. 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. Yes, it is not that O.B. is not normative at
all. In fact, O.B. is normative as well that is well underscored by the proliferation of
management theories.
5. 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. O.B. 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 will actualize these potentials if they
are given proper conditions and environment. Environment affects performance or workers
working in an organization.
6. 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.

Scope of Organizational Behaviour

People: The people constitute the internal social system of the organization. They consist of
individuals and groups. Groups may be large or small, formal or informal, official or
unofficial. They are dynamic. They form, change and disband. Human organization changes
every day. Today, it is not the same as it was yesterday. It may change further in the coming
days. People are living, thinking and feeling being who created the organization and try to
achieve the objectives and goals. Thus, organizations exist to serve the people and not the
people exist to serve the organization.
Structure: Structure defines the sole relationship of people in an organization. Different
people in an organization are given different roles and they have certain relationship with
others. It leads to division of labour so that people can perform their duties or work to
accomplish the organizational goal. Thus, everybody cannot be an accountant or a clerk.
Work is complex and different duties are to be performed by different people. Some may be
accountant; others may be managers, clerks, peons or workers. All are so related to each other
to accomplish the goal in a co-ordinated manner. Thus, structure relates to power and duties.
One has the authority and others have a duty to obey him.
Technology: Technology imparts the physical and economic conditions within which people
work. With their bare hands people can do nothing so they are given assistance of buildings,
machines, tools, processes and resources. The nature of technology depends very much on the
nature of the organization and influences the work or working conditions. Thus, technology
brings effectiveness and at the same restricts people in various ways.
Social System: Social system provides external environment which the organization operates.
A single organization cannot exist also. It is a part of the whole. One organization cannot give
everything and therefore, there are many other organizations. All these organizations
influence each other. It influences the attitudes of people, their working conditions and above
all provides competition for resources and power.
Individuals: Organizations are the associations of individuals. Individuals differ in many respects.
The study of individuals, therefore, includes aspects such as personality, perception, attitudes, values,
job satisfaction, learning and motivation.
Groups of Individuals: Groups include aspects such as group dynamics, group conflicts,
communication, leadership, power and politics and the like.
Psychology: The term ‘psychology’ is derived from the Greek World ‘Psyche’ which means
‘soul’ or ‘spirit’. Organisational behaviour studies human behaviour which is concerned
mainly with the psychology of the people. Psychology, especially, industrial or organisational
psychology is the greatest contributor to the field of organisational behaviour. Psychologists
study behaviour and industrial or organisational psychologists deal specifically with the
behaviour of people in organisational settings.
Sociology: Sociology also has a major impact on the study of organisational behaviour.
Sociology makes use of scientific methods in accumulating knowledge about the social
behaviour of the groups. Sociologists study social systems such as a family, an occupational
class, a mob or an organisation. It specifically studies, social groups, social behaviour,
society, customs, institutions, social classes, status, social mobility, prestige etc.
Anthropology: Anthropology is concerned with the interactions between people and their
environment, especially their cultural environment. Culture is a major influence on the
structure of organisations as well as on the behaviour of people within organisations.
‘Anthropo’ is a Greek word which means ‘man’ and ‘logy’ means ‘Science’. Aristotle
defined anthropology as a science of man’s self-understanding. It particularly studies
civilization, forms of cultures and their impact on individuals and groups, biological features
of man and evolutionary pattern, speech and relationship among languages.
Political Science: In recent times, political science has also started interesting the
organisational behaviourists. Political Science is usually, thought of as the study of political
systems. But political scientists are interested in how and why people acquire power, political
behaviour, decision making, conflict, the behaviour of interest groups and coalition
formation. These are also major areas of interest in organisational behaviour.
Economics: Economists study the production, distribution and consumption of goods and
services. Students of organisational behaviour share the economist’s interest in such areas as
labour market dynamics, productivity, human resource planning and forecasting, and cost
benefit analysis.
Science: Science is systematized knowledge. The scientific methods attempt to produce
information that is objective in the sense that it is certifiable and independent of a person’s
opinions or preferences. Scientific method is the backbone of organisational behaviour.
Organisational behaviour is based on the systematized study of facts, behaviour, their
relationships and predictions.
Technology: The level of technological development affects the behaviour of the employees.
Modern age is the age of computerization. It has come within the framework of the model of
organisational behaviour. The study of technological development is becoming essential for
understanding the organisational behaviour, because people are influenced by the
technological development. Human behaviour relations and environments develop as a result
of technological innovations.
Engineering: Engineering also influences the study of organisational behaviour. Some topics
are common to engineering as well as organisational behaviour e.g. work measurement,
productivity measurement, work flow analysis, work design, job design and labour relations.
In fact, organisational behaviour is dependent on engineering for these technical jobs.
Medicine: Nowadays, medicine has also come in connection with the study of human
behaviour at work. Stress is becoming a very common problem in the organisations as well as
in the people working in the organisations. Research shows that controlling the causes and
consequences of stress in and out of organisational settings, is important for the well-being of
the individual as well as the organisations. Medicine helps in the control of stress as well as
stress related problems.