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INTRODUCTION
Organizational behavior (OB) is an
interdisciplinary field drawing from
numerous disciplines including psychology,
sociology, economics, organization theory,
statistics, political science and many others
behavioral disciplines
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The nature of an organization
Organizations are social systems which
comprises of science and people(technology
and humanity) .
Techniques alone do not produce results in
absence of design and implementations.
Human behavior in an organization is
unpredictable due to their deep-seated needs
and value systems
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Nature of ob……….
As a result there is rarely any idealistic
solution to the problems in an organization.
One way to achieve some close to idealistic
solution is to enhance the understanding and
skill levels of human relations, at work place.
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Meaning of organizations….
Basically, an organization is a group of
people intentionally organized to accomplish
an overall, common goal or set of goals.
Business organizations can range in size from
two people to tens of thousands.
Organizations have major subsystems, such
as departments, programs, divisions, teams,
etc.
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ORGANISATIONS………..
Each of these subsystems has a way of doing
things to, along with other subsystems;
achieve the overall goals of the organization.
Often, these systems and processes are
defined by plans, policies and procedures
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Systems have inputs, processes, outputs and
outcomes.
Inputs to the system include resources such
as raw materials, money, technologies and
people.
These inputs go through a process where
they're aligned, moved along and carefully
coordinated, ultimately to achieve the goals
set for the system.
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Outputs are tangible results produced by
processes in the system, such as products or
services for consumers.
Another kind of result is outcomes, or
benefits for consumers, e.g., jobs for
workers, enhanced quality of life for
customers, etc.
Systems can be the entire organization, or its
departments, groups, processes, etc.
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Feedback comes from, e.g., employees who
carry out processes in the organization,
customers/clients using the products and
services, etc.
Feedback also comes from the larger
environment of the organization, e.g.,
influences from government, society,
economics, and technologies.
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Each organization has numerous subsystems,
as well. Each subsystem has its own
boundaries of sorts, and includes various
inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes
geared to accomplish an overall goal for the
subsystem.
Common examples of subsystems are
departments, programs, projects, teams,
processes to produce products or services, etc.
Organizations are made up of people -- who
are also systems of systems of systems -- and
so on it goes.
Subsystems are organized in an hierarchy 10
The organizational system is defined by,
e.g., its legal documents (articles of
incorporation, by laws, roles of officers,
etc.), mission, goals and strategies, policies
and procedures, operating manuals, etc.
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The organization is depicted by its
organizational charts, job descriptions,
marketing materials, etc.
The organizational system is also maintained
or controlled by policies and procedures,
budgets, information management systems,
quality management systems, performance
review systems, etc
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What is Organizational Behavior?
Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and
application of knowledge about how people,
individuals, and groups act in organizations.
It does this by taking a system approach. That
is, it interprets people-organization
relationships in terms of the whole person,
whole group, whole organization, and whole
social system.
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Its purpose is to build better relationships by
achieving human objectives, organizational
objectives, and social objectives.
It is an academic field of study concerned
with human behavior in organizations; also
called organizational psychology.
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It covers topics such as Motivation,
Group Dynamics, leadership, organization
structure, decision making, careers, conflict
resolution, and Organizational Development.
When this subject is taught in business
schools, it is called organizational behavior;
when it is taught in psychology departments,
it is called organizational psychology.
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Organizational behavior is an academic
discipline concerned with describing,
understanding, predicting, and controlling
human behavior in an organizational
environment.
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Organizational behavior has evolved from
early classical management theories into a
complex school of thought—and it continues
to change in response to the dynamic
environment and proliferating corporate
cultures in which today's businesses operate.
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Organizational behavior scientists study four
primary areas of behavioral science: individual
behavior, group behavior, organizational
structure, and organizational processes.
They investigate many facets of these areas
like personality and perception, attitudes and
job satisfaction, group dynamics, politics and
the role of leadership in the organization, job
design, the impact of stress on work, decision-
making processes, the communications chain,
and company cultures and climates.
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They use a variety of techniques and
approaches to evaluate each of these
elements and its impact on individuals,
groups, and organizational efficiency and
effectiveness
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Organization Behavior - the
concept
This is a broad field of study which can be
also thought of as a platform and
environment independent tool which can be
used to study and apply knowledge about
how people act within organizations.
The three determinants of behavior in an
organization are individual, group and
structure.
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Organizational Behavior covers the core
topics of motivation, leadership behavior and
power, interpersonal communication, group
structure and process, learning, attitude
development and perception, change process,
conflict, job design and work stress.
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The scope of OB
1. People: They make up the internal social
system of the organization consisting of
individuals and groups (large and small).Work
force is a complicated resource to be
managed. This process deals with.
Individuals who are expected to perform the
task allotted to them.
Superior-subordinate interactions.
Teams who have the responsibility of getting
the job done.
The outside interface as the customers and
the government officials. 22
2. Structure: This defines the official
relationship of individuals in an organization.
Various people with various roles as
managers, accountants, assemblers etc. are
related in some structural way so that the
output can be effective. The key concepts
related to this are:
Hierarchy of Authority: Distribution of
authority among positions along with the
rights assigned to them.
Division of labor: This is the way the duties
are distributed among various members and is
a major element of the social structure
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Span of Control: Total number of
subordinates over whom a manager has
authority
Specialization: Existence of specialties
performed in the organization.
Standardization: existence of procedures
for recurring events.
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Formalization: extent of rules, procedures
and communication laid out.
Centralization: concentration of authority
to make the decision.
Complexity: It includes both vertical
differentiation (outline number of
hierarchical levels) and horizontal
differentiation (number of units inside the
organization as departments).
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3. Mechanistic form: A mechanistic system is
characterized by centralized decision making
at the top level management, a rigid
hierarchy of authority, narrowly defined job
responsibilities and extensive rules and
regulations explicitly disclosed to the
employees through written documents.
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Organic form: An organic system can be
defined in terms of decentralization of
decision making which allows people directly
involved in the job to make their own
decisions, few levels in hierarchy with flexible
authority and reporting levels, loosely defined
job responsibilities and very few written rules
and regulations.
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5. Job and tasks: Job is the sum total of an
individual's assignment at the workplace and
the task refers to the various activities that
need to be performed to get the job done.
To provide motivation to the workers five job
characteristics have been grossly defined.
They are Skill variety, Task identity, Task
significance, Autonomy and Feedback from
the job.
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The jobs can be designed to range from
highly simple to highly complex tasks in
terms of the use of the workers skill.
Some of the design options are job
simplification, job rotation, job enlargement
and job enrichment.
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6. Technology: This provides the physical
and economic resources with which people
work.
The organization has the technology for
transforming inputs and outputs.
These consist of physical objects, activities
and process, knowledge, all of which are
brought to bear on raw materials labor and
capital inputs during a transformation
process.
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The technology can be classified in three
categories namely Long linked technology in
which tasks are broken into a number of
sequential and interdependent steps and the
output of one unit becomes the input to the
next, Mediating technology which links
different parties who need to be brought
together in a direct or an indirect way and
Intensive technology which is used when a
group of specialists are brought together to
solve complex problems using a variety of
technologies.
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7. Environment: All organizations operate
within an external environment. All
organizations mutually influence each other
in a complex system that influence the
attitudes of people, affects working
conditions and provides competition for
resources and power.
Two distinct sets of environment exist.
Specific environment which includes the
suppliers, customers, competitors,
government's agencies, employees, unions,
political parties etc.
General environment includes the economic,
political, cultural, technological and social
factors in which the organization embedded. 32
Firms facing a fast changing or turbulent
external environment were very effective
when they had more organic structures
which provided flexibility for quick changes
to be make within the internal environment
of the system.
Similarly, firms which operated in a
relatively stable external environment were
very effective when they had more
mechanistic structures since it allows the
system to operate in a predictable manner
since authority, responsibility, procedures,
and rules are clearly
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The behavioral disciplines
contributing to ob
Experimental psychology-Learning;
motivation, perception, effects of physical
environment on psychomotor performance,
stress
Social Psychology-Group dynamics,
attitudes and attitude change, impression
formation, personality, leadership
Industrial Psychology-Measurement of
performance, abilities, job performance,
abilities, job characteristics, employee
compensation, applied motivational
programs
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Clinical Psychology-Human adjustment,
emotional stress, abnormal behavior, human
development throughout the life cycle
Sociology-Socialization process, social
satisfaction, status systems, effects of major
social institutions such as family,
community, religion, organizational
structure
Political science-Interest groups, conflicts,
power, bargaining, coalitions, strategic
planning, control
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Anthropology-Comparative organizational
structures, their functions in varying
cultures, cultural influences on organizations,
adaptation of organizations to environment
Economics-Comparative organizational
structures, their functions in varying
cultures, cultural influences on organizations,
adaptation of organizations to environment
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Why study OB?
The bottom line is that:
Tools from Organizational Behavior can be
used to help companies create positive and
effective organizational cultures.
Students who are committed to serving as
positive change agents within companies can
use the OB toolkit to help them achieve their
goals.
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OB model
Dependent variables
Productivity
Absenteeism
Turnover
Job Satisfaction
Independent variables
Individual-level variables
Group-level variables
Organizational systems-level variables
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Historical developments of OB
By most estimates, OB emerged as a distinct
field around the 1940s. However, its origins
can be traced much further back in time.
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote about the
essence of leadership. Aristotle, another
respected philosopher, addressed the topic of
persuasive communication.
The writings of sixteenth-century Italian
philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli laid the
foundation for contemporary work on
organizational power and politics.
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In 1776, Adam Smith advocated a new form of
organizational structure based on the division
of labor.
One hundred years later, German sociologist
Max Weber wrote about rational organizations
and initiated discussion of charismatic
leadership.
Soon after, Frederick Winslow Taylor
introduced the systematic use of goal setting
and rewards to motivate employees.
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In the 1920s, Elton Mayo and his colleagues
conducted productivity studies at Western
Electric’s Hawthorne plant.
They reported that an informal organization –
employees casually interacting with others –
operates alongside the formal organization.
OB has been around for a long time; it just
wasn’t organized into a unified discipline until
after World War II.
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Though it traces its roots back to Max Weber
and earlier, organizational studies is generally
considered to have begun as an academic
discipline with the advent of
scientific management in the 1890s, with
Taylorism representing the peak of this
movement.
Proponents of scientific management held that
rationalizing the organization with precise sets
of instructions and time-motion studies would
lead to increased productivity.
Studies of different compensation systems were
carried out.
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After the First World War, the focus of
organizational studies shifted to analysis of
how human factors and psychology affected
organizations, a transformation propelled by
the identification of the Hawthorne Effect.
This Human Relations Movement focused on
teams, motivation, and the actualization of the
goals of individuals within organizations.
Prominent early scholars included
Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol,
Frederick Herzberg, Abraham Maslow,
David McClelland, and Victor Vroom.
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The Second World War further shifted the
field, as the invention of large-scale logistics
and operations research led to a renewed
interest in rationalist approaches to the study
of organizations.
Interest grew in theory and methods native to
the sciences, including systems theory, the
study of
organizations with a complexity theory perspe
ctive
and complexity strategy.
Influential work was done by
Herbert Alexander Simon and James G. March
and the so-called "Carnegie School" of
organizational behavior.
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In the 1960s and 1970s, the field was
strongly influenced by social psychology and
the emphasis in academic study was on
quantitative research.
An explosion of theorizing, much of it at
Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon,
produced Bounded Rationality,
Informal Organization, Contingency Theory,
Resource Dependence, Institutional Theory,
and Organizational Ecology theories, among
many others.
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Starting in the 1980s, cultural explanations
of organizations and change became an
important part of study. Qualitative methods
of study became more acceptable, informed
by anthropology, psychology and sociology.
A leading scholar was Karl Weick.
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Specific Contributions
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was
the first person who attempted to study
human behavior at work using a systematic
approach.
Taylor studied human characteristics, social
environment, task, physical environment,
capacity, speed, durability, cost and their
interaction with each other.
His overall objective was to reduce and/or
remove human variability.
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Taylor worked to achieve his goal of making
work behaviors stable and predictable so that
maximum output could be achieved.
He relied strongly upon monetary incentive
systems, believing that humans are primarily
motivated by money.
He faced some strong criticism, including
being accused of telling managers to treat
workers as machines without minds, but his
work was very productive and laid many
foundation principles for modern
management study.
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Elton Mayo
Elton Mayo, an Australian national, headed
the Hawthorne Studies at Harvard.
In his classic writing in 1931, Human
Problems of an Industrial Civilization, he
advised managers to deal with emotional
needs of employees at work.
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Mary Parker Follett
Mary Parker Follett was a pioneer
management consultant in the industrial
world.
As a writer, she provided analyses on
workers as having complex combinations of
attitude, beliefs, and needs.
She told managers to motivate employees on
their job performance, a "pull" rather than a
"push" strategy.
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Douglas McGregor
Douglas McGregor proposed two
theories/assumptions, which are very nearly
the opposite of each other, about human
nature based on his experience as a
management consultant.
His first theory was “Theory X”, which is
pessimistic and negative; and according to
McGregor it is how managers traditionally
perceive their workers.
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Then, in order to help managers replace that
theory/assumption, he gave “Theory Y” which
takes a more modern and positive approach.
He believed that managers could achieve
more if they start perceiving their employees
as self-energized, committed, responsible and
creative beings.
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By means of his Theory Y, he in fact
challenged the traditional theorists to adopt a
developmental approach to their employees.
He also wrote a book, The Human Side of
Enterprise, in 1960; this book has become a
foundation for the modern view of employees
at work.
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Current state of the field
Organizational behaviour is currently a
growing field.
Organizational studies departments generally
form part of business schools, although many
universities also have industrial psychology
and industrial economics programs.
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The field is highly influential in the business
world with practitioners like Peter Drucker
and Peter Senge, who turned the academic
research into business practices.
Organizational behaviour is becoming more
important in the global economy as people
with diverse backgrounds and cultural values
have to work together effectively and
efficiently.
It is also under increasing criticism as a field
for its ethnocentric and pro-capitalist
assumptions
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During the last 20 years organizational
behavior study and practice has developed and
expanded through creating integrations with
other domains:
Anthropology became an interesting prism to
understanding firms as communities, by
introducing concepts like Organizational
culture, 'organizational rituals' and 'symbolic
acts' enabling new ways to understand
organizations as communities.
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Leadership Understanding: the crucial role of
leadership at various level of an organization
in the process of change management.
Ethics and their importance as pillars of any
vision and one of the most important driving
forces in an organization.
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Methods used in organizational
studies
A variety of methods are used in
organizational studies.
They include quantitative methods found in
other social sciences such as multiple
regression, non-parametric statistics, time
dependent analysis, and ANOVA.
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In addition, computer simulation in
organizational studies has a long history in
organizational studies.
Qualitative methods are also used, such as
ethnography, which involves direct
participant observation, single and multiple
case analysis, and other historical methods.
In the last fifteen years or so, there has been
greater focus on language, metaphors, and
organizational storytelling.
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Classical organizational theory
Classical organizational theory was driven by
the desire to provide answers to certain
questions. Among these critical questions were:
How should work be divided by departments
and by individuals?
How much authority should be given to the
incumbent of each position?
What should his duties be?
What mean of coordination should be provided?
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Both managers and writers on management
had in the past tried to discover principles to
answer the questions and the quest is
continuing now also.
Fayol’s analysis of management and
principles that he stated regarding
organization became the basis for many
writers to develop their thinking on this issue.
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The most commonly stated principles from
this approach are expressed as OSCAR:
Objectives, specialization, coordination,
authority, and responsibility (Dale, 1965).
This thinking of this group of writers who
followed and developed Fayol’s thoughts is
termed as classical theory of the
organization.
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Criticism-The criticism of the classical theory
includes the opinion that it is too mechanistic.
The theory seemed to assume that top
management only needed to know what is to
be done or what it wanted to be done.
It will arrange for an organization in which all
roles are exactly dovetailed.
It will issue the necessary orders down
through the chain of command, and hold each
person accountable for the performance.
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Each person is spurred into appropriate
action by the hope or reward and
fear or penalties.
Classical school expressed the belief that, if
these steps are followed, the organization will
function harmoniously and effectively. No
doubt, they laid stress on the principle of
esprit de corps, but its implication was not
explored.
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Behavioral Theory – Organization
Behavior
The criticism of classical theory as too
mechanistic resulted in a new theory of
organization that emphasized that
organizations are made up of human beings
and orders and policies will be subject to
reinterpretation in the light of psychological
“set” of those who transmit them or carry
them out as well as the social environment.
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The people in the organization are motivated by
many forces beside those taken into account by
the classicists and employees of an organization
are often seeking goals different from those
expressed in the organization manual.
Theory developed in the field of organization
design and management based on behavioral
variables of human beings in the subject of
organization behavior.
Chester Barnard was probably the first of the
behavioral theorists of organization (Dale,
1965).
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(1890-1940)
At the turn of the century, the most notable
organizations were large and industrialized.
Often they included ongoing, routine tasks
that manufactured a variety of products.
The United States highly prized scientific
and technical matters, including careful
measurement and specification of activities
and results.
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Management tended to be the same.
Frederick Taylor developed the: scientific
management theory” which espoused this
careful specification and measurement of all
organizational tasks.
Tasks were standardized as much as possible.
Workers were rewarded and punished.
This approach appeared to work well for
organizations with assembly lines and other
mechanistic, routinized activities.
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Bureaucratic Management
THEORY (1930-1950)
Max Weber embellished the scientific
management theory with his bureaucratic
theory.
Weber focused on dividing organizations
into hierarchies, establishing strong lines of
authority and control.
He suggested organizations develop
comprehensive and detailed standard
operating procedures for all routinized tasks.
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(1930-today)
Eventually, unions and government
regulations reacted to the rather
dehumanizing effects of these theories.
More attention was given to individuals and
their unique capabilities in the organization.
A major belief included that the organization
would prosper if its workers prospered as
well. Human Resource departments were
added to organizations.
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The behavioral sciences played a strong role
in helping to understand the needs of workers
and how the needs of the organization and its
workers could be better aligned.
Various new theories were spawned, many
based on the behavioral sciences (some had
name like theory “X”, “Y” and “Z”).
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