OB Handout # 1

Introduction to Organization

(Students are requested to study the textbooks by Fred Luthans and Stephen P Robbins for a better understanding of the subject)

What is an Organization?
Organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of a group of people, which functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve common goal or a set of goals.

Organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual or organizational goals.

Organization is group of people with specific responsibilities acting together for achieving specific purpose.

Organization is a social arrangement that pursues collective goals.

Organization is a collection of people working together in a division of labour to achieve common purpose.

While Henry Fayol emphasized that the purpose of an organization was to get work done in a specialized, machine-like function, Peter Drucker proposed that ‘the organization is above all, social, it is people’.

According to Herbert Simon, an Organization influences its members by
Division of Labour
Standard Practices
Decision making
Communication
Training

What is behaviour?
Behaviour is the pattern of how a person responds to a stimulus.

Responses can be influenced by
Culture: the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.
Attitude: a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's like or dislike for an item; mental position relative to a way of thinking or being. The current popular usage of attitude implies a negative mindset, a "chip on the shoulder" behavior, and an inner anger toward the prevailing majority of thought.
Emotion: a feeling that is private and subjective; a state of psychological arousal an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses.
Values: beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)
Ethics: response based on what is right; the process of determining how one should hold the interests of various stakeholders, taking into account moral values/principles
Authority: the power or right to give orders or make decisions
Coercion: obtaining a response by use force; compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats/intimidation
Persuasion: obtaining a response by convincing a person; the process of guiding people toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic (though not always logical) means. It is strategy of problem-solving relying on "appeals" rather than force.
Genetics: inherited from parents; pertaining to genes or any of their effects.

What is Organizational Behaviour?

A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structures have on behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organization’s effectiveness.
–Stephen P Robbins

Organizational Behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour in organizations.
–Fred Luthans

An academic discipline concerned with understanding and describing human behaviour in an organizational environment. (This definition seeks to shed light on the whole complex human factor in organizations by identifying causes and effects of behaviour)
–Keith Davis

A systematic study of the nature of organizations: how they begin, grow, and develop and their influence on individuals, groups, organizations and institutions.
–Joe Kelly

A field that seeks knowledge of behaviour in organizational settings by systematically studying individual, group and organizational processes.
–Baron & Greenberg

The academic discipline of Organizational Behavior encompasses three broad areas:
Behavior of People in Organizations
OB draws on psychology, anthropology and sociology to gain insight into the behavior of individuals in organizational settings. Topics studied include:
perception, cognition, learning
personality and motivation
leadership, power, conformity, communication
decision making
Organizational Structure
Organizations consist of people organized to achieve organizational goals (like manufacture cars). One of the most important strategic elements of an organization is its structure: how the people are arranged so as to produce what the organization produces. Topics include:
task identification and division of labor
departmentation
coordination and control mechanisms
processes and procedures, such as promotion, hiring policies, compensation
organizational form (e.g., bureaucracy)
size
centralization of decision-making
the relationships among these variables
Behaviour of organizations
Just as we can study the interactions of individuals with the organization and with each other, we can also study the interactions of organizations with their environments, which include individual citizens and other organizations including the government. Some of the behaviors of organizations that we are interested in include:
adoption of new practices such as
downsizing
team-based structure
domestic partner benefits (e.g., partners of gay employees get full medical coverage)
re-engineering
environmental protection ("green" practices)
adaptation to changing conditions
global competition
increasing pace of technological change
changing social structure (e.g., status of women)

Why to study Organizational Behaviour?

Organizational Behaviour facilitates the process of explaining, understanding, predicting, maintaining and changing employee behaviour in an organizational setting.

Organizational Behaviour focuses on five levels of analysis:
Individual
Inter-personal
Group
Organizational
Environmental

Study of Organizational Behaviour becomes important because of broad nature and scope of the subject:
Organizational Behavioour is Inter-disciplinary: It integrates knowledge from various relevant disciplines e.g. Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Medical Science, Engineering etc.

Organizational Behaviour is an Applied Science: It is oriented towards understanding the forces that affect behaviour so that their influences can be predicted, monitored and guided towards better and effective functioning of the organization.

Organizational Behaviour uses Scientific Methods: It follwos the scientific methods and uses logical theory in its investigation and answering the research questions. It is empirical, interpretative, critical and creative science.

Behavioural Orientation: It is directly connected with the human side of management. More precisely, it looks at all the management functions from behavioural perspective.

Contingency Approach: There are few absolutes in Organizational Behaviour. The approach is directed towards developing managerial actions that are most appropriate for a specific situation.

Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Behaviour

Responding to globalization
Shifting Work/Employment Relationships
Work-life balance
Empowering people
Ethical behaviour
Responding to labour shortage
Improving people skill
Managing workforce diversity
Improving Quality and Productivity

Shifting Work-Employment Relationship
Robotized workplaces
Unmanned workstation
Officeless work
Open 24 hours, 24X7
Contract for work –Contract of work
Employed worker—Independent Contractor
Permanent—Temporary
Office—HomeShifting Work-Employment Relationship
Fixed—Flexible working hours
Jobs as property—Jobs as prosperity
Lifetime employment—Lifetime employability
Single task/career—multiple task career
Individual—Team
Functional—Cross-functional
Managers–Facilitators
Autonomous hierarchies—Independent Partnerships
Employee as a servant—Employee as a partner
Loyalty—Competence
Control—Commitment
Direction—Empowerment

Theoretical Framework of Organizational Behaviour

Behavioural Framework:
Behaviour can be best explained in terms of stimulus—Response. That is, a particular stimulus will lead to a particular response. However, responses can be conditioned or trained by presenting conditioned stimulus/consequences.

Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov and John Watson developed this theory. According to this theory, learning/conditioning takes place when Stimulus-Response connection is established. Classical conditioning may be defined as a process in which a neutral stimulus, when repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes a conditioned stimulus that elicits a conditioned response.

This may be explained as under:
Unconditioned Stimulus—Unconditioned Response
Conditioned stimulus—Conditioned Response.

Ivan Pavlov developed the theory of classical conditioning on the basis of his famous experiment with dog. Whenever he presented meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) to the dog, it salivated (Unconditioned Response). The dog did not salivate when a bell rung (Neutral Stimulus/Conditioned Stimulus). Later, Pavlov rang the bell (Conditioned Stimulus) whenever he presented meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) to the dog. He repeated the exercise several times. Afterwards, Pavlov rang the bell (Conditioned Stimulus) without presenting the meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) and found that the dog actually salivated (Conditioned Response).

Critics of Classical Conditioning theory say that this theory at best explains reflexive (involuntary/automatic/impulsive) behaviour.

Operant Conditioning: B F Skinner developed Operant Conditioning theory in order to overcome the weaknesses of Classical Conditioning. In Operant Conditioning, responses to a particular stimulus occur on the basis on consequences of that response. Thus there is strong association between consequence and response to a particular stimulus.

This may be explained as under:
Stimulus—Response—Consequences—Future Response on the basis of consequence

Consequences can be any of the following:
Something good can begin or be presented
Something good can end or be taken away
Something bad can begin or be presented
Something bad can end or be taken away
Consequences have to be immediate and clearly linked to the responses.

Behavioural framework debunked the Freudian proposition that behaviour came from unconscious.

Cognitive Framework:
Cognition means a mental process involved in knowing, learning and understanding things. Edward Tolman propounded this theory in 1940s. According to cognitive Framework, cognition precedes response/behaviour and constitute inputs into person’s thinking, perception, problem solving and information processing.
The theory may be explained as under:
Stimulus-Cognition-Response

According to Tolman, behaviour of a person is determined by Expectancy, Demand and Intention based on his/her cognition. He developed this theory on the basis of his experiment with white rat. He found that a rat could learn to run through an intricate maze with a purpose and direction towards a goal (food). He observed that at each choice point in the maze, expectations were established. In other words, the rat learned to expect that certain cognitive cues associated with the choice point might eventually lead to food. If the rat actually received the food, the association between the cue and expectancy was established and learning occurred.

In Organizational Behaviour, Cognitive Framework has been applied mainly in motivation. Expectations, attributions, locus of control and goal-setting are all cognitive concepts that represent purposefulness of the subject.

Social Cognitive Framework:
This framework was developed by Albert Bandura who believes that human behaviour can best be explained in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction among cognitive, behavioural and environmental determinants. Most of our responses are guided by observation and imitation.

According to this theory, human behaviour is determined by five basic capabilities:
Symbolizing: An individual associates a symbol to his future responses.
Forethought: An individual anticipates the consequences and accordingly makes a choice of responses.
Observational: An individual observes others before choosing his/her own responses.
Self-regulatory: an individual controls his/her action by setting internal standards (aspired levels of performance) and by evaluating discrepancy between the standard and the performance
Self-reflective: An individual reflects back on his/her actions and perceptually determine the causes of success or failure and possible measure to improve the quality of responses.

(P.S. feedback invited from the students to improve the content of the website. Send in your e-mails to jha.srirang@gmail.com)