RE: Organizational Behaviour
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ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
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INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Learning Objectives
After reading this lesson, you should be able to understand:
• The major environmental challenges and the paradigm shift that the management faces today
• The management perspective of organizational behaviour
• The historical background of modern organizational behaviour
• The modern approach to organizational behaviour
The knowledge and information explosion, global competition, total quality and diversity are some of the bitter realities that the managers are facing today. There are many solutions being offered to deal with these complex challenges. Yet the simple but most profound solution may be found in the words of Sam Walton, the richest person in the world and the founder of Wal-Mart. Sam was once asked the key to successful organizations and management. Sam quickly replied, "People are the key".
The term paradigm comes from the Greek word 'paradigma', which means ''model, pattern or example". First introduced over thirty years ago, by the philosophy and science historian Thomas Khun, the term "paradigm" is now used as, a broad model, a framework, a way of thinking, and a scheme for understanding reality. The impact of information technology, total quality and diversity mentioned earlier has led to a paradigm shift.
NEW PARADIGM
The organizational behaviour has a goal lo help the managers make a transition to the new paradigm. Some of the new paradigm characteristics include coverage of second-generation information technology and total quality management such as empowerment, reengineering and benchmarking, and learning organization for managing diversity of work. The new paradigm sets the stage for the study, understanding, and application of the time-tested micro-variables, dynamics and macro-variables. One must know why management needs a new perspective to meet the environmental challenges and to shift to a new paradigm.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE FOR MANAGEMENT
Management is generally considered to have three major dimensions—technical, conceptual and human. The technical dimension consists of the manager's expertise in particular functional areas. They know the requirements of the jobs and have the functional knowledge to get the job done. But the practicing managers ignore the conceptual and human dimensions of their jobs.
Most managers think that their employees are lazy, and are interested only in money, and that if you could make them happy in terms of money, they would be productive. If such assumptions are accepted, the human problems that the management is facing are relatively easy to solve.
But human behaviour at work is much more complicated and diverse. The new perspective assumes that employees are extremely complex and that there is a need for theoretical understanding given by empirical research before applications can be made for managing people effectively.
MODERN APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
The modern approach to organizational behaviour is the search for the truth of why people behave the way they do. The organizational behaviour is a delicate and complex process. If one aims to manage an organization, it is necessary to understand its operation. Organization is the combination of science and people. While science and technology is predictable, the human behaviour in organization is rather unpredictable. This is because it arises from deep needs and value systems of people.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR MODERN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Scientific Management Approach
Scientific management approach was developed by F.W. Taylor at the beginning of the 20th century. This theory supported the use of certain steps in scientifically studying each element of a job, selecting and training the best workers for the job arid making sure that the workers follow the prescribed method of doing the job. It provided a scientific rationale for job specialization and mass production. His assumption was that employees are motivated largely by money. To increase the output, Taylor advised managers to pay monetary incentives to efficient workers.
Yet, his theory was criticized by many employers and workers. Workers objected to the pressure of work as being harder and faster. Critics worried that the methods took the humanity out of labor, reducing workers to machines responding to management incentives. Therefore, Taylor's view is now considered inadequate and narrow due to the points given by the critics.
Bureaucratic Approach
While scientific management was focusing on the interaction between workers and the task, me researchers were studying how to structure the organization more effectively. Instead of trying to make each worker more efficient, classical organization theory sought the most effective overall organizational structure for workers and managers.
The theory's most prominent advocate, Max Weber, proposed a 'bureaucratic form' of structure, which he thought would work for all organizations. Weber's idea! bureaucracy was , logical, rational and efficient. He made the naive assumption that one structure would work best for all organizations.
Henry Ford, Henry Fayol and Frederick W. Taylor, the early management pioneers, recognized the behavioral side of management. However, they did not emphasize the human dimensions. Although there were varied and complex reasons for the emerging importance of behavioral approach to management, it is generally recognized that the Hawthorne studies mark the historical roots for the field of organizational behaviour.
Hawthorne Studies
Even, as Taylor and Weber brought attention with their rational, logical approaches to more efficient productivity, their views were criticized on the ground that both approaches ignored worker's humanity.
The real beginning of applied research in the area of organizational behaviour started with Hawthorne Experiments. In 1924, a group of professors began an enquiry into the human aspects of work and working conditions at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, Chicago. The findings of these studies were given a new name 'human relations' the studies brought out a number of findings relevant to understanding human behaviour at work. The Human element in the workplace was considerably more important. The workers are influenced by social factors and the behaviour of the individual worker is determined by the group.
Hawthorne studies have been criticized for their research methods and conclusions drawn. But their impact on the emerging field of organizational behaviour was dramatic. They helped usher in a more humanity centered approach to work. |
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