What Are Organizations?
Organizations are defined as structured social inventions designed for goal accomplishment
and group effort. This section explores key elements:
1. Social Inventions:
- Organizations consist of people interacting and working together.
- Example: A non-profit charity relies on collaboration between employees and
volunteers to serve its mission.
2. Goal Accomplishment:
- Organizations exist to achieve specific objectives, whether profit-driven
(businesses) or mission-driven (NGOs).
- Example: A tech start-up develops software to enhance productivity.
3. Group Effort:
- Success depends on effective group dynamics and coordination.
- Example: A marketing department collaborates on campaigns requiring diverse skill
sets like design, analysis, and communication.
What Is Organizational Behaviour (OB)?
OB is the systematic study of attitudes and behaviors within organizations.
- Human resources management. Programs, practices, and systems to acquire,
develop, motivate, and retain employees in organizations.
- Human capital. The knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) embodied in an
organization’s employees.
- Social capital. Social resources that individuals obtain from participation in a social
structure.
The key aspects include:
1. Goals of OB:
- Predicting Behavior: Understanding patterns to anticipate outcomes.
- Example: Identifying that job dissatisfaction often leads to turnover.
- Explaining Behavior: Analyzing causes of specific actions.
- Example: Explaining why employees resist change by examining fear
of the unknown.
- Managing Behavior: Using knowledge to influence outcomes.
- Evidence-based management involves translating principles based
on the best scientific evidence into organizational practices.
- Example: Offering flexible work schedules to improve employee
engagement.
2. Importance of OB:
- Helps managers improve employee performance, job satisfaction, and
organizational effectiveness.
Early Prescriptions Concerning Management
1. Classical View and Bureaucracy:
- Focused on high efficiency through a formalized structure, rules, and division
of labor.
- Example: Henry Ford’s assembly line revolutionized manufacturing by
emphasizing efficiency.
-Classical viewpoint. An early prescription on management that advocated a
high specialization of labour, intensive coordination, and centralized decision
making.
- Scientific management. Frederick Taylor’s system for using research to
determine the optimum degree of specialization and standardization of work
tasks.
- Bureaucracy. Max Weber’s ideal type of organization that included a strict
chain of command, detailed rules, high specialization, centralized power, and
selection and promotion based on technical competence.
2. Human Relations Movement:
- A critique of classical management and bureaucracy that advocated
management styles that were more participative and oriented toward
employee needs.
- Example: Hawthorne studies. Research conducted in the 1920s and 1930s at
the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric, near Chicago, that illustrated how
psychological and social processes affect productivity and work adjustment.
Stressed the importance of employee well-being and social factors in
productivity.
- Human relations movement. A critique of classical management and
bureaucracy that advocated management styles that were more participative
and oriented toward employee needs.
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Contemporary Management – The Contingency Approach
- Suggests there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to managing organizations.
- Decisions should adapt to the specific environment, employees, and situation.
- Example: A flat structure may work well in creative firms, while hierarchical models
might suit manufacturing.
What Do Managers Do?
Managers are critical for organizational success and fulfill multiple roles:
1. Managerial Roles:
- Interpersonal Roles: Building relationships (e.g., figurehead, leader or
liaison).
- Informational Roles: Sharing and gathering information (e.g., monitor,
disseminator, spokesperson).
- Decisional Roles: Making strategic decisions (e.g., entrepreneur,
disturbance handler, resource allocator, negotiator).
2. Managerial Activities:
- Networking, routine communication, traditional/human resource management
tasks are vital activities for managers.
3. Managerial Agendas:
-Managers must prioritize short-term objectives (e.g., meeting deadlines)
alongside long-term goals (e.g., scaling operations).
- Agenda setting, networking, agenda implementation.
4. Managerial Minds:
- Critical thinking and problem-solving are essential.
- Use intuition to:
- To sense that a problem exists
- To perform well-learned mental tasks rapidly (e.g., sizing up a written
contract)
- To synthesize isolated pieces of information and data
- To double-check more formal or mechanical analyses (“Do these
projections look correct?”)
- Example: During crises, managers must make quick, calculated decisions to
navigate uncertainty.
- National culture is one of the most important contingency variables in
organizational behaviour. The appropriateness of various leadership styles,
motivation techniques, and communication methods depends on where one is
in the world.
Some Contemporary Management Concerns
1. Diversity—Local and Global:
- Managers must foster inclusive workplaces and address global challenges
like cultural differences.
- Example: EY’s initiative to embrace neurodiverse talent demonstrates the
importance of diverse hiring strategies.
2. Employee Health and Well-Being:
- Organizations increasingly prioritize physical and mental health.
- Example: Wellness programs offering gym memberships and mental health
resources.
- Mindfulness. A state in which people are highly aware of and attentive to
what is happening in the present.
- Workplace spirituality. A workplace that provides employees with meaning,
purpose, a sense of community, and a connection to others.
- Organizational care. Organizational values and principles centred on
fulfilling employees’ needs, promoting employees’ best interests, and valuing
employees’ contributions.
- Positive organizational behaviour (POB). The study and application of
positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacitie that
can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance
improvement.
- Psychological capital (PsyCap). An individual’s positive psychological state
of development that is characterized by self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and
resilience.
- Self-efficacy. Confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to
succeed at challenging tasks.
- Optimism. An attributional style that involves explaining positive events in
terms of personal and permanent causes, and negative events as external
and situation- specific causes.
- Hope. Persevering toward one’s goals and, when necessary, making changes
and using multiple pathways to achieve one’s goals.
- [Link] ability to bounce back or rebound from adversity and
setbacks to attain success.
- Thriving at work. A positive psychological state that is characterized by a
joint sense of vitality and learning.
3. Talent Management and Employee Engagement:
- Attracting, retaining, and motivating talent is central to success.
- Example: Google’s use of innovation labs to keep employees engaged and
productive.
- Work engagement. A positive work-related state of mind that is
characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption.
4. Alternative Work Arrangements:
- Flexibility in work structures like remote work and gig contracts is growing in
importance.
- Example: Companies adopting a four-day workweek for improved productivity
and morale.
- Precarious work. Work that is risky, uncertain, and unpredictable for
workers.
5. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):
- Organizations are expected to act ethically and sustainably.
- Example: Patagonia’s environmental initiatives reflect CSR in action.
