Positive Organizational Behaviour - Essay Example

Insert Name xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Institution xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Instructor xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date Organizational behaviour is the study of what people feel, think and do within organizations. Organizational behaviour management is therefore focused on what people do, why they do it and applying intervention strategy to improve what people do. This is particularly important since an organization can be defined as the people who work together to achieve the set goals and objectives. Behaviour is influenced by the system in which it occurs and can contribute to a couple of organizational errors while some change in behaviour can prevent some errors. The primary job of management is to ensure that an organization runs effectively. This entails understanding an individual or a group of individuals which can be quite complex to comprehend. The success of an organization is also determined by the mind-boggling management of the complex social dynamics within it. Despite its complexity, organizational behaviour must be effectively managed to ensure that an organization gets that competitive edge over its industry competitors. This task entails understanding individual behaviour patterns and group patterns in order to understand the behavioural responses that will be evoked by the different managerial actions, and using this understanding to effectively control the organization. One of the tools that can be used to unravel these paradoxes and mysteries of social dynamics within an organization is the conceptual model (French & Holden, 2012). Such models are used as roadmaps and indicators to point out the most important factors within an organization and how they relate in order to make sense out of organizational behavior. These models function by collecting information about a problem, interpreting the information and formation of action plans. The roles of the managers in an organization are to regulate the productive activities of employees within an organization and control the use of resources towards the attainment of organizational goals. The managers are therefore an integral part of all the activities that take place within an organization towards the achievement of its objectives. Managers utilize and organize organizational resources in such a way so as to attain optimum results. Therefore without their leadership and guidance, the production resources would never be anything more than just mere resources. The management also effectively integrates scarce resources such as money, manpower, machines and time, effectively in the production process to be able to get the most out of them. These roles of management are common to all organizations some of which are; business organizations, business organizations and schools just to mention a few. Management affects the economic growth of a nation because when they are effective, it leads to an increase and expansion of the production of services and goods. Other roles of management are to ensure happiness and prosperity of employees, control and supervise performance of these employees, motivate them, and create policies and procedures to guide these employees in their functioning. Below we highlight and analyse some of the common theories or models that define and shape behaviour and functioning of management (Cable & Judge, 2003). In system theory of analysing organizational behaviour, the most critical system characteristics are; internal interdependence, capacity for feedback, equilibrium, and adaptation. In this theory, management is defined as an organ which is defined through its functions. For internal interdependence, changes in one component of an organization affect the other components since they are all interconnected. For instance employee skills and attitudes affect the quality and speed of the output of an organization. Capacity for feedback refers to how the management can use information to control the system for instance by correcting errors, solving conflicts and improving employee prosperity. If the management receives intelligence that the quality of their products is deteriorating, this information will be used to re-analyse the system and identify the factors that contribute to such a problem. This feedback will guide the management on where they need to lay emphasis with regards to carrying out their roles. Equilibrium refers to how the system is able to self-correct when an event knocks it off balance. For instance when one group of an organization abruptly increases its performance, this will knock the system off balance because this group will strain other groups who supply them with information, materials and other services. These other groups will feel the pressure of work in progress pilling up and also, if the over-performing group is given incentives for their work by management, the other groups might feel discriminated against. Measures that can be taken by management in such a situation include changing the system to work at the pace of the over performing group or modifying this group to get back in line with the production levels. Management therefore needs to be dynamic in performing their functions by adapting new products and techniques as per the market demand (Boiral & Paillé, 2012). The congruence theory of organizational behaviour analysis is more specific and perfect for use as an analytical tool. It focuses on the organizational functioning and specifies the transformational processes, critical inputs and major outputs. It is also based on how well management makes organizational components such as people, culture, tasks and technology fit with each other; meaning that it focuses more on the resource integration role of management. In this theory, management is defined as a function of executive leadership. Inputs such as the environment can be inclusive of suppliers, the government, regulatory authorities, labour unions, financial institutions, competitors and special interest groups. These environmental factors affect management behaviour within an organization by making demands on required levels of quality and quantity through market pressures, placing constraints such as limitations and prohibitions on organizational operations, and provision of operations the organization can exploit (Bamberger & Pratt, 2010). Organizational resources controlled by management such as capital, employees, information, technology and image also affect and shape management functioning within the organization. Resources can be configured, shaped or deployed by management in different ways. Organizational history is another factor that affects how management functions especially phases of organizational development and impacts of major past events. These historical factors may include how previous the management responded to a crisis in the past, key strategic decisions, acts of senior leaders and how the current management responds to them. Current management will therefore use these past activities as a prerequisite for making current decisions. A case study in which these two theories were comprehensively applied was when Toyota management took over management of the failing Fremont, California plant of General Motors in the 1980’s. This was the worst performing plant in the United States by the time Toyota management took over. It was characterized by poor customer care ratings, dismal sales, unreasonable overhead costs, frequent strikes and 20 percent employee absenteeism. Two years down the line, the production of this plant grew two fold compared to other plants, overhead costs were cut by 50 percent, and absenteeism of workers dropped to only two percent, from a whooping 20 percent. The Toyota management did not change the previous employees or resources that had caused the failure, they were the only new thing in the plant. They managed to achieve this success by incorporating the congruence theory and systems theory of organizational behaviour into the Toyota Way (Liker, 2004). The systems theory was used by management to improve the internal interdependence between resources, and restoration of the system equilibrium of this plant. Changes in employee behaviour such as increased absenteeism, poor customer care and frequent strikes affected production, increased overhead costs and reduced sales. The new management therefore dealt with employee behaviour and as a result improving production and reducing overhead costs. The new management used tactics such as setting employees in small groups with specific objectives and making the employees evaluate themselves. Segregation was also eliminated and equality promoted between managers and regular employees. The new management started by collecting information on causes of dismal performance and all through their tenure, they were open to feedback from employees. The congruence theory also comes into play in this study since the new management also focused on the functional aspects of this plant and human input. The new management stepped in and focused on resource integration by improving how the employees interacted with other resources through incentives and motivation to reduce absenteeism, increase employee morale as a result improving customer care. The new management therefore configured, shaped or deployed resources in ways which were different from their failed predecessors hence achieving their success. The importance of studying organizational behaviour is to enable management influence and predict the behaviour of its employees in the organizational context. This study therefore empowers managers to be able to address people issues. It also enables management to predict how employees are likely to react in different scenarios. The people aspect of an organization is not quite clear since human behaviour is quite dynamic and complex; although it enables management to make sense of the workplace, communicate effectively with employees, help work teams operate effectively, make better decisions, manage conflict better and build commitment to the business objectives (Ozgan, 2011). Emerging trends in organizational behaviour which are of great concern to management are; globalization, the changing workforce, emerging employment relationships, information technology, work teams and business ethics. Globalization calls for management to come up with new organizational structures and new forms of communication since the world has become a global village. It brings about new career opportunities, new knowledge to improve an organization’s competitive advantage cultural exchange and therefore behavioural change. The changing work force brings about diversity, changing the employee composition and therefore giving rise to a whole new dimension of conflicts, employee interactions and other behavioural factors which management need to deal with. Information technology has also brought about new ethical issues at the workplace and these include cyber slacking among others. Managers therefore need to stay on their toes and find out how to deal with these behavioural changes as a result of technological advancements (Boiral & Paillé, 2012). In conclusion, these behavioural theories need to be blended together for the management to be able to make the most out of them since just a single theory will not exhaust all the behavioural perspectives of an organization. These theories are useful for structuring the complexity of organizational life and helping managers develop and maintain effective organizations. In a nutshell, organizational behaviour theories can help management increase and maintain desirable behaviour, and define the behaviours that need to be avoided. The implications of these theories for managers is to show the importance of fundamental activities in the management of organizational behaviour. These fundamental activities are decision making, communication and problem solving (problem identification and solution) since these are the key ways in which management influences organizational behaviour. References: French, S, & Holden, T 2012, 'Positive Organizational Behaviour: A Buffer for Bad News', Business Communication Quarterly, 75, 2, pp. 208-220, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2013. KLOTZ, A, & BOLINO, M 2013, 'CITIZENSHIP AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOR: A MORAL LICENSING VIEW', Academy Of Management Review, 38, 2, pp. 292-306, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2013. Ozgan, H 2011, 'The Relationships between Organizational Justice, Confidence, Commitment, and Evaluating the Manager and the Perceptions of Conflict Management in the Context of Organizational Behaviour', Educational Sciences: Theory And Practice, 11, 1, pp. 241-247, ERIC, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2013. Boiral, O, & Paillé, P 2012, 'Organizational Citizenship Behaviour for the Environment: Measurement and Validation', Journal Of Business Ethics, 109, 4, pp. 431-445, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2013. Bamberger, P, & Pratt, M 2010, 'MOVING FORWARD BY LOOKING BACK: RECLAIMING UNCONVENTIONAL RESEARCH CONTEXTS AND SAMPLES IN ORGANIZATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP', Academy Of Management Journal, 53, 4, pp. 665-671, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 May 2013. Cable, D. M. & Judge, T. A. 2003. Managers' upward influence tactical strategies: the role of manager personality and supervisor leadership style. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 24 (2), 197-214. Liker, J. 2004. The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. Read More