Organisational Behaviour - Literature review Example

?Organizational behavior- Literature review: This paper is primarily based on doing a literature review about the main issues involved in organizational behavior in terms of change and leadership. Understanding the concept of organizational behavior is important because without it, innovation and changes can never be welcomed which are hugely necessary for maintaining a successful position in the market and ensuring customer satisfaction. Both leadership and change introduction should be highly structured processes so that trust and cooperation could be developed between the management and subordinates. This paper is meant to largely focus on some major outlets of organizational behavior like leadership, learning and change, creativity, models which organizations operate out of, and ways by which management can perceive and respect cultural diversity in an order to promote motivation in the employees. Facts and literature review presented in this paper are basically meant to address the problem that “with fierce competitiveness that forms the hallmark of the present business age, resolving myriad organizational behavior issues like leadership, change, etc. remain unaddressed due to which the whole organizational structure starts destroying beyond repair.” Literature review included in this paper focuses on addressing this problem and the need to maintain stability in an organization and for this, both leaders and employees should respect each other while taking care to add the element of solidarity to the organizational framework. According to (Mills, 2005, p. 2), strict yet understanding and focused leadership is excessively important for stabilizing the structural framework of organizational behavior. A leader should definitely ensure if all of the employees, should they experience any issue or problem, have easy access to him/her or not for discussing that issue. Most of the times, conflicts arise when there is no kind of communication or any friendly relation between the leader and subordinates, with the result that small issues grow into an oversized giant creating much trouble and pandemonium in an organization. The research study presented by (Mills, 2005) in his book regarding the critical importance of leadership lays stress on the need to adopt such a leading style that would not discourage the employees to bring forward any ideas they have in their minds for the betterment of the organization, rather a broadminded leader should hold regular meetings with the employees working at every level so that intricate visions can be shared and strategies can be introduced. It is a reality that focused leadership and positive organizational behavior “focuses primarily on constructs such as compassion, virtue, and forgiveness as ends in themselves for today’s organizations.” (Luthans, 2002, p. 698). With a haphazard and uncoordinated leadership that never remains focused, organizational setup becomes stagnated, slow, and targets become virtually unreachable. It is justifiably claimed that “walking at the front isn’t really leadership unless the person in front is actually choosing the direction!” (Mills, 2005, p. 14). Coming to the models that organizations around the world operate out of, (Medsker, Williams, & Holahan, 1994, pp. 439-464) have laid emphasis on the four major models proposed for broadening the concept about organizational behavior and recent developments made in these models since the time they were introduced. This research study lays particular stress on the need to evaluate these models so that ambiguities could be removed and better understanding for the overall benefit of an organization could be ensured between the leaders and employees. Development of understanding and bias-free respect for each is majorly marred by negative notions that are most of the times, absolutely groundless and by following a set useful organizational behavior model, coherency in thinking and implementing ideas can be achieved by the leaders. The autocratic model is probably the most widespread of all models and managerial orientation of authority forms the bedrock of this model and employees are almost never given a chance to speak aloud about what bothers them specifically at the workplace. (Hamilton, 2006). In custodial model, there seems to be some communication between the managerial team and workers due to the fact that employees are driven towards depending on the organization as a whole and not just on one central authority. Ideas and visions are given room to prosper when workers have to depend on the organization with the result that unbiased thinking pattern and productive cooperation ensues. The supportive model, like the name implies, is all about supporting each other’s ideas and respecting constructive criticism so that the employees would be motivated to suppress those ideas which would not prove to be beneficial for the organization in the long term. (Newstrom, 1977, p. 33). Developing the ability to take criticism with a large heart and an aware mind in the employees should be one of the top most responsibilities of the leader. The best models of all is no doubt the collegial model, which implies that teamwork is the essence of any organization without which employees can never be willingly driven towards responsibility and enthusiasm. (Davis, n.d.). Taking about the teamwork, motivation, and innovation, which are important building blocks of organizational behavior, research studies lay emphasis on collective aspiration and a ceaseless attempt to recognize the systemic approach in an organization before the problematic issues get out of proportion. “People will be most creative when they are primarily intrinsically motivated, by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction and challenge of the work itself.” (Amabile, cited in Starko, 1993, p. 74). This remains a vivid reality that without motivating the employees, no change can be welcomed because most of the employees would not be willing in the first place to show any constructive response towards the change with the result that the organizational behavior, which should be thriving with life and dynamic approach, would turn into a stagnant pool. Similarly, learning should be made a prominent feature of organizational behavior, and managers and employees alike should be familiar with this feature in an order to become able to create room for new ideas and changing strategies. Emphasis on innovation and learning should profoundly exist within an organization which strives to make the future secure. The learning process can either be single-loop or double-loop. (Tjepkema, 2002) claims that single loop learning brings “incremental changes in organizational functioning” while double loop is responsible for “innovation of existing practices, products or services.” The learning organization sees mistakes as a means to enhance the performance on a large scale due to which the freedom to make mistakes leads to constructive innovation. Summing up, it would be worth mentioning that with the vast amount of research done on organizational behavior, frameworks, leadership styles, and strategies through which changes could be brought while ensuring cooperativeness from the employees, one thing remains a reality that developing strong familiarity with the ins and outs of organizational behavior is highly useful for running a smooth organizational system. Facts and discussion presented above clearly support the importance of learning organizational behavior so that the tight pressures brought on by today’s fiercely competitive business field could be effectively dealt with, while ensuring positive feedback and support from the employees. In an order to remain tuned with the changing customer needs, changes should be brought in an organization and this can only be made possible if employees are motivated by the leaders to engage in the learning and vision sharing process. Positive organizational behavior can phenomenally deal with the tight spot where many severe issues remain unaddressed and things take on a severely negative turn. Dynamic approach is especially important to be ensured by the leaders in their organizations because market segmentation methods and technology continuously evolves and affects the industry in a different manner each time. References: Davis, K. (n.d.). Understanding Organizational Behavior. Retrieved from http://www.universalteacherpublications.com/mba/ebooks/ob/ch1/page4.htm Hamilton, M. (2006). An Outline of Organizational Behavior. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?An-Outline-of-Organizational-Behavior&id=340489 Luthans, F. (2002). The need for and meaning of positive organizational behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 695-706. Medsker, G. J., Williams, L. J., & Holahan, P. J. (1994). A review of current practices for evaluating causal models in organizational behavior and human resources management research. Journal of Management, 20(2), 439-464. Mills, D. Q. (2005). Leadership: How to Lead, How to Live. MindEdge Press. Newstrom. (1977). Organizational Behavior. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Starko, A. J. (2009). Creativity in the Classroom: Schools of Curious Delight. USA: Taylor & Francis. Tjepkema, S. (2002). HRD and learning organisations in Europe. Routledge. Read More