Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations - Literature review Example

Critical Analysis of Three of the Topics Covered in Organizational Behavior Introduction Organizational behavior is a field of study that explores the standards that individuals, groups and organizations, abide by in terms of conduct. It involves studying organizations from different opinions, methodologies and analysis levels. In the sixth edition of ‘Organizational Behavior’, Robbins, Judge, Millet and Boyle analyze organizational behavior into three topics namely the individual, the group and the organization. The aim of this paper is to do a critical analysis of the topics discussed herein.1 The Individual Humans behave in complex ways and the behavior of every individual is distinct from that of another. This presents the organizations with the challenge of harmonizing tasks, the employees and the managers in a successful way, in order to accomplish the objectives of the organization. Ideally, a manager is supposed to begin by studying the task at hand before deciding on the needed skills for the job. This is then followed by the assemblage of a team of employees whose skills complement those of their colleagues. This is advantageous as it ensures that conflicts of interests are avoided within the organization besides guaranteeing team work.2 However, in reality this is not an easy task achieve for the manager. He or she is will use the resources that exist within the organization for a given task. In addition, the differences in behavior that occur within individuals in the organizations must be comprehensively understood by the manager in order to fittingly use them to enhance synergy.3 Foundations of the Individual Behavior A perfect understanding of individual behavior and personalities is important in discovering the basics of human cognition. On its part, cognition is the process of thinking in humans, which illustrates the manner in which the constantly acquired information by humans is altered, stored and used as a fact during the future decision making process. 4Cognition encompasses multiple mental processes such as language, decision making, imagery and problem solving among others. Immediately the human brain receives stimuli from the external environment through any of the five senses, it registers it in the sensory memory. Although the sensory memory is large enough, it only stores the information for a very short time. During the observation process, there is an effort to match the sensory memory with the prior knowledge and establish the acuity of the stimuli. Through this process, very useful information is retrieved from the sensory memory. The retrieved information is in turn passed to the short term memory, otherwise known as the working memory, from where the related knowledge from the long term memory is cached. It is important to note that the latency of the sensory memory is shorter than that of the short-term one. This implies that the short-term memory is needed till the reaction of the stimuli is over. The long-term memory on the other hand is the principal knowledge base because of its huge capacity.5 A stimulus is naturally supposed to trigger an action of whichever kind including ignoring it. The initial input of the analytical process of the mind is drawn from the perceived stimuli and the preoccupied and related experiences. Other influential factors to the input involve the rational and emotional factors of an individual. These factors, however, depend on the beliefs and values of the individual. The needed time of response to the stimuli together with the supposed desired results, are equally important parameters. Countless cognitive processes operate at the core of the analytical mind in complex permutations and in a parallel or sequential manner, with an objective of satisfying the primary constraints. The whole of the cognitive activity has a consequence of responding to the environmental stimuli which comes out as the behavior of the individual. While the cognitive activity is internal, the behavior of a person can be observed. This behavior then gets back into the memory where it modifies the present continuous knowledge. It also develops a new behavior, thereby causing the response to the future stimuli to be ignored.6 Perceptions and Individual Decision Making Cognitive psychology has several dimensions, which focus on its processes and robustness. Thinking at a higher level of abstraction is characterized by emotional and rational aspects while robustness is determined by its firmness. Thinking rationally is a process based on the logical reasoning approach, which encompasses a bit of statistical or mathematical knowledge in which the validity is the implicit proof of the process. One of the rational processes that are involved in the determination of the cause or reason behind an observed behavior is attribution. On the other hand, emotional thinking is the response upon which an individual perceives the object in question. According to neurology, emotions attain the limbic response through following a short cut pathway. Through this pathway, they bypass the other cognitive thought processes. But on the flip side, emotions possess huge influences on the cognitive and decision making ability of an individual. They emanate from various emotional responses and they are dependent on the values and beliefs of an individual.7 Relationship between the Behaviors of a Manager and an Individual An individual’s behavior is very important and the manager is supposed to use his knowledge to improve his task of matching employees to their job descriptions. It is worthwhile to note that, for the success of any organization, the relationship between the manager and the employees should be bidirectional and not unidirectional. As the manager makes an effort to assess the behavior of his employees, employees are also expected to strive to take up the manager’s perspective and adapt to it. The success of this behavior leads to the creation of a behavioral congruence between the manager and the employees, thereby enhancing a positive outcome for the organization. However, this strategy also has a probability of failure, which could bring about frustration and dissatisfaction for the manager and the employees; this in turn can increase the risk of sore relationships between them and termination of jobs. The employees could have a different opinion of the job and think of other things far from the job and the expected manner of treatment he or she ought to receive from the manager. In addition, the employees could develop a biased or selective opinion of the manager’s job and this can affect his or her behavior and expectations.8 Factors That Influence Individual Behavior The factors that affect the behavior of an individual include attitude, gender, abilities, perception, attribution and race. The abilities of a person are the traits of that person that are either natural or learnt. They are classified as either mental or physical. The mental abilities include the deductive reasoning of an individual, verbal comprehension, intelligence and analytical and verbal comprehension. On the other hand, the physical abilities encompass the coordination of the body and motor skills, stamina and the muscular strength. If an individual is fully aware of his own abilities, then he or she is likely to have a better feeling toward the task that is assigned to him or her. Meanwhile, the perception of these abilities by the manager plays a crucial role in the determination of the task to be assigned to that individual.9 On the issue of gender, apparently men and women have equal mental abilities and job performance. However, due to the feminine activities women engage in, such as child care, they might be forced to show up late for work. This helps create a difference in the perception of the abilities, social behavior and the personal values of an individual. The other important and significant influence is race and culture. People tend to attribute certain behaviors on race and culture of the performer and this has got the danger of influencing an individual’s behavior. Therefore, learning the different values and cultures together with their communication protocol and common artifacts is important in the creation of a more accommodative corporate culture and suppressing rather offensive and insensitive behaviors. Groups A group is a collection of individuals who work regularly work together in order to achieve common goals. Groups are very important for the development of an organization as they help them to achieve important tasks and maintain a high quality work force in the process of meeting the needs of all the stakeholders. Group formation requires dynamic theories such as the theory of propinquity, balance theory and the exchange theory. The theory of propinquity suggests that the association amongst people is influenced by their geographical proximity while the balance theory states that people with similar attitudes toward specific goals and objectives can form a group with ease. On the other hand, the exchange theory portends that the basis for group formation is influenced by the reward-cost results of such interactions. The three principal reasons behind the formation of groups are to enhance task performance, to satisfy members and to increase team viability.10 When members of a group put up their efforts together for the performance of a certain task, they tend to create synergy. Synergy allows a group to attain more than the sum of the capability of each individual member and is important for effective competition and achievement of high performance within organizations. Although working in groups cannot be disputed, there are specific conditions when group works portray outstanding superiority to individual works. These conditions include lack of clear expertise in a particular task, the need for sharing of information, division of labor to solve problems that arise, as well as the need for innovation and creativity. Groups, however, have got their own set of challenges. Sometimes individuals in a group tend to work less harder while in groups than when attending to tasks, individually. This is referred to as social loafing and might be encouraged by the fact that inside groups, it is not easy to notice the individual contribution and the preference by individuals to see each other carry the workload. As a group problem, however, social loafing can be prevented. This can be done through the definition of the roles of members and their tasks in order to capitalize on the interests of individuals and linking individual rewards to performance and contribution of members. It can also be prevented by raising the accountability through identifying the performance of individuals to the group.11 Another key influence to the performance of the group is the social facilitation. Social facilitation is an aspect of an individual’s performance that is influenced by the performance of others, either positively or negatively. It can be affected positively when the performance of an individual is proficient; on the other hand, the negative influence performance leads to poor performance.12 Types of Groups Groups are broadly categorized into three broad types, which include formal groups, informal groups and others. Others include the small groups, large groups, secondary groups, preliminary groups, membership groups, reference groups and coalitions. Formal groups are those are formed by organizations for the purposes of carrying out some specific tasks while the informal ones are those that are established by employees. Examples of formal groups include the command group and the task groups while those of informal groups are interest groups and friendship groups. The development of a group usually takes place in five stages, which include forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Forming involves the initial meeting the members have together while storming is seeking to resolve the differences. Norming, on the other hand, is agreeing on the purpose and conduct of the group while performing is achieving the intended goals. Meanwhile, adjourning marks the completion or the end of the group development process.13 Group Structure The structure of a given group plays an important in shaping the behavior of its members. It also envisages their behavior, in addition to guiding the performance of the entire group. The behavior of a leader plays an important role in influencing the behavior and performance of the members of the group who tend to imitate him or her. This, therefore, means that leaders must set behavior patterns as they help drive an organization toward achieving its targets. The group should tentatively be guided by specific standards of behavior, which should be shared by members. These are the norms that pertain to processes related to performance, the norms of appearance and the norms that touch on the informal social arrangements. Others are the norms that control the resources allocation process. The composition of a group is very vital because it plays an important role in its performance. Apparently, a lot of skills and knowledge are required within the group in order to attain an effective performance. It is reported that the heterogeneous groups have a higher likelihood of performance better than their homogenous counterparts. However, the interdependence and complexity of the task at hand to be performed by its members are the key influences of the effectiveness of a group. Groups that are large in terms of membership have the advantage of pooling together resources, which enables them to solve problems more adequately and efficiently. Of equal importance too, are the types of membership that are adopted by the group. The effective performance of the group requires the availability of the right skills and competences for solving problems and performing tasks. This explains why the homogeneous groups might not necessarily perform as required as most of the times they do not have the required competencies, experiences and skills. On the other hand, a heterogeneous group might perform considerably well if the members apply their diverse skills, experiences and competencies appropriately. Group members who are drawn from different and diverse backgrounds have the opportunity to expand their perspectives and skills, through the opportunities that are available in the process of problem solving. However, diversity has got also a potential of making it harder for the members of the group to work together. According to FIRO-B theory on group organization, a group that is composed of members with compatible characteristics has high chances of being more effective. Meanwhile, groups whose members have incompatible characteristics are likely to be less effective. The increase in group size has got proportional impact on the performance of the organization; this is, however, only up to some certain level. When work is divided amongst the members of a big group, work performance and job satisfaction are enhanced. Conversely, larger groups are likely to experience more communication problems, thereby decreasing the work performance and job satisfaction. Other interesting characteristics of groups to note is that, groups whose members are odd numbered, are more effective in resolving disputes and attaining speedy conclusions than those whose members add up to even numbers. The Organization From the introductory definition, organizational behavior is a field of study that investigates the manner in which individuals, people or groups carry out their activities within organizations. In order to effectively enhance this, organizations must strive to build relationships that aim at attaining the social, organizational and human objectives. An organization is usually rooted on the vision, values, philosophy and goals crafted by the management. It is from this that an organization draws its culture, which is based on its social environment and both informal and formal composition. It is through the culture of an organization that communication, leadership and dynamics of the group are determined. Organizational culture also enhances the quality of work and adds motivation to the workers. Besides it contributes to individual satisfaction, enhanced work performance and personal growth and development. It is from the combination of these factors that an organization builds its modeled framework on which it operates.14 Most organizations operate on four frameworks, namely custodial, supportive, autocratic and collegial. The autocratic basis is where the management of the organization’s management wields much authority on employees who are expected to remain obedient and loyal to it. The needs of employees are the least of the organization’s priorities and the performance result is normally very poor. The custodial model is normally oriented towards money with employees standing to gain from security and other benefits that are attached to the organization. It tends to lay more focus on the security of employees at the expense of their performance. The supportive model is based on the support and managerial orientation of job performance and orientation by employees. Recognition and status are the needs of the employees, which are met. The collegial model involves the application of teamwork, whereby the employees are oriented towards self discipline and responsible behavior. In turn, the employees’ need of self actualization is met. On the other hand, the moderately enthusiasm is the performance result that is met. No organization operates on a single model; all of them operate using a combination of the four even though one model will always predominate.15 Within the framework of organizations, there are social systems, culture and individualization that characterize an organization. Every organization has human interactions in a social system set up, which describe the behavior of individual members and the effects they have on each other. One member’s behavior can apparently have an impact on the behavior of another colleague. Within the social system, ideas, culture and goods are exchanged freely in a borderless manner. Through the culture in an organization, people tend to retain their beliefs, knowledge, practices and customs at their work places as they believe that they draw understanding, security and stability from them. Normally most people find it difficult to abandon their culture for a new one. This in essence might have serious implications in the running of the affairs of the organization. On the other hand, the prevailing culture can be changed if employees successfully exert enough pressure toward the same. This is what is referred to as individualization. However, individualization has its own set of challenges and strengths that are important to consider for the running of the organization.16 Authority, Power and Politics Individualization has the potential of causing rebellion, isolation, conformity and creative individualism. However, when individualism is too little, coupled with insufficient socialization, isolation is likely to occur. When individualization is too high but socialization too low, rebellion is likely to occur. Meanwhile when it is too little with too high socialization, then it is likely to create conformity. On the other hand, when high individualization matches high socialization, then a good and conducive environment for working emerges. It is, therefore, important to note that, while individualization works in favor of the individual rights such as personal rewards, self respect and careers, socialization favors groups and harmonious existence. In this regard, it can be concluded that people are important for an organization for they are subject to questioning, challenge and experimentation. In its endeavor to accomplish this, the organization must not lose focus on the specific cultures that bind these people together in their social systems. Within an organization, it is possible for a systematic application of behavioral science and knowledge to exist at the organization, group and intergroup levels. This is what makes the organization develop. The main objective of organizational development is to ensure a higher work life quality, adaptability, effectiveness and productivity. This can be accomplished through the change of behaviors, procedures, attitudes, strategies, structures and values in order to embrace the emerging advances in technology and the competitive advantage within the market environment. Organizational development is based on humanistic values, systems orientation, experiential learning and problem solving. In addition, it also has contingency orientation, change agent and levels interventions.17 Conclusion Most organizations do not put much emphasis on power and politics; authority, power and politics are all interdependent on each other. It is a matter of fact that power and politics involve exercising of authority and power.18 The differences, however, arise from the consideration that authority is legally enforced while power comes from an individual’s charisma and his or her positioning within an organization. Moreover, authority is officially vested on the superiors of the organization while power is dependent on the individual understanding of a person. Further still, authority is pegged on a position and this makes it have a scope that is restricted to the organizational structure. 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