Organizational Behavior in Health Care - Case Study Example

Students Name Lecturer’s Name Topic Date Organizational Behavior Organization behavior discusses issue pertaining to managers and leaders within an organization. In the article, understanding organization behavior aids in determining the effectiveness of a manager or a leader. Managers use people to perform tasks through making decisions, allocating resources and giving directions on how a task shall be completed. Skills of a good manager include: technical, human and conceptual. Champoux (2010 p6) proposes that Organization behavior is developed from a combination of behavioral sciences such as sociology and anthropology. Challenges of organization behavior are based on economics, human capital and globalization. Strength of the author’s argument on organizational behavior is the ability to show how the contributions made by each discipline or behavioral sciences. The fact that organization behavior essentially deals with the effect of individuals, groups and structures on behavior within a social setting so as to achieve effectiveness. The use of independent and dependent variables and failure to provide examples for each, results to a weakness of the author’s argument. It would be effective to understand the author’s stand on organization behavior if there was use of real facts or examples of the variables. I agree with the author that, organization behavior is a study of individual, groups and structural dynamic behaviors in an organization setting (Borkowski 2010, p3). Work Diversity and Attitude and Job Satisfaction Individuals in an organization setting come from different backgrounds, have dissimilar characteristics and behaviors. This diversity has negative and positive impacts in an organization. Some diverse characteristics are easily identifiable such as age and gender, while others are not easily identifiable such as race and job tenure (Shakhray, 2010, p4). Other factors that have an impact also include; religion, sexual orientation and ability. Consequently, diversity and attitude are interrelated in terms of job satisfaction and behavior among individuals. Strength in author’s argument is in the fact that attitude affects an organization’s functions and behavior. Workers with a positive attitude experience job satisfactions making them more productive. In addition, the author argues that ability is made up of two parts: intellectual and physical ability. Weakness of the author’s argument is the fact that individual’s ability is related to one’s diversity. I disagree with this, because individuals who are diverse have the same ability to perform a task as long as their skills are not diverse with reference to the job. Personality and Values Personality relates to the way in which a person reacts and relates with other people. A person’s personality can develop biologically, environment and events. There are different personality types such as extroverted verses introverted. Personality types are also used to describe the different types of managers such as high or low risks managers. Value is an assertion that a particular conduct is socially appropriate (good). Values influence perception and shows that certain behaviors are more acceptable than others. Values and personality describes power distance in an organization. Values are described in terms of: collectivism, individualism, masculinity and femininity. Other types of personality as provided by the Job Fit Theory include: realistic, social, convectional, investigative and artistic. Strength to the author’s argument is based on the view and proposition that values and personality are interrelated since ones personality is created out of values that one holds. A weakness of the author’s argument is found where there are two categories of personality types as discussed above. This contradicts the person reading the author’s article. However, I agree with the thesis statement of the article in definitions of personality and values as well as the argument that the two are interrelated (Staw, 2005 p5). Emotions and Moods Emotions are deep feelings while moods are shallow feelings towards something or someone. Stein (2007 p54) adds that emotions and moods can affect worker’s performance and productivity. Emotions originate from the brain and their intensity level depends on personality and job demands. Moods vary depending on the day of the week and the time of the day. Some situations during work can result to either positive or negative emotions. The way a person’s responds or reacts to depicts his or her emotions and moods. Emotions and mood are associated with leadership, motivation, creativity, decision- making and overall effectiveness. Strength of the author’s argument on emotions and moods is the idea that these feelings affect an employee’s effectiveness in terms of leading, feeling motivated and decision making. When a worker experiences positive emotions there is increased efficiency and the vice versa is true. A weakness to the author’s argument is evident in the fact that there is no provision made to measure intensity in either emotions or moods. However, I agree to the thesis statement that emotions and moods affect an employee’s efficiency in workplace. Perception and Individual Decision Making Perception relates to the way people interpret information from the environment for the purposes of providing a meaning (Griffin and Gregory, 2009 p71). The way people behave depends on the way they perceive things. Individuals interpret what they see based on their interests, experiences, attitudes and backgrounds. These can be categorized into either hallo effects or contrast effects. When solving a problem or in decision- making, individuals base this on either a particular person or the situation. Therefore it is due to this fact, that at times people make the wrong decisions or develop unrealistic solutions. Slocum and Dan (2007 p76) states that the way a person perceives things is affected by both external and internal factors. Generally, factors that influence a person’s perception are categorized as characteristics of the perceived, perceiver or the situation or the context within which the perception takes place. Motivation Theory and Practice Organizations aim at motivating their employees in attaining job satisfaction and consequently increasing their performance and overall productivity. The Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of Needs provides five needs of employees which if provided will lead to motivation. These needs include: physiological, safety, social, esteem and self actualization. Maslow ranked these needs in a pyramidal way, with physiological needs on the bottom and self- actualization needs at the bottom (Schermerhom, 2010 p31). An entity should focus on providing the basic needs to the employees as it gradually proceeds to provide them with other needs. Therefore, management should strive to provide employees with these needs in the order they rank so as to achieve employees’ motivation which leads to job satisfaction, increased performance and productivity. Other theories of motivation include: Theory X and Y, Herzberg Theory of hygiene and motivation factors, Cognitive Evaluation theory and Expectancy Theory. According to Herzberg Two factor Theory there are two categories of factors affecting employee’s motivation. These include: maintenance and motivational factors (Ivancevich and Duening, p49-50). In order to motivate employees, it is important to know differences that they have as individuals, integrate them in decision making, utilize goals and objectives, link rewards to performance and ensure equality. An employees’ performance appraisal should be the precise tool of rewarding their performance. Rewards, remuneration, job characteristics and conditions are the primary factors of achieving employees’ motivation. Group Behavior and Teams at Work Organizations make use of groups and teams to execute tasks and achieve tasks’ objectives that would otherwise have been met by an individual employee. The article identifies work teams and work groups as important for an organization. With work teams members put their effort in one area, while in work groups each member is provided with a specific role to play in achieving the project’s objectives. There are different types of work teams and work groups. Team effectiveness depends on its context, composition, process variables and work design among other factors such us leadership style and trust. Certain individuals argue that work teams and work groups are same, while others consider the two not the same. As strength of the author’s argument, are his power to draw a deep and a sense making division between teams and groups. These differences are seen in terms of: synergy, goal, accountability and skills. A weakness with the author’s argument is where he considers certain factors as associated with work teams but not work groups. For example, characteristics of effective work teams are also applicable to work groups. Consequently, I agree with the thesis statement of the article that there work teams and work groups are quite distinct from each other (Zayed and Kamel 2005, p5). Consequently, organizations can focus on either the use of teams or groups to achieve projects or tasks. Limitations of the Article The article has described organization behavior and integrated the various aspects which explain how and why the management and employees relate to each other the way they do. Compared to other articles used in this paper, the article has left out discussion on other aspects of organizational behavior that are as well important such as training and development. In the first instance, in the introductory part, the article depicts organizational behavior as a management thing. The article does not show how these aspects are interrelated to each other and their influence on the relationship between management and employees. Citations Borkowski, N. Organizational Behavior in Health Care. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2010, p3. Champoux, J. Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups and Organizations, Taylor & Francis, 4th Edition, 2010, p6. Griffin, RW & Gregory, M. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 2009, p71. Ivancevich, JM & Duening TN. Managing Einsteins: Leading High-Tech Workers in the Digital Age. McGraw Hill, 2002, pp49-50. Schermerhom, JR. Management. John Wiley and Sons. 2010, 11th Edition, p31. Shakhray, I. Managing Diversity in Workplace. GRIN Verlag. 2009, p4. Slocum, JW & Don, H. Organizational Behavior, Cengage Learning, 2007, p76. Staw, BM. Research in Organizational Behavior: An Annual Series of Analytical Essays and Critical Reviews. Elsevier. 2006, Vol 27, p5. Stein, SJ. Make Your Workplace Great: The 7 Keys to an Emotional intelligent Organization, John Wiley and Sons, 2007, p54. Zayed, AM & Kamel, MM. Teams and Work Groups. Pathways to Higher Education, 2005, p5. Read More