Organizational Behaviour - Report Example

Organizational Behaviour Introduction Organizational behaviour is an academic discipline dealing with understanding, predicting, describing and regulating human behaviour in an organization. This field deals with group dynamics and people’s relationship within an organization. Hawthrone Experiments Ideas were introduced that the workers should feel wanted, being paid attention to and rewarded humane treatment. As per the findings, it shown that group members and individuals influence the workers status in an organization, position and performance. In addition, workers formed groups, which affected their production, and there were certain codes of behaviour were to be adhered to by the members of each group. Classical Management School This is introduced in an organization to make workers to produce more by being motivated through the offer of incentives to them. The managers need to make plans for workers at least one day earlier such that they can increase production. Planning is very important as, when the duties for the next day are allocated to employees one day or one week in advance they will embark on the duties without wasting time and will need minimal or no supervision. Differential piece-rate system was introduced which was simple and workers were rewarded according to the level of output they make. This system proved that employees could manage the rate and the amount they can produce. Human resources theory This theory emphasize that the mangers duties are not nd by doing so their duties extend beyond to participating in achieving objectives of the organization to control the employees but to facilitate workers performance. Employees work to earn a living an acquiring experience for future use and being creative in the organization. The managers should approach their colleagues by solving problems and setting goals. Employees should be trained by organising technical and conceptual workshops to increase their performance and competency. In addition, there should be effective communication in all departments of an organisation. This avoids movement from one department to another for the information to be delivered hence saving time applied for production. Systems theory System theory consists of parts, which work closely together, and none of them can run without the other in the system. These parts are the physical environment, informal organisation, the individual and the informal organization. System theory studied based on modern organisation theory initiated on behavioural sciences. Behavioural sciences are divided into three parts: anthropology, which deals with the cultural development, behaviour, and origin of humans, sociology that is to study socialisation in groups, societies, institutions, and psychology, which deals with individual behaviour. Four areas have been explored, which are organizational structure, individual behaviour, group behaviour and organisational process. These areas are still broken down into communication chains, personality and perception, group dynamics, roles of leadership in an organisation, impacts of stress on work, decision-making process, job satisfaction and attitudes and job design. Various techniques are used to apply the above areas and its impacts on groups’ individuals and organizational efficiency and effectiveness. In groups and individuals, various models, which explained individuals’ behaviour? These factors are social, environmental, genetic, situational and cultural factors. Scientific Management Theory It is an approach that deals with the concept of planning of work to achieve standardization, simplification, specialization and efficiency. To raise the level of trust training should be developed to increase the capability of workers, employees should be rewarded for improvement in production level and physical stress among workers should be eliminated. The principles of scientific management include selecting, training and teaching workers scientifically, which was not the case in the past, as the workers had to choose their work and train themselves as they could. Another one is equal distribution of the duties among the management and workers, developing a science of each element of an employee to replace old rule of thumb. Lastly is the cooperation among the employees to ensure is done in accordance with principles of science developed. Scientific management is still used today as it is updated and revised depending on the current need. Four principles were revised which includes cooperation, standards, management research and control. Management standards deal with training, selection and orientation processes of employees. (Robbins, 2009 p 223-227) To select competent applicants’ interviews and procedures must be set them to be interrogated. Quality work and good communication are achieved when employees have collective effort, and this will lead to high quality production. Management research: it is advisable to have research and investigation on designs, structures and approaches in the organization. Contingency Theory Communication is affected by internal and external factors from the organization and its surroundings. External contingencies are legal, economic, environment and technological while internal contingencies are demographic, output, structural and traditional. Organizations should work in linear sequential and rational way to get used to changes in the environment. Group Theory Group is a collection of people who come together having relations with one another that make them principled to some extent degree. Groups are very important to their member and society in general, but also it has some problems associated with them. Group Development Groups are formed by living things, which they emerge, exist and die. Groups undergo a number of stages to when they exist for an extended period. Members in a group will know each other and develop independence such that the group can accomplish its tasks and satisfy its members. Risky Shift Phenomenon There is a big difference in individual and group decisions. Group decisions are rich more ideas than individual decisions. Discussions in a group lead to shifting in position of members, which may be extreme or important than where the group was before the decisions. Group shift depends on whether the decision is towards the more risk or cautious also as per the dominant pre-discussion norm. Shifting towards risk makes member to be comfortable as they discuss will be mire pride when contributing ideas. Groupthink Groupthink occurs when a group make false decisions when they are under pressure from the fellow members. When a group is affected by groupthink, they ignore alternative solutions, thereby affecting other group members. This is whereby, one feels that he can stand in front of a meeting, classroom or in any crowd of people but, shyness makes hi/her to backslide. Symptoms of the groupthink are group members reject or resist the contributions made by their colleagues to contribute continuous, when one does not contribute to the discussion it is assumed that he has agreed on what is discussed, members doubting the points contributed keep quite to avoid diverting the attention of the others. Symptoms of groupthink are self-appointed: this is where the group members try to protect the manager of the group from false information to the decisions. Direct pressure is a situation whereby the members do not have the freedom to express their arguments against any group contribution. Satisfying Theory Every worker like his/her job, some workers go on strike and act violently to their managers and supervisors but generally, they are quite satisfied with their jobs. Factors contributing to job satisfaction: the outcomes of the job make workers to be satisfied. Dissatisfaction is associated with factors surrounding the job, such factors are pay, relations with others, security and working conditions. Managers should try to implement factors, which promote job satisfaction like promotions. Another factor of job satisfaction is value theory. Value theory describes most on what people have and what they want. When there is dissatisfaction in an organization, employees can withdraw voluntarily by not reporting to their work. This will lead to many problems to the organization, as they will spend a lot to train new employees to replace those who resigned. Leadership Theory Leadership refers to the process of leading and the concept of leading and those entities that perform acts of leading. Potential leader has the capability of leading while actual leader gives direction or guidance. Leadership can as higher as leading the country or lower as leading a family, there also other leaderships in-between the two. Qualities of leadership are result oriented which is to direct every action towards mission, guiding others by being a role model, talent and technical skills to lead, clear sense of mission, should be pessimistic in life and rejecting determinations from others. Transformational and transactional leadership Transformational leadership is whereby the leaders treat their followers as being part of management position. The leaders are concern about the followers as they can take part in decision making in the organisation. This kind of leadership work in a sense that, the leader and followers lift each other to higher levels of morality, Transactional leadership is based on the reward that the leader gives the follower in return to the equal services offered by the follower. For example, this kind of leadership works on the contractor as he provides services that has been paid or bought. Reference Robbins, 2009, Organisational behaviour: global and Southern African perspectives, 2nd edition, Pearson: South Africa. Griffin, 2011, Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations, 10th edition, Cengage Learning: Texas. Kreitner, 2009, Organizational Behavior, 9th edition, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Pennsylvania. Miner, 2002, Organizational behavior: foundations, theories, and analyses, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Vibert, 2004, Theories of macro organizational behavior: a handbook of ideas and explanations, M.E. Sharpe, New York Read More