Organizational behaviour

Organizational behaviour

 

BY

RITTIK CHANDRA

Published by:

RITTIK CHANDRA

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Organizational behaviour:

A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups & structure have on behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s effectiveness.

 

Major contributing disciplines to OB:

OB basically draws concepts and principles from behavioural sciences and the core disciplines of behavioural sciences are psychology, sociology, anthropology and social psychology. OB draws knowledge from all these disciplines but it does not draw the whole knowledge of these disciplines but only the relevant knowledge which helps in predicting and directing human behaviour in the organisation. The contribution of core disciplines of behavioural science to OB are as follows:-

Psychology: Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain and sometime change the behaviour of human beings. Psychologists concern themselves with studing and attempting to understand individual behaviour those who have contributed and continue to add to the knowledge of OB are learning theorists, personality theorists, counceling psychologists, and most important industrial and organisational psychologists.

Recently industrial/organizational psychologists concerned themselves with learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership, effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction decision making processes, performance appraisals, attitudes measurement, employee-selection techniques, work design and job stress.

Sociology: While psychology focuses on the individual. Sociology studies people in relation to their social environment or culture. Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of group behaviour in organisations, particularly formal and complex organizations. Perhaps most importantly, sociology has contributed to research on organisational culture, formal organization theory and structure organization technology, communications, power and conflict.

Anthropology: Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. For instance, anthropologists work on cultures and environments has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behaviour between people in different countries and within different organisations. Much of our current understanding of organisational culture, organisational environments and differences between national cultures is a result of the work of anthropologists or those using their methods.

Social psychology : Social psychology blends concepts from both psychology

Roles of OB in today’s business organisations:

OB offers several ideas to management as to how human factor should be properly emphasized to achieve organisational objectives. Human factor is not merely an instrument in the organisation but the very core of organisational existence. Since organisation is the interaction of persons, they should be given adequate importance in managing the organization. This becomes more important because of the changing dimensions of human behaviour, changing from money motivated behaviour to multimotivated behaviour. Organisational behaviour helps the managers in the following areas:-

(1) Understanding Human Behaviour -

For shaping human behaviour in definite direction for achieving certain predetermined objectives, managers must know how the people in the organisation behave. OB provides way for understanding human behaviour in all the directions in which human beings interact. Thus, behaviour can be understood at the individual level, interpersonal level, group level, and intergroup level.

Individual Level – The behaviour of human beings as a social man is the first issue in behavioural science. It provides for analysing why and how an individual behaves in a particular way. Human behaviour is a complex phenomenon and is affected by a large number of factors- psychological, social, cultural and others. OB integrates these factors to provide simplicity in understanding human behaviour.

Interpersonal Level – Human behaviour can be understood at the level of interpersonal interaction. Such interpersonal interaction is normally in paired relationship which represents man’s most natural attempt at socialization. When one focuses on the influence of one’s peer and its affect in working relationship, or examines the superior – subordinate relationships, it is obvious that the two- person is inevitable in the organisation. OB provides means for understanding the interpersonal relationship in the organisation. Analysis of reciprocal relationship, role analysis, and transactional analysis are some of the common methods which provide such understanding.

Group Level – Though people interpret anything at their individual level, they are often modified by group pressure which, thus, becomes a force in shaping human behaviour. Thus individuals should be studied in group also. Research in group dynamics has contributed vitally to OB and shows how a group behaves in terms of its norms, cohesion, goals, procedures, communication pattern, leadership and membership. These research results are furthering managerial knowledge ofunderstanding group behaviour which is very important for organisational morale and productivity.

Intergroup Level – The organisation is made up of many groups that develop a complex of relationship to build its process and substance. Understanding of

the effect of group relationships is important for managers in today’s organisation. Intergroup relationships may be in the form of cooperation or competition the cooperative relationships help the organisation in achieving its objectives. The cooperative relationships help the organisation in achieving its objectives. OB provides means to understand and achieve cooperative group relationships through interaction, rotation of members among groups, avoidance of win-lose situation, and focus on total group objectives.

Controlling and Directing Human Behaviour –

After understanding the mechanism of human behaviour, managers are required to control and direct the behaviour so that it confirms to standards required for achieving organisational objectives. For this purpose, OB helps managers in many areas: use of power and sanction, leadership, communication and building organisational climate conducive for better interactions.

Use of Power and Sanction- Organisational behaviour can be controlled and directed by the use of power and sanction which are formally prescribed by the organisation. Power is referred to as capacity of an individual to take certain action and may be utilized in many ways. Mere use of power and sanction in the organisation is not enough for directing human behaviour. OB explains how various means of power and sanction can be utilized so that both organisational and individual objectives are achieved simultaneously.

Leadership- OB brings new insights and understanding to a manager and analyses which style is more appropriate in a given situation. Thus managers can adopt styles keeping in view the various dimensions of organisations, individuals, and situations.

Communication – Communication is the building block of an organisation. It is communication through which people come in contact with others people in the organisation, particularly at higher level spend considerable time in communicating to achieve organisational effectiveness, the communication must be effective. The communication process and how it works in interpersonal dynamics has been evaluated by OB. The factors that affect communication have been analysed so as to make it more effective.

Organisational Climate – It refers to the total organizational situations affecting human behaviour. Organisational climate time a systems perspective and affects human behaviour. OB suggests the approach to create organisational climate in totality rather than merely improving the physiological conditions or increasing employee satisfaction by changing isolated work processes satisfactory working conditions, adequate compensation, and the necessary equipments for the job are viewed as only small part of the requirements for sound motivational climate. It greater importance are the creation of an atmosphere of effective supervision, the opportunity for the realisation of personal goals, congenial relations with others at the work place, and a sense of accomplishment. Thus OB has discovered a new approach of managing people in the organisation.

Chapter 2: Understanding Self (Perception & Personality)

Understanding Self Perception:

Social Perception:

The process of interpreting information about another person virtually all management activities rely on perception. It appraising performance, managers use their perceptions of an employee’s behavior as a basis for the evaluation.

 

Categories of factors influence our perception of another person:

Three major categories of factors influence our perception of another person:

(1) Characteristic of the perceiver – Several characteristics of the perceiver can affect social perception. One such characteristic is familiarity with the target. When we are familiar with person, we have multiple observations on which to base our impression of him or her. If the information we have gathered during these observation is accurate. We may have an accurate perception of the other person. Familiarity does not always mean accuracy, however sometimes we know a person well, we tend to screen out information that is inconsistent with what we believe the person is like. This is particular danger in performance appraisals where the rater is familiar with the person being rated.

The perceiver’s attitudes also affect social perception. Suppose you are interviewing candidates for a very important position in your organisation– a position that requires negotiating contracts with suppliers, most of whom are male. You may feel that women are not capable of holding their own in tough negotiations. This attitude will doubtless affect your perceptions of the female candidates you interview.

Characteristics of the Target –

Characteristics of the target, who is the person being perceived, influence social perception. Physical appearance plays a big role in our perception of other the perceiver will notice the targets physical features like height, weight, estimated age, race and gender. Clothing says a great deal about a person. A loud person, one who dresses out landishly, a very tall person, or a hyperactive child will be noticed because she provides a contrast to what is commonly encounter. Interviewers rate attractive candidates more favorably, and attractive candidates are awarded higher starting salaries. People who are perceived as physically attractive face stereotypes as well.

Verbal Communication from targets also affects out perception of them. we listen to the topics they speak about, their voice tone and their accent and make judgements based on this input.

Non Verbal Communication conveys a great deal of information about the target. Eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, posture all are deriphered by the perceiver in a attempt to form an impression of the target. It is interesting that some non verbal signals mean very different things in different cultures. Facial expressions, however, seem to have universal meanings. Individuals from different cultures are able to recognize and decipher expressions the same way.

The intentions of the target are inferred by the perceiver, who observed the target’s behavior. We may see our boss appear in our office doorway and think, “Oh no! she’s going to give me more work to do.” In this case, the perceiver’s interpretation of the target’s intentions affects the way the perceiver views the target.

Characteristics of the Situation –

The situation in which the interaction between the perceiver and the target takes place has an influence on the perceivers impression of the target the social context of the interaction is a major influence. Meeting a professor in his or her office affects your impression in a certain way that may contrast with the impression you would form had you met the professor in a local restaurant. In Japan, social context is very important business conversations after working hours or at lunch are taboo.

The strength of situational cues also affects social perception, some situations provide strong cues as to appropriate behaviour. In these situations, we assume that the individual’s behaviour can be accounted for by the situations, and that it may not reflect the individual’s disposition. This is the discounting principle.

With this we can see that characteristics of the perceiver, the target and the situation all affect social perception. It would be wonderful if all of he had accurate social perception skill.

 

Perceptual selectivity:

Perception is a selective process and as the people can seen of only limited amount of information in the environment, they are characteristically selective. By selection, certain aspects of stimuli are screened out and others are admitted, those which are admitted remain in the awareness of the people and those which are screened out fall below the threshold. For example, When people read a newspaper, they do not read the entire newspaper but only those news which interest them. similar things happen in other cases too this is known as perceptual selectivity.

This is caused by a variety of factors which may be grouped into two categories:

(1) External factors in perceptual selectivity:-

The external factors consists of environmental influences and are in the form of the characteristics of perceptual inputs or stimuli. These characteristics may distinguish a

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: RITTIK CHANDRA
Bildmaterialien: RITTIK CHANDRA
Lektorat: RITTIK CHANDRA
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.07.2013
ISBN: 978-3-7309-3693-1

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