Organization Behaviour: An overview

 Topic: 1 Organization Behaviour: An overview

Introduction:

Meaning: Study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within an organization, then applies that knowledge to make organizations work more effectively.

Definition: According to Luthans, “Organisational Behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour in the organisation.”

According to Robbins, “Organisational Behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organisation for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s effectiveness.”

Features: 

• OB is the study of human behaviour
• Behaviour in organisations
• Knowledge about human behaviour would be useful in improving an organisation’s effectiveness

Importance: 

• OB provides a road map to our lives in organisations. 
• The field of OB uses scientific research to help us understand and predict organisational life. 
• OB helps us influence organisational events. 
• OB helps an individual understand himself/herself and others better.
• A manager in a business establishment is concerned with getting things done through delegation. 
• The most popular reason for studying OB is that the reader is interested in pursuing a career in management and wants to learn how to predict behaviour and apply it in some meaningful way to make organisations more effective.
• OB adds to the bottom-line of an organisation. 
• The field of OB is useful for maintaining cordial industrial relations.

Contributing Disciplines

Psychology: 

It is the study of behaviour of animals and humans. Through such a study, psychology seeks to measure, explain and change behaviour.

Animals like rats and monkeys are used for carrying out psychological experimentation and the conclusions drawn from such experiments are sought to be generalised with reference to human behaviour. 

Psychology is concerned with individual behaviour and has contributed greatly to the intra individual dynamics of human behaviour. In other words, intrapersonal aspects of organisational behaviour like motivation, personality, perception, attitude, opinion, and learning owe their study to psychology.

Sociology:

Sociology addresses itself to the study of group behaviour. It studies the behaviour of people in relation to their fellow human beings. Sociologists have enriched organisational behaviour through their contribution to the study of interpersonal dynamics like leadership, group dynamics, communication, formal and informal organisations, and the like. 

Social Psychology:

This subject borrows concepts from both psychology and sociology. It focuses on the influence of people on one another. One of the areas receiving considerable attention from social psychology is change — how to reduce resistance to it and implement it successfully. Additionally, social psychology is useful in measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes, communication patterns, the ways in which group activities can satisfy individual needs, and in group decision making process.

Anthropology:

It is the study of the human race, in particular, its culture. Culture has significant influence on human behaviour. It dictates what people learn and how they behave. Every organisation will have its own distinct culture. Some organisations particularly, closely held ones, are secretive, publicity-shy, and are less inclined to encourage participative management.

Political Science:

Contributions from political scientists for a better understanding of OB are significant. Political scientists study the behaviours of individuals and groups within a political environment. Specific topics of concern to political scientists include conflict resolution, group coalition, allocation of power, and how people manipulate power in their self-interest.