Republic of The Philippines

Cotabato State University

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Sinsuat Avenue, Cotabato City

NAME: Norjanah Ali Grar

TITLE: Introduction to Organizational Behavior

SUBJECT: 6029 – MBASC 125 Organizational Behavior

DATE: September 30, 2023

I. INTRODUCTION
• What is Organizational Behavior?
- is the academic study of how people interact within groups
- The principles of the study of organizational behavior are applied primarily in attempts
to make businesses operate more effectively.

• Definitions of OB:
According to Stephen P Robbins - “Organisational behaviour is a field of study that
investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviours within
the organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an
organizations effectiveness”.

According to Fred Luthans - “Organisational behaviour is directly concerned with the

understanding production and control of human behaviour in organization”.

According to Raman J. Aldag – “Organisational behaviour is a branch of the social

sciences that seeks to build theories that can be applied to predicting, understanding and
controlling behaviour in work organizations”.

By analyzing the above definitions, we can define OB as a behavioural Science that states
about :
• Nature of Man
• Nature of the Organization
• Knowledge of human would be useful in improving an organization’s
effectiveness.

II. ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES REDESIGNING MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

• Eight major forces have challenged and increasing number of firms to channel their
management talents to attain goals and objectives through knowledge creativity.

1. Power of human resources is the capability to get things completed in the manner one
wants them to be done.
2. Globalization is the interconnection among nations in transportation, distribution,
communication, and economic networks. The global economy is now characterized by
global competition via networks that bring together countries, institutions, and people. The
trading among nations in terms of goods and services is even faster than the actual
production of goods worldwide. Therefore, investments in people not only capital
investment are highly necessary for survival.
3. Multiculturalism (cultural diversity) is a huge assortment of differences produced by
cultural trends like history, characteristics, economic conditions, personality characteristics,
language, norms, and mores.
4. Rapidity of change is the rate at which change occurs in technology, demographics,
globalization and new products and service.

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 5. Psychological contract is the unwritten set of expectations of the employment relationship
which details what each party looks forward to give and receive. The top priorities of top
employers are openness, integrity, providing opportunities and supporting the growth and
development of their employees.
6. Technology is the process that transforms raw materials or intellectual capital into products
and services. More than machinery, it influences the workflow, structure, systems, and
philosophy of the organization to some extent.
7. Service economy – the field of service like transportation, communication, wholesale and
retail, finance, insurance, real estate and government is growing. This growth necessitates
high quality interactions between service providers and customers such as healthcare
workers and patients which must be addressed with greater understanding and appreciation.
8. Teamwork – in order to meet their goals, many organizations is focusing on teamwork.
Teamwork provides better approach to quality goods and services. Strong teamwork makes
people engaged and committed to the goals of the organization.

Companies can also experience internal forces of change, which can often be related to
external forces, but are significant enough to be considered separately. Internal forces of change arise
from inside the organization and relate to the internal functioning of the organization. They might
include low performance, low satisfaction, conflict, or the introduction of a new mission, new
leadership.

III. FOUNDATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

• Every field of social science has a philosophical foundation of basic concepts that guides
its development.
• Organizational behavior deals with a set of fundamental concepts revolving around the
nature of the people and organization.

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• These concepts of organizational behavior are as follows:

A. The Nature of People

With regard to people, there are four basic assumptions: individual differences, a whole
person, caused behavior (motivation) and value of the person (human dignity).

1. Individual Differences
- The nature of an individual is so different from one another. Though people differ in
almost everything like attitudes, personality, skills, and so on. The concept of
individuality has come from psychology.
- It is influenced by different factors like:
▪ Learning
▪ Perception
▪ By birth or Inherited property
▪ The environment around the individual
▪ Motivation
▪ Culture, etc.

2. A Whole Person
- This concept signifies that the behavior of a personal work can’t be taken in isolation.
When an employee comes to the work station as a complete person, s/he has his/her
background, sentiments, emotions, feelings, etc. which cannot be separated from the
skills they are using on the job. Employees carry with them the problems of their
private lives. Similarly, their home life is influenced by their work life. Therefore, the
managers and to help an all-round development of the man rather than a particular
aspect of a person.

3. Caused Behavior (Motivation)

- According to psychologists, human behavior is caused, motivated, and goal-directed.
It is the situation that stimulates a person to behave in a given manner. People’s
behavior is caused by needs that can be directed and controlled to get desired results.
Therefore, managers need to motivate employees and determine what managerial
action satisfy human needs and what actions threaten their need fulfilment.

4. Value of the Person (Human Dignity)

- Value of the person is more an ethical philosophy than a scientific conclusion. It
confirms that people are to be treated differently from other factors of production
because they are of a higher order in the universe. It recognizes that people are of a
higher order, they want to be treated with respect and dignity, and should be treated
this way. Every job, however simple, entitles the people who do it to get respect and
recognition of their unique aspirations and abilities.

B. The Nature of Organization

5. Social systems: Social scientists say that organizations are social systems. They are
governed by social and psychological laws or rules. The social system coordinates the
activities of its members for the achievement of common goals. People are social
beings. People have many social and psychological needs; they enjoy different statuses
and play different roles. People’s behavior is influenced by their own needs as well as
organizational goals.

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 6. Mutual interest: This concept is represented by the statement that “organizations need
people and people also need organizations.”
- Employees need organization as a means to achieve their goals and organizations need
people to achieve organizational goals. The interest of both parties must be protected.
Both organizations and people are benefited from their association. The mutual interest
provides a super-ordinate goal (combined goal) that integrates the effects of individuals
and groups.

7. Holistic Concept: This concept interprets people-organization relationships in terms

of the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and the whole social system. It
takes an all-encompassing view of people in organizations in an effort to understand as
many of the possible factors that influence their behaviour. Issues are analyzed in terms
of the situation affecting them rather than in terms of an isolated event or problem.

IV. IMPORTANCE OF OB
1. OB provides a road map to our lives in organizations.
- People bring to their work place their hopes and dreams as well as their fears and
frustrations. Much of the time, people in organizations may appear to be acting quite
rationally, doing their fair share of work, and doing about their tasks in a civil manner.
Suddenly, a few people appear distracted, their work slips, and they even get
withdrawn. Worse still, one may find someone taking advantage of others to further his
or her personal interest. Such a range of human behaviors makes life in organizations
perplexing. But those who know what to look for and have some advance ideas about
how to cope with pressures are more likely to respond in ways that are functional, less
stressful, and even career-advancing.
- Therefore, OB need to map out organizational events so that employee can function in
a more secure and comfortable environment.

2. A Manager in a Business Establishment is concerned with Getting Things Done

Through Delegation
- He or she be successful when he or she can motivate subordinates to work for better
results. OB will help the manager understand the basis of motivation and what he or
she should do to motivate subordinates.
- The field of OB is useful for improving Cordial Industrial/Labour Relations
- If an employee is slow in his/her work, or if his/her productivity is steadily declining,
it is not always because of a poor work environment. Often the indifferent attitude of
the boss makes the worker lazy. Similarly, reluctance of the management to talk to
union leaders about issues might provoke them to give a strike call.

3. OB helps in motivating employees

- OB helps manager to motivate the employees bringing a good organizational
performance automatically that leads to job satisfaction. It helps managers to apply
appropriate motivational tools and techniques in accordance with the nature of
individual employees.

4. OB helps effective utilization of human resources.

- OB helps managers to manage the people’s behaviour and the organization effectively.
It enables managers to inspire and motivates employees towards high productivity and
better results.

V. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF OB

- Challenges and opportunities for organizational behavior are massive and rapidly changing for
improving productivity and meeting business goals.

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• 12 challenges and opportunities of organizational behavior are;
1. Improving People’s Skills
- Technological changes, structural changes, environmental changes are accelerated
at a faster rate in the business field.
- Unless employees and executives are equipped to possess the required skills to
adapt to those changes, the targeted goals cannot be achieved in time.
- These two different categories of skills – managerial skills and technical skills.
- Some of the managerial skills include listening skills, motivating skills, planning
and organizing skills, leading skills, problem-solving skills, decision-making skills.

2. Improving Quality and Productivity

- Quality is the extent to which the customers or users believe the product or service
surpasses their needs and expectations.
- To improve quality and productivity, they are implementing programs like total
quality management and reengineering programs that require extensive
employee involvement.

i. Total Quality Management (TQM)

- It is a philosophy of management that is driven by the constant attainment of
customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational
processes.
1. Intense focus on the customer
2. Concern for continuous improvement
3. Improvement in the quality of everything the organization does
4. Accurate measurement
5. Empowerment of employees.

ii. Engineering
- Reconsiders how work would be done and the organization structured if they
were being created from scratch. "It asks managers to reconsider how work
would be done and their organization structured if they were starting over".

3. Managing Workforce Diversity

- The increasing heterogeneity of organizations with the inclusion of different
groups. Whereas globalization focuses on differences among people from
different countries. "Workforce diversity has important implications for
management practice. Managers will need to shift their philosophy from
treating everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those
differences in ways that will ensure employee retention and greater
productivity while, at the same time, not discriminating".

4. Responding to Globalization
- Today’s business is mostly market-driven; wherever the demands exist
irrespective of distance, locations, climatic conditions, the
business operations are expanded to gain their market share and to remain in
the top rank, etc. Business operations are no longer restricted to a particular
locality or region.

5. Empowering People
- Empowerment is defined as putting employees in charge of what they do by
eliciting some sort of ownership in them.

6. Coping with Temporariness

- In recent times, the product life cycles are slimming, the methods of
operations are improving, and fashions are changing very fast. In those days,

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 the managers needed to introduce major change programs once or twice a
decade.
- Today, change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of
continuous improvement implies constant change.
- In yesteryears, there used to be a long period of stability and occasionally
interrupted by a short period of change, but at present, the change process is
an ongoing activity due to competitiveness in developing new products and
services with better features.
- So, workers need to continually update their knowledge and skills to perform
new job requirements.

7. Stimulating Innovation and Change

- Today’s successful organizations must foster innovation and be proficient in
the art of change; otherwise, they will become candidates for extinction in due
course of time and vanished from their field of business.

8. The emergence of E-Organisation & E-Commerce

- It refers to the business operations involving the electronic mode of
transactions. It encompasses presenting products on websites and filling the
order.

9. Improving Ethical Behavior

- The complexity in business operations is forcing the workforce to face ethical
dilemmas, where they are required to define right and wrong conduct to
complete their assigned activities.

10. Improving Customer Service

- OB can contribute to improving organizational performance by showing how
employees’ attitudes and behavior are associated with customer satisfaction.

11. Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts

- Achieving a work-life balance between work and other important aspects of
life is a big challenge today in every organization. It can be tough to make time
for family and work.
- Employees are increasingly complaining that the line between work and non-
work time has become blurred, creating personal conflict and stress.

• Many forces have contributed to blurring the lines between employees’ work life
and personal life;
- First, the creation of global organizations means their world never sleeps. At
any time and on any day, for instance, thousands of General Electric employees
are working somewhere.
- Second, communication technology allows employees to do their work at
home, in their cars, or on the beach. This lets many people in technical and
professional jobs do their work anytime and from any place.
- Third, organizations are asking employees to put in longer hours.
- Finally, fewer families have only a single breadwinner.

12. Flattening World

- Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-
First Century makes the point that the Internet has “flattened” the world and
created an environment in which there is a more level playing field in terms of
access to information.

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VI. ANCHORS OF OB
- The field of organizational behavior relies on a set of basic beliefs or knowledge structures.
These conceptual anchors represent the principles on which OB knowledge is developed and
refined.
- The below diagram represents the anchors of organizational behavior;

A. The Multidisciplinary Anchor

- Organizational behavior is a discipline and within it theories and models of behavior are
developed. However, researchers in this discipline must also scan a variety of other
disciplines and draw from them relevant information and ideas. Some these disciplines
include psychology, anthropology, sociology. communications and technology.

B. The Systematic Research Anchor

- Researchers in the field of organizational behavior rely on scientific method in conducting
studies. The systematic research anchor dictates that organizations collect information and
data in a detailed and systematic way and that statements and assumptions be tested in
quantitative ways.

C. The Contingency Anchor

- Different actions and decisions may have different consequences in different settings. The
contingency anchor requires an awareness that no single solution will work in every situation
and that organizational solutions to problems need to take the specifics of a given situation
into account. There is a need to evaluate specific situations and select a solution that fits the
situation to which it is to be applied.

D. The Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor

- This anchor dictates that solutions be evaluated from the perspectives of various
organizational levels including that of individuals, of functional teams or departments, of
executives and of the company as a whole. Many solutions when applied affect several or all
levels of the organization. Analysis of the effects at various levels is critical to success.

E. The Open System Anchor

- Organizations do not exist in a vacuum. The organization and the environment in which it
exists are interconnected. The open systems anchor supports a view of the organization that
includes its external environment including such factors as the culture in which it is located,
the needs of investors, the state of the economy, the political environment and regulatory
requirements. It also supports the internal view of items such as communication systems,
marketing needs, work processes and the interactions of various subgroups.

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