Organizational Behavior

OB MODEL Models of Organizational Behavior Models or Theory i. e. the way of thinking of a manager is the guide to managerial behaviour. OB Models helps to improve organizational climate or environment. Hence it plays significant role in Organizational Development and Behaviour. These models represents a series of historical evolution in the organizational behaviour. There are 4 models or theories of Organizational Behaviour: 1. Autocratic Model 2. Custodial Model 3. Supportive Model 4. Collegial Model Evolution: Autocratic model- 1920-1930

Different Divisions or Departments of organizations may follow different models of organizational behaviour. 1. Autocratic Model “You do this or else you are punished” -Based on negative motivation and backed by power. -Employees should follow their boss’s orders -if not they will be penalised -Managerial orientation-> Formal and official authority -Assumption-Management knows what is right / wrong and employees have to follow order -Employees can not suggest anything, cannot give feedback, and ask questions. -This is similar to X theory of McGregor Workers do work when they get pushed to work and need tight control to accomplish goals -fully dependent on their superiors 2. The Custodial model -Based on economic resources of employees -In this model employee’s dependence is on organization rather than on their boss -Workers become psychologically preoccupied by the maintenance factors of the job benefits (Herzberg’s Model of Maintenance Motivation) -The other major factors involved in Custodial model are economic rewards, safety/security, Organizational Dependence, and maintenance factors. -Less roductivity as compared to autocratic “The happy employee is not necessarily the most productive employee” 3. Supportive Model -Named by Rensis Likert as the Principles of Supportive model -It represents McGregor’s theory Y -Leadership is important not money or power to motivate – It helps to create healthy environment in the organization -Supportive model gives chance to employees to show better results, share responsibilities, and improves them. -This model needs effective leadership, not money to solve problems and accomplish goals 4. Collegial Model

Next level of Supportive theory or model and mainly applicable to research environment Based on mutual understanding and cooperation between employees and employer It creates awareness of social responsibility in the employees and organization Ultimately employees get motivated due feel of this social responsibility and produces best quality product. Concepts of Organizational Behavior & it’s Models Organizational behavior defined as the body of the knowledge and skill with the help of which the human behavior at work can be understood, analyzed, predicted and managed.

The behavior and interactions of individuals and groups is what the study of OB is all about. Organizational behavior is the term used to describe the actions and reactions of individuals, dyads, groups of the stimuli surrounding them as they interact with one another in the course of their work. A good understanding of OB helps managers and employees comprehend the ongoing dynamics that enhance from the progress of the organizations towards its goals.

The body of knowledge is enriched by social sciences such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, politics, laws, ethics, and moral sciences, there by resorting to an inter-disciplinary approach. In a limited way biological sciences like human anatomy and genetics, and physical and environmental sciences have influenced the OB theory. The other approaches of OB are Human Resources, contingency and systems. Human resource approach is developmental, Contingency approach is situational and Systems approach combines all these. So, the systems approach is adopted for the study of OB.

Psychology helps us understand the behavior of the individuals, sociology contributes to our understanding of group behavior and social psychology to group processes, anthropology explains cultural differences and political science us understand the concept of power, conflict and organizational politics. OB not only examines the behavior of individuals and groups but also the factors that influence them such as the nature of the jobs, the technology used, the people, structures and processes that help them as well as the internal and external environment in which they operate.

Basically an organization represents mostly important three factors such as they are people, technology, and structure. The people subsystem comprises individual employees who are expected to perform the tasks allotted to them, dyads such as a superior and a subordinate who interact with one another, groups and teams who have the responsibility for getting the job done and people outside the organization such as customers and government officials. Technology is the mechanism by which the raw inputs are converted into finished products and services.

Structure refers to how the workplace is set up in terms of job position, reporting relationships, reward systems, rules and procedures etc. Organizations could be pyramid like (with people at lower levels reporting to those at higher levels) or flat with very few levels in the hierarchy. The entire dynamics of communications, flow of authority and rules and regulations would differ for the two structures. WHY DO WE STUDY IN sTHE BEHAVIOUR OF ORGANISATIONS ? : How the organism responds to a stimulus? How he sees, hears and how he adjusts to the environment and behaves?

Behaviour is activity. Expression is essential to be recognized as behaviour. Our latent state of mind is the psyche of which cognition is an important feature. Cognition is an inherent ability to comprehend, compare and cognize. It is the cognitive ability that receives, organizes and responds to external stimulus thereby playing a crucial role of bringing about parity between the latent state of mind and manifest behavior. So there are some important models given by well known psychologists to know how an organization behaves or acts in its place of work. S-R” model which was given by the famous  Russian psychologist developed classical conditioning theory is being said that conditioning is supposed to be a process by which a response(saliva) is attached to a stimulus (bell) different from the one which a originally elicits that response. In simple words a response is said to be conditioned when some stimulus other than the already effective one come to arouse or modify it for the establishment of a definite stimulus-response connection. Another model is “R-S” model.

This model is based upon a theory is operant conditioning developed by American psychologist B. F Skinner. In situations involving operant conditioning the probability that a given behavior will occur changes depending on the consequences. It determines organisms learn to repeat behaviours that yield positive outcomes or permit them to avoid or escape from negative outcomes. Behaviour is shaped by consequences. Behavior resulting into pleasant consequences will be repeated and behaviour resulting into unpalatable consequences will extinguish.

This is explained by the principle of hedonism, by the cognitive theory advanced by  Edward Tolman that “behaviour is purposive” and by the more scientific explanation of Response-Stimulus model (R-S) propounded by the operant conditioning theory (B. F. Skinner) . There is a another model which is named “Antecedents-Behaviour-Consequence” (ABC) model converges the above two facets of behaviour namely “Behaviour is caused” ;amp; “Behaviour is shaped by consequences”. Stimulus – Organism- Response (SOR) model attempted to focus on the organism i. e. individual differences’ characteristic of people, indicating the fact that same stimulus may not result in same response due to organism interventions. S-O-R concept clearly indicates how the interaction between stimulus and the organism determines response or behavior in a particular environmental set up. The same stimulus may produce different responses in different individuals in the same individual under different environmental conditions. The Stimulus-Organism-Behaviour-Consequence (SOBC) model (Fred Luthans) takes the best of all models such as S-R, R-S and S-O-R inclusive of the whole person and human dignity features of people.

It is captured by the Social Learning theory of Albert Bandura. Organizational behaviour although focuses on human behaviour at work; yet, in reality it encompasses the whole gamut of human behaviour. Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality signifies Id, Ego and Super ego as three parts  or the structure of personality(Psycho-analytical School) and Eric Bernie’s Child, Adult and Parent Ego models (Transactional Analysis) greatly explain the cognitive dissonance (Leon C. Festinger) leading to behavioural   aberrations. Here I would like to give an example which talks all about above all theories. I am okay or you are okay” this is written by Thomas and Harris. “I am not okay but you are okay. (compromise)  comes with child hood. “I am not okay you are also not okay” (conflict)This is shown a child when grows up to adolescence. “I am okay you are not okay” (Matured relationship is occurred. ) EXPLAIN THE SYSTEM PERSPECTIVE OF ORANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR: An organization may be described as a system with a purpose or a goal, accomplished through the efforts of individuals operating in its several departments, contributing to the main goal in one way or another.

In effect, We can define an organization as a purposeful system with several subsystem in which individuals are organized to achieve certain predetermined goals through the division of labour and coordination of activities. Each and every organization has to follow socially accepted objectives. No organization has its own resources. These are allocated to the organization by the society to pursue socially approved objectives. Objectives and resources, thus are inputs drawn by the organization from the larger society.

The throughput in OB system is composed of Formal Organization System (FOS) placed in juxtaposition to Individual System (IS) and Social System (SS). The interface between the three in which the FOS is in the driver’s seat influencing the IS and SS result into  organizational Behaviour. OB is not an end in itself. Rather, it is a means to achieve the main output of OB system namely; the organizational Effectiveness. OB can be both positive and negative. Positive behaviour of people at work need reinforcement, as much as the modification of negative behaviour.

Thus reinforcement and modification are intervention strategies to channelize the behaviour contributing to performance  leading to Organizational Effectiveness. Effective organizations are those which achieve their goals, can adjust as a system with the vagaries of change brought about by the environment and manage the interfaces with other segments of the larger system as a sub system WHAT IS FORMAL ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM ? Objectives of organization represent the input to the Formal Organisational System.

Technology is essential for translating the objectives into concrete results. The interface between technology and human resource conclude into a structure. The structure represents both the hierarchy and functional specialization with policies and rules binding them into an organic unity. The hierarchy defines the authority-subordinate relationship. The formal requirements and expectations of the organization from its people is expressed In the vision, mission and goal statement that which is influenced both by external environment and internal imperatives.

The role of authority is to ensure compatibility between organization’s expectations and employee interests so that the organization gets the best performance from its people and the employees derive job satisfaction. Such a win-win situation will lead to a tendency to perform among the human resource, which is the output of the FOS WHAT IS AN INDIVIDUAL SYSTEM ? The external stimulus for individual’s behaviour at work can come from two sources, namely; direct and indirect. The direct source is the organization, whose logic can be traced to theory ‘Y’ as opposed to theory ‘X’ i. . human behaviour is not caused by the inherent nature of a person, but by one’s experience in the organization. The indirect source is the larger society in which the individual has been groomed as an organism and the SS which is the prevalent socio-technical system in the organization (Hawthorne Experiments). Communication is the only tool available with the FOS to establish interface with the IS and vice versa. Communication is filtered through a perceptual process which is influenced by the individual needs and expectations and personality.

The motivation as an embodiment of one’s commitment to work and organization shapes the behaviour of a person. The tendency to behave, hence is the output of the IS. WHAT IS SOCIAL SYSTEM ? Group is the main focus of Social System. The Technology as an input creates the formal groups for proper allocation and performance of work necessary for utilizing the technology . The Human resource as an input tend to form informal group (organization) which embodies the expectations and requirements of the members of the group. The informal group has the norms which allot roles to its members and assign a status to every member.

An informal leader emerges in the group enjoying personal power rather  than position power. The informal leader has greater acceptance than the formal leader. The FOS has to recognize the prevalence of the informal organization and its positive potential for facilitating change as well as negative potential for generating conflict. The IS is caught between the commands of the FOS and demands of the SS. Therefore, the FOS in order to make use of the IS  has to integrate the SS with its goals. Contingency Approach to Organizational Behavior(contingency o-b model)

Organizational behavior is a field of business or management studies that looks at the relationships between individuals and the factors that motivate individuals intrinsically and extrinsically. One of the more prominent approaches to organizational behavior is the contingency approach, which focuses on the various factors, or contingencies, that have an impact on an organization’s behavior. Contingency Theory Basics The fundamental basis of contingency theory is that there is no “best” way to manage a corporation or to deal with employees.

Such activities cannot be planned, because so many things change so quickly in the business world. Rather than being proactive, managers and business leaders must be reactive to the various changes and contingencies they face on a day-to-day basis. Contingency Theory of Leadership The contingency theory of leadership holds that the success of a business leader or manager is contingent on numerous internal and external factors facing him. Internal factors include the character and quality of his subordinates, the level of support received from superiors within the organization and the tasks assigned to him.

External factors include economic concerns, the level of competition in the marketplace and relationships with channel partners and business partners, among others. Contingency Theory of Decision-Making The contingency theory of decision-making argues that the effectiveness of a decision-making procedure depends on many contingent factors surrounding the decision. Such factors include time constraints, for example. Generally speaking, the greater the time constraint, the more flawed the decision-making process will be.

Another important contingency is the amount of relevant information possessed by a decision-maker and his subordinates. The greater the amount of information, the more sound the decision should be. Contingency Rules Theory The contingency rules theory suggests that rules, consequences and their impact on the behavior of individuals or groups of individuals depend upon the context in which they exist. For example, the influence of some rules might be more significant in situations in which a member of senior management is present or on the level of importance placed on the potential benefit of disobeying a rule.