Meaning and Concept, Scope of Organizational Behaviour
The field of organisational behaviour (OB) is both fun and hard to study. It has to do with people working together in teams or as individuals. When factors in the situation interact, the study gets harder. What people are expected to do in an organisation is what organisational behaviour is all about.
In a certain work situation, no two people are likely to act the same way. For a manager, it means being able to guess what a person will do next. People don’t always act in the same way. Human behaviour is an important subject to study because people are what make things productive. Because of this, the study must be given a lot of attention.
People who work in research, management, psychology, and social science need to know about a person’s background, social structure, educational background, how social groups affect behaviour, and how other situations affect behaviour.
Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of how people act in work settings, how people’s actions affect organisations, and the organisations themselves, according to K. Aswathappa.
“Organizational Behavior (OB) is a field of study that looks into how individuals, groups, and structures affect behaviour within organisations with the goal of using this knowledge to make organisations more effective,” says Stephen P. Robbins.
- M. Prasad says that organisational behaviour (OB) is the study and use of information about how people behave in relation to other parts of an organisation, like its structure, technology, and social systems.
Davis and Newstram say that organisational behaviour (OB) is the study and use of information about how people behave in groups.
“Behavior is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction, and control of human behaviour in organisations,” says Fred Luthans.
John Newstram and Keith Devis said, “Organizational behaviour is the study and use of knowledge about how people act in organisations, both as individuals and as groups.” As its goal, it looks for ways for people to act better.
OB looks at how people act when they are alone, with others, and as part of a group or organisation. It wouldn’t be complete to study behaviour in isolation, since behaviour is affected by both the people around us and the company where we work. It would be pointless to study only people or only groups. It is necessary to study both at the same time.
The Nature of Behavior in Organizations (OB)
This is how we can describe the nature it has taken on:
Something separate from a discipline
A discipline, by definition, is a well-known science that is based on theory. However, O.B. is interdisciplinary and not based on a specific theory. So, it makes more sense to call O.B. a separate field of study than just a discipline.
An Approach From Several Fields
The main way that organisational behaviour studies how people act at work is by combining ideas from different fields. The book tries to bring together useful information from related fields like anthropology, psychology, and sociology so that it can be used to study and analyse organisational behaviour.
The use of science
It is used in the very nature of O.B. O.B. basically uses different studies to help organisations solve problems that have to do with how people behave. The main difference between pure science and O.B. is that pure science focuses on basic research, while O.B. focuses on applied research. Applied research and how it is used in organisational analysis are both parts of O.B. Therefore, O.B. can be thought of as both art and science.
A Science That Sets Rules
It is also a normative science to study organisational behaviour. The positive science only talks about cause and effect, but O.B. tells us how the results of applied research can be used to reach socially acceptable organisational goals. In this way, O.B. is about what people and society accept in an organisation. The problem is not that O.B. is not normative at all. The fact that there are so many management theories shows that O.B. is also normative.
An approach that is humanistic and hopeful
The humanistic approach to people who work in organisations is used in organisational behaviour. What it’s about is how people think and feel. People naturally want to be independent, creative, and productive, which is what O.B. is based on. It also understands that the people who work for the company can and will reach their full potential if they are given the right tools and conditions. The environment affects how well people do their jobs in a company.
A Look at the Whole System
The systemic approach takes into account all the factors that affect how an organisation works. Behavioural scientists came up with the systems approach to look at how people act by looking at their sociopsychological background. The social and psychological makeup of man makes him complex, and the systems approach tries to study this complexity and find ways to deal with it.
Features of Organizational Behavior: Organizational behaviour is based on logic, not feelings about other people. The main aims of organisational behaviour are to explain and predict how people will act in businesses. It is goal-oriented and action-oriented.
The goal of organisational behaviour is to find a balance between technical and human values at work. Instead of putting these values at risk, it tries to boost productivity by promoting and protecting workers’ dignity, growth, and happiness.
The behavioural sciences are brought together in organisational behaviour. A lot of its main ideas come from other fields, like sociology, anthropology, social psychology, and so on.
Though organisational behaviour is both a science and an art, most of what we know about how people act in businesses comes from science. The way people work in organisations today is empirical, interpretive, and critical all at the same time. It’s a field of study that tries to find knowledge and meaning.
Basically, the goal is to give meaning to the facts of organisational life. In modern times, OB is a way of life and a way of looking at things. It has real-world facts, interesting interpretations, and strong models.
But it is not a good science to use to give specific solutions to specific organisational problems. So, there isn’t much that can be said about how to consistently predict relationships between variables on a large scale. The skills needed to use what you’ve learned clearly lean toward being art.
Organizational behaviour can be found at different levels. Behavior happens at three levels: the individual, the group, and the system level. You can separate and identify the behaviour that belongs to each of these levels, but at the same time, these three levels affect each other. For example, OB is affected by the behaviour of individuals, OB is affected by the behaviour of groups, and so on.
The behaviour of organisations doesn’t just happen. Because organisations have both social and technical parts, they are called social-technical systems. This means that any way of looking at behaviour must also look at the technical side of organisation, especially things like the work itself and the technology that is used. In the same breath, organisations need to think about the working environment’s structures, such as how much the market and product are changing.
- How an organisation acts in general
- Effects of personality on work
- Leadership and employee motivation
- How to make groups and teams work well
- Looking into different types of business structures
- How each person acts, thinks, and learns
- Perception
- Plan and build an organisation that works well
- Plan for jobs
- How culture affects how people act in organisations
- How to handle change
- Taking care of stress and disagreements
- Organizational growth
- Culture of the organisation
- A study of transactions
- Power, politics, and how groups act
- Plan for jobs
The study of feeling
When studying organisational behaviour, people don’t just go with their gut feelings when making decisions. Instead, they try to gather information about a problem in a scientific way while keeping things under control. It takes information and figures out what it means so that people and groups can be shaped in the way that is wanted.
A lot of psychologists, social scientists, and academics have studied different aspects of how people behave in organisations. Individual and company goals can only be met if employees do their jobs well and are happy with them.
There are groups that were created to meet the needs of people. Organizations need to be focused on growth in today’s world, which is very competitive. This is possible when productivity is guaranteed in terms of the amount of work that needs to be done and the quality of the work needs to be perfect. Lack of attendance and employee turnover hurts productivity.
An employee who is absent a lot can’t help the company be more productive or grow. The same thing happens when employees leave: the cost of production goes up. Job satisfaction is one of the most important things to look at when judging someone’s work performance. People who are happy at work are more likely to be productive and help an organisation build a good work culture.
Number of people working alone or in groups makes up an organisation. A department is made up of a number of teams, and an organisation is made up of a number of departments. It’s a formal structure, and all the departments need to work together to reach the organization’s goal.
So, it’s important for all employees to have a good attitude about their jobs. They have to work in a friendly environment and complete the tasks they are given. It’s also important for managers to create a good environment at work. how to use authority, giving some powers to subordinates, dividing up work, and communicating clearly.
Some important things that an organisation needs to run like a well-oiled machine are benchmarking, re-engineering, job re-design, and giving people more power. This isn’t just true for manufacturing companies; it’s also true for social and service companies.