Concept of Organization Behavior (Copyright 2014 © B R Chataut)

Concept of Organization Behavior

One of Gallup’s core practices involves the measurement and development of employee engagement, leading to the creation of “great places to work.” As described in Buckingham and Coffman’s First, Break All the Rules, Gallup consultants use the Q12® to provide a measure of the extent to which individuals are rightly placed and rightly managed, creating the great place to work. These Q12® questions are: (1) Do I know what is expected of me at work? (2) Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? (3) At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? (4) In the last seven days have I received recognition or praise for good work? (5) Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? (6) Is there someone at work who encourages my development? (7) At work, do my opinions seem to count? (8) Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important? (9) Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? (10) Do I have a best friend at work? (11) In the last six months, have I talked with someone about my progress? (12) At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow? (See Buckingham & Coffman, 1999, p. 28. These questions are the results of Gallup research, and as such they are proprietary. They cannot be reprinted or reproduced in any manner without the written consent of the Gallup Organization. Copyright © 1993–1998 The Gallup Organization, Washington, DC. All rights reserved). Source: Luthans (2011)

An organization is the human association with other necessary resources formed to achieve the stated common goals. People work interdependently with each other and coordinate the all other resources available in order to attain a set of goals in every organization which is also linked with the external environment. Government offices, ministries, public entities like Nepal Electricity Authority, public companies like Nepal Telecom, schools, colleges, universities, hotels, banks, hospitals, garments, consultancies, ‘guthi’, and cooperatives are few examples of organization. In fact, we are surrounded by numbers of different organizations to fulfill the unmet needs of wide range of people.

The resources that the organization comprises of can be mainly divided into four major types (4R), they are – human, financial, physical and informational (technological). Also, there are four broad functions (4F), they are – planning, organizing, leading and controlling to coordinate and utilize (or engage) the all four resources to accomplish the job or activities set by the organization.

Amongst all resources, human resources are only living resources with the all four dimensions of life – Body (Head, hands etc), Mind (Thoughts), Heart (Feelings) and the spirit (Conscience). They are not only living resources like other co-creatures; rather they possess unlimited potentiality and may have enormous power of organizing. The capacity to think, feel and judge has made them peculiar than all other resources.

In organization, leading function of management specially takes care of influencing people and their behaviors and HR department exists to lead, engage, grow, develop and retain the existing people. Meanwhile, HR also functions to acquire the new people who will be right fit in organization and show the outstanding performance. Hence, people are the valuable assets of any organization. The CEO, line manager, HR manager or any supervisor who engage people at work should have the core knowledge to get them involved so that they show the desired pattern of behavior to accomplish the job with excellence.

Until and unless the supervisor gets desired pattern of behavior from the employee(s), no stated goals or objectives can be achieved.

The supervisor should have the state of art of engaging his/her people at work, albeit the job of employee engagement is not so easy. It is one of the complex phenomena to understand, predict, and manage the human behavior. The organization remains ‘live’ when it consists of not only people but ‘people at work’. People at work exhibit certain pattern of behaviors and the behaviors of people make the organization in dynamism.

Organization Behavior (OB) is the unique field of study that systematically reviews and applies the knowledge about how people (at individual level, in group and in organization) and the groups act within the organization-setting. It is unique in the sense it draws from various disciplines mainly from psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science and ergonomics.

OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and organizational structure have on behaviour within the organization, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organizational effectiveness.¹

This definition has three main elements: first organizational behaviour is an investigative study of individuals and groups, second, the impact of organizational structure on human behaviour and the third, the application of knowledge to achieve organizational effectiveness. These factors are interactive in nature and the impact of such behaviour is applied to various systems so that the goals are achieved. The nature of study of organizational behaviour is investigative to establish cause and effect relationship.²

Following are some popular definitions by pioneers in the field of OB:

OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and organizational structure have on behaviour within the organization, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organizational effectiveness. – Stephen P Robbins

Organizational behaviour can be defıned as the understanding, prediction, and management of human behaviour in organizations. – Fred Luthans

OB can be defined as the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organizations.

– Steven L McShane & Mary Ann Von Glinow

Organization behavior is the study and application of knowledge of how people act or behave within an organization. – Keith Davis and J W Newstrom

OB refers to the study of behaviour of individuals and groups within organizations and the interaction between organizational members and their external environments. – Fred Luthans

OB is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does this by taking a system approach. That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Its purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives.

Organizational Behavior is understanding, explaining, predicting, guiding and managing the changing employee behavior in an organizational setting to improve and enhance the organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

In summary, OB is the study of human behaviour in organization-setting to create organizational effectiveness. It comprises the study of behaviour in three levels: individual, group and organization itself and ensures the application of knowledge about how people as individuals and as groups – act within organizations. It draws on theory, methods and principles from various disciplines to learn about individual perception, values, learning capacities, action of people in an organization. It considers external environmental forces while studying the interactive process of three levels.