IOP202-R:ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
What is organisational behaviour?Study Unit 1: Chapter 1 & 2
Organisational behaviour (OB)
It is a field of study that investigates what the impact of 3 determinants (individuals, groups and structure) have on behaviour within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s effectiveness.
Contributing disciplines to the OB field (Figure 1-2)
Psychology: measure, explain & sometimes change ind. behaviour
Sociology: study the social systemin which ind. fill their roles , people in relation to fellow human beings
Social psychology: blending psych & social concepts, influence of people on one another
Anthropology: societies
Political science: behaviour of ind. & groups within a political environment
Systematic approach – behaviour is not random. Differences between individuals, but there are fundamental consistencies underlying behaviour – allow predictability.
- Conclusions based on scientific evidence – data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner.
OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions.
Organisations are open systems: long-term effectiveness determined by ability to anticipate, manage and respond to changes in the environment.
What do managers do – make decisions, allocate resources & direct the activities of others to attain goals in an organisation: a consciously coordinated social unit composed of 2 or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Plan: defining goals, strategizing, plan to integrate & coordinate
Organise: what, who, how tasks grouped, reporting channels and responsibility
Lead: direct, coordinate, motivate, resolve conflicts
Control: monitoring, comparing, potential correcting
Management roles: (Table 1-1)
Mintzberg: 10 highly interrelated roles, grouped as:
a)Interpersonal roles
b)Information roles
c)Decisional
Management skills
Robert Katz:
a)Technical – specialised knowledge & expertise
b)Human – to work with, understand & motivate others both ind and in groups
c)Conceptual – mental ability to analyse & diagnose complex situations (eg. decision making)
Effective vs successful managerial activites
Luthans study – all managers engaged in 4 managerial activites:
1) aditional management, 2) communication, 3) HR management, 4) Networking
Challenges & opportunities for OB
-Responding to globalisation
-Managing workforce diversity
-Improving people skills
-Empowering people
-Coping with “temporariness”
-Stimulating innovation and change
-Improving their ethical behaviour
-Improving quality & productivity
Total Quality Management: is a philosophy of management driven by the constant attainment by customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes
- Intense customer focus
- Continuous improvement
- Improvement in the quality of everything the organization does.
- Accurate measurement
- Employee empowerment
Developing an OB model
- general model to define the field of OB.
- stakes out the parameters
- identifies primary dependent and independent variables
- 4 levels of analyses in OB: ind., group, structure, environment
Dependent variables: are the key factors you want to explain or predict and that are affected by some other factor. They are:
- Productivity – reach goals by transferring inputs to outputs @ lowest cost; concern for both effectiveness & efficiency.
- Absenteeism – work flow disrupted; bad vs better
- Turnover – high=increased recruiting, selection and training costs.
- Organisational citizenship – discretionary behaviour that promotes the effective functioning of the organization.
- Job satisfaction –attitude rather than behaviour
Independent variables:presumes cause of some change in the dependent variable. They are:
- Individual-level variables
- Group-level variables
- Organizational-level variables
Figure 1-4
-Organisations are continuously subjected to forces (internal or external) for change.
-Categories of these forces are:
- Global arena
- technological inventions
- international competition
- rising customer expectations and demands
- trade agreements
- international diversity
- nature of work
- changes in society
- political change
- world economy
- changing markets
Dealing with the global challenge – adapting management style to culture in which operated.
Parochialism
Ethnocentric views
Polycentric views
Geocentric views
- Regional & sub-regional arena
- National & provincial arena
- Internal forces within the organization
- Individual level
- Group level
- Organisational level
Frameworks for assessing cultural differences – 3 most commonly used:
1) Kluckhorn-Strodbeck framework: uses 6 basic cultural dimensions to assess differences. a) a person’s relationship with the environment; b) time orientation; c) nature of people; d) activity orientation; e) focus of responsibility; f) conception of space
* Figure 2-2
2) Hofstede framework - Dimensions used are:
individualism vs collectivism
power distance
uncertainty avoidance
masculinity vs femininity
long-term orientation
3) Trompenaars
- tried to address some limitations to Hofstede
- 5 dimensions:
- universalism vs particularism
- individualism vs collectivism
- neutral vs affective
- specific vs diffuse
- achievement vs ascription
* GLOBE study