Organizational Behavior Systematic Study of

Organizational Behavior Systematic Study of Organizational Behavior As the very denomination suggests, Organizational Behavior studies both the way in which people act within an organization and the attitudes they display within such frame, on a non-random basis. Consequently, this discipline aims at providing an accurate, scientifically rigorous overview of the behavioral traits that are characteristic to employees by replacing intuition with systematic study. In other words, it isn't grounded in simple observations, but in data that are appropriately collected, measured and interpreted (http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadob.html).

From a historical point-of-view, Organizational Behavior, as a discipline, dates back to the era of scientific management, a concept that implied rationalizing organizations for achieving higher productivity. In time, the trajectory of the above mentioned discipline was shaped by different trends. Thus, after the First World War, a major emphasis was put on human factors, while the Second World War re-brought the rationalist perspective into the limelight (http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Organizational+studies).

These different changes that Organizational Behavior underwent were also due to the contributions made by various behavioral sciences like psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology and political science. Psychology takes a snapshot of an individual's behavior and attempts to delve into and explain the reasons which determine it. Consequently, psychology links the stage to the backstage for providing a complete perspective of a person's conduct. Therefore, its contribution is valuable because it explains human motivation, perception or personality traits (managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson16EvolutionOfOrganisationalBehaviour.pdf).

Unlike psychology, sociology focuses less on persons as individual entities and is more preoccupied with persons as members of the social system. Thus, an extra ingredient arouses: the relationships that an individual embraces for being part of an organization, and, implicitly, society. In other words, it takes individuals out of the 'ivory tower' and studies their interaction with other human beings.

(managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson16EvolutionOfOrganisationalBehaviour.pdf) Another discipline that is related to the two sciences above depicted is called social psychology and studies the influence that people exert on the other human beings. The main problem that this science addresses consists of identifying the behavioral patterns to which individuals subscribe when being part of a group (managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson16EvolutionOfOrganisationalBehaviour.pdf). Anthropology could be defined as the science of man kind which focuses to a high extent on the norms, beliefs, customs, values that make up the frame shaping individuals' perceptions.

Consequently, anthropology is much more concerned about cultural discrepancies, an 'in fashion' subject which is due to the cross cultural encounters which have become almost ubiquitous in nowadays organizational environments. A managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson16EvolutionOfOrganisationalBehaviour.pdf) Last but not least, one could mention political science which is focused on the power dynamics within an organization. Thus, it delves into the conflicts that might arouse, the way in which power is distributed and the strings that people pull for their self-interest (managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson16EvolutionOfOrganisationalBehaviour.pdf).

To conclude with, each of the sciences above depicted brings an additional shade to Organizational Behavior due to the specific scientific slice it is focused on. However, in time, Organizational Behavior has come to encounter new challenges due to the highly dynamic environment with which organizations have to cope. One of these major challenges can be considered globalization. In the beginning, globalization was a phenomenon whose tangible interface was represented by the giant American, European and Japanese companies. Nowadays, according to the opinions expressed by C.

Bartlett, many companies belonging to small countries move very fast to the global stage as home markets are not able to support them. Consequently, many organizations are 'born global'. This significant trait of the organizational environment leads us to the next challenge that managers encounter - diversity. Thus, when working in a multinational, as country subsidiary managers, people have to be "sensitive and responsive to national differences" (Bartlett cited in Churchwell, 2003) because these are "a nuisance at best and often a disaster," as Geert Hofstede (2003) used to say.

Moreover, managers have to learn how to use these differences for achieving goals like high employee retention and productivity. On the other hand, they should also focus on the world outside their organization, that is, on the market which has become extremely heterogeneous nowadays. For instance, Bartlett presented the case of Procter & Gamble in Japan. According to him, Japanese women were much more sophisticated and demanding than their American counterparts.

However, the company didn't apply the pattern that proved to be successful enough in USA, but developed a portfolio of products especially tailored to the profile of the Japanese market. One of the most considerable outcomes was Skin II, a skin care product which was sold in exchange for a significant price and which was highly appreciated by customers (Bartlett cited in Churchwell, 2003). Moreover, Bartlett (cited in Churchwell, 2003) underlined that, in the past, managing diversity was rather synonymous with giving equal opportunities to people of different gender or race.

Nowadays, he emphasized that diversity meant "legitimizing diverse views in an organization, including those based in cultural differences." In addition to his remark, one could say that managing diversity under contemporary circumstances doesn't exclusively consist of providing equal treatment to different people. It also implies possessing the necessary know how for properly handling the respective discrepancies in order to obtain competitive results. For instance, researches have emphasized that teams encompassing members who have different cultural backgrounds are more creative.

Therefore, if a manager knows how to stimulate synergy among team members, than there is a higher chance for innovations to arouse and this can only be beneficial to the respective organization. The new variables/challenges that managers encounter are also influencing the ratio between intuition and systemic approach. Organizational Behavior puts a high stress on a rational measurement of human behavior and attitudes.

However, intuition should also be allowed to play an important part in the game, if we take into account the highly dynamic and uncertain environment with which organizations are confronted. Thus, if in earlier times, the share assigned to unstructured decisions was quite insignificant, nowadays it has increased to a high extent. When having to take such decisions, managers often use intuition because of the uncertainty and, implicitly, the impossibility to predict (http://mis2.uis.edu/fall99/mis513/cware/week10/w10L01.htm).

Therefore, the relevance of Organizational Behavior has become questionable and has been put through severe criticism, during the last years. For instance, some researches argued that Organizational Behavior studies were not connected with real life problems as they were carried out in laboratories that didn't succeed in identically replicating the outside world. Therefore, the conclusions drawn were considered to lack external validity (Thomas, Tymon, 1982). On the other hand, critics argued that Organizational Behavior studies neglected phenomena that were not immediately noticeable, but which exerted significant influences.

Thus, in many cases, meaning and symbolism were overlooked (Thomas, Tymon, 1982). Additionally, there were voices who highlighted the huge gap between theory and practice as practitioners, unlike theoreticians, didn't control key variables. Therefore, "abstract variables must be translated into things that the practitioner -- can take hold of and change.. -- " (Summer and O'Connell, cited in Thomas & Tymon, 1982). Another accusation brought to Organizational Behavior referred to the fact that many conclusions were common sense inferences that most non-psychologists could draw.

This is why some voices argue that hypotheses are not tested for finding.