Term Paper on Organization Behavior
Organization Behavior Semester: summer 2010
Sharifuzzaman Id No: 60917-10-011 Acknowledgement I express a deep sense of gratitude to my honorable Course teacher Prof. M. A. Mannan Chowdhury for his valuable lectures, teaching approach and guidelines on Organizational Behavior which have guided me all over this course. I use departmental library to get recourses about this subject, which have direct me through easy way to prepare this paper.Some of my course mates have encouraged and suggested to me how to prepare the term paper, special thanks to them. Table of content Name of ChapterPage No 1.
Chapter 1
The term organizational Behavior consists of two words, a. organization, b. behavior which gives the idea that the behavior is performed in the organization is Organizational Behavior. Behavior can be showed as the following a function of organism and Environment. B = f (O, E) Behavior = f (organism, Environment) Organizational Behavior can be defined as the understanding, predicting, and management of human behavior in organizations. The relationship of Organizational Behavior to other discipline: There are four closely related discipline in an organization those are a. Organizational Theory (OT), b. Organizational Behavior (OB), c.
Organizational Development (OD), and d.Human Resource Management (HRM) Organizational Development (OD) Human Resource Management (HRM) Organizational Theory (OT) Organizational Behavior (OB) Theoretical Applied Figure 1. 1: The relationship of Organizational Behavior to other discipline Behavior to another discipline Micro Macro Although figure 1. 1 portrays the theoretical means of relating the four functions, in practice it does not means too much. As we need to have a base to learn organization and its function it’s an attempt to raise a base point. OT tends to more macro-oriented than OB and more Theoretical than OD.OT topics are included in study and application of OB.
On the other hand, OD tends to be more Macro and more applied than OB. OB is more concerned about Microenvironment than OT and more theoretical than HRM. HRM tends to have more focus on application of OB. The theoretical framework of OB: There are three theoretical frameworks of OB, which are a. Cognitive Framework, b. Behavioristic Framework, and c. Social Cognitive Frameworks.
There frameworks are stated below: Cognitive Framework Cognitive approach emphasizes the positive and freewill aspects of human behavior and uses concepts such as expectancy, demand, and intention.Cognition can be simply defined as the act of knowing an item of information. In cognitive framework, cognitions precede behavior and constitute input into the person’s thinking, perception, problem solving, and information processing. Behavioristic Framework Pioneer behaviorists stressed the importance of studying observable behaviors instead of the elusive mind. Behaviorists’ used classical conditioning of stimulus and response (S-R) to explain the human behavior. A stimulus elicits a response. Some other behaviorists emphasize the R-S to explain the behavior.
In R-S where there may have response, stimulus is waiting for that.The R-S theory has obtained by operant condition. Social Cognitive Framework This framework helps the researchers’ to come in common platform from the polarization between cognitive theory and behavioristic theory. Social learning theory takes the position that behavior can best be explained in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction among cognitive, behavioral, and environmental determinants. The person and the environmental situation do not function as independent units but, in conjunction with behavior itself, reciprocally interact to determine behavior.It means that cognitive variables and environmental variables are relevant, but the experiences generated by previous behavior also partly determine what a person becomes and can do, which, in turn, affects subsequently behavior. A person’s cognition or understanding changes according to the experience of consequences of past behavior.
Chapter 2:
Motivational Needs and Processes Motivation: Definition: The term motivation may be comprehensively defined as; it is a process that starts with the psychological of physical deficiency of need that activates a behavior of a drive that aimed at a goal or incentive.Motivation process: Needs set up a drives aimed at incentives. This is the basic motivational process, consists of three elements, needs, drives, incentives. Primary motives are physiological, biological, unlearned motives. Those are very raw, basic motives of human behavior. General motives are the curiosity, manipulation, activity motives and affection motives. After achieving primary motive general motive comes into focus.
The secondary motives include the power motive, achievement motive, the affiliation motive, the status motive, and the security motive, intrinsic and extrinsic motives.Types of Motive: Motives are three types,Primary motives, General motives, Secondary motives. All the motives of human behavior may be classified in these three classes. The content theories of work motivation: There are several content theories of work motivation such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation, Alderfer’s ERG theory. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs divides the whole needs into five hierarchic levels. According this theory the needs hierarchy is 1, physiological needs, 2. Safety needs, 3. Love needs, 4. Esteem needs, and 5.Needs of self- actualization. , Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation said that needs have only two factors 1. Hygiene factor, and 2. Motivational factors.
Alderfer’s ERG theory divides needs into three types 1. Existence, 2. Relatedness, and 3. Growth. The process theories of work motivation: There are numerous process theories of work motivation, for example, Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation, where motivation force, F = ? (Valence x Expectancy) and the Porter-Lawler Model.
Chapter 3:
Positive Organizational BehaviorPositive Organizational Behavior (POB): It is defined as the study and application of positive oriented human strengths and psychological capacity that can be measured developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement. It has five operational criteria as follows * Based on theory and research * Valid measures * Unique concepts * Open to development * Managed for performance The psychological capacity that meets these five criteria is being discussed below: Optimism: Optimism is basic part of human behavior, which contributes to elucidate the differences between individuals.
For example, employees with optimists’ character have a very constructive view for changing the business functions into high-tech revolution. Inversely, employees who are pessimists have feared these IT changes. Hope: We know that the simplest meaning of hope consists of both the “will power” and the “way power”. That’s why we say that, the employee’s feelings, belief, ability to solve problems and the overall management capabilities of their entire work scope will be improved significantly if they emerge with the growing changes in organizational IT infrastructure.Subjective Well-Being (SWB): SWB is a term that describes for what people usually mean by happiness. If the changes in IT directed to motivate the human resources of organization to attain the happiness of the individuals then it is considered definitely as a POB construct. Resiliency: Resiliency is viewed as the capacities to rebound or bounce back form any unconventional situation that arises in the organization to improve responsibility of the individuals.
This POB construct can be rationalized by taking necessary steps (that includes carry out corrective courses of ctions) for the employees who are not coping with the IT changes in the first phase. Emotional Intelligence (EI): EI is simply a person feels about something without considering any pre-requisites. This POB construct deals with love or affection, surprise, fear, sadness anger, disgust or even shame of employees in an organization. We must take into account of these components when we implement a high tech environment for the organization. Considering all the dimensions, EI helps us to promote the successful implementation of IT infrastructure in corporate levels.Self-Efficacy: It refers to an individual confidence about his or her capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of actions in order to execute particular tasks successfully within a given context. We must sort out the sources of self-efficacy among the organizational individuals and modify them in an efficient way so that IT changes in organization effectively streamlined.
Chapter 4:
Managing Performance through Job Design and Goal Setting Job design:Job design may be defined as the methods that management uses to develop the content of a job, including all relevant tasks as well as the process by which jobs are constructed and revised. In the recent trends of the organization it has become a important application in the study of Organizational Behavior, as the nature of job is being changing very fast with the implementation of IT. There are various approaches of job design which is being illustrated in the following figure: Job Design Job Engineering Scientific management, industrial engineering approaches Job enrichmentVertically loading the job to provide more responsibility Quality of work life A broad based approach suggesting the importance of overall climate, sociotechnical design and teams. Job characteristics Building skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback into job. Social information processing A complex theoretical model suggesting the importance of social information or cues affecting jobholders. Figure shows various approaches of job design Goal setting: Goal setting is process of motivating employees by establishing effective and meaningful performance target.It is important factor in today’s organization to measure performance, motivate for achieving target, and manage the human resources in effective manner.
Chapter 5:
Groups and Teams Group: The group is widely recognized as an important sociological and socio psychological unit of analysis in the study of Organizational Behavior. The term group can be comprehensively defined as a collection of some members who are motivated to join, perceive the group as a unified unit of interacting people, contribute in various amounts to the group process and reach agreements and have disagreements through various forms of interactions. Types of group:Groups are classified in various ways. Some of these classifications are given below: * Group consists only two members is simple dyad group. * Small groups and large groups * Primary groups and secondary groups which are sometimes called coalitions. * Others groups * Membership groups and reference groups * In groups and out groups * Formal groups and informal groups Teams: The terms teams and groups are used interchangeably, though there are some distinction between these two. The team ois frequently used for any group especially to get individuals to work together and motivate them for achieving common collective goals.
The distinctions between groups and teams: The distinctions between groups and teams are shown in following table: Focus| Group| Team| Leader | Strong clearly focused leader| shared leadership roles| Accountability | Individual | Mutual| Purpose | Same as organization| Specific purpose| Work products| Individual | Collective| Meeting | Efficient meeting| Opened active problem solving meeting| Measurement of effectiveness| Indirectly | Directly by assessing work products| Deeds | Discusses, decides, delegates| Discusses, decides, does the real things. |Types of team: Teams are of three types mainly, 1. Cross-functional team, 2. Virtual team and 3. Self-managed team. The first one consists of members from various departments to perform a certain tasks. Second type is the group which is formed individuals without face to face contact; means of communication between them is the IT, internet, video chat, email, phone conference etc.
And the third one is self managed teams; it means the group members are totally responsible for managing and performing all the tasks to get a goal themselves. Chapter 6: Leadership ProcessLeadership: Leadership is stated as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Historical studies of leadership: The Iowa leadership studies: This studies classified leadership into three classes. Those are the following: * Authoritarian * Autocratic leadership, directs the followers without considering their opinion. * Democratic * Leads the follower considering their opinion * Laissez – faire * Gives complete freedom to do anything as they like.Ohio state leadership studies: This study was the first to include the task and human orientation nature of leadership. Consideration in this study is the people-orientation and Initiating Structure is the task orientation.
Early Michigan leadership studies: This study classified the leadership of two categories, a) product centered and b) employee centered. Theories of leadership: There are lots of theories of leadership mainly of two major classes according to time of the development * Traditional theories of leadership * Modern theories of leadershipTraditional theories are the following: * Trait theory. * Groups and exchange theories * Contingency theory * Path- goal leadership theory The modern theoretical processes of leadership are the following: * Charismatic leadership theories * Transformational leadership theory * Social cognitive approach Chapter 7: Conclusion The organizational behavior has a potential to study and develop modern organizations. This issue is one of the most modern subject matters on which a lot of psychological and sociological works yet to do.Organizational Behavior leads to study, understand, predict, and manage human resource management in an organization. The Human Resource Management (HRM) of modern organization is entirely an application of these studies of Organizational Behavior. The result is an effective management of Human Resource, which leads to higher productivity, good organizational environment, both internal and external.
As a result Organizational Behavior has already appeared as an important field in management of contemporary organization.
