Term Paper on "Organizational Behavior Systematic"

Term Paper 4 pages (1484 words) Sources: 4 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

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… READ MORE

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