Administration Theory and Behavior
Managers most often describe people problems as their most frequent and troublesome problems. 1. Organizational Behavior (OB) = people skills. It studies the influence that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations. 2. OB studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: a. individuals b. groups c. structure You can improve your predictive ability by taking the systematic approach to the study of human behavior. C. The fundamental assumption of the systematic approach is that human behavior is not random. There are fundamental consistencies that underlie the behavior of all individuals, and these fundamental consistencies can be identified and then modified to reflect individual differences. 2. Evidence-based Management (EBM): This complementary approach to systematic study involves basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. 3. Intuition: your "gut feelings" about "what makes others tick." This natural ability to guess how people will react is most accurate when coupled with systematic thinking and evidence-based management. 1. Psychology's contributions have been mainly at the individual or micro level of analysis, while the other disciplines have contributed to our understanding of macro concepts such as group processes and organization. THERE ARE FEW ABSOLUTES IN OB positive organizational scholarship does not deny the value of the negative, it look at OB through a new lens and it pushes organizations to exploit employees' strengths rather than dwell on their limitations. OB can be examined at three levels, each with its own unique perspective. VIII. 1. Individual level. 2. Group level. 3. Organization system level.
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Organizational behavior -- people skills, emphasizes behavior as related to concerns such as jobs, work, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance and management Improve your predictive ability by supplementing intuition with a more systematic approach--behavior is not random Systematic study -- looking at relationships attempting to attribute causes and effects and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence--that is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a rigorous manner Evidence based management complements systematic study by basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. no such thing as theory of organization and people have different theories about it--no consensus on school of thought on it--and unlikely to ever be one Each of the major frames of organization theory is associated with a period in time. Classical view - 1920-30, human resources school 60s-70s dialectic process--the struggling ascendancy, dominance, challenge by other schools and reluctant dependency is not only with OB but all sciences Group theories by perspectives on organizations, by period of time. Some say use of frames (or schools or perspectives) confuse more than enlighten Four fundamental views based on two analytical dimensions: the level of organization (micro or macro) and the emphasis placed on deterministic versus voluntaristic assumptions about human nature. Voluntaristic to deterministic dimension (the horizontal continuum) classifies theories by their assumptions about individual organization members' autonomy and self-direction versus the assumption that behavior in organizations is determined by structural constraints The macro to micro continuum (vertical continuum) groups organization theories by their focus on communities of organizations or single organizations. Alternative organizing schema includes three perspectives of formal organizations: organizations as rational, natural and open systems. organizations as rational systems views organizations as highly formalized rational collectivities pursuing specific goals (similar to early studies).
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