Organizational Behavior Essay

Organizational Behavior (OB) –
Definition:
Study of what people think, feel and do in and around organizations. OB researchers systematically study these topics at multiple levels of analysis: individual, team and organization
Organizations – groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose
Collective entities
Human beings who interact w/ each other in a organized way
History
Emerged as a distinct field early 1940’s (was around along time before that, just wasn’t an organized discipline)
Why study?
It helps people get things done in organizations. Provides people w/ knowledge and tools to interact with others more effectively
It’s for everyone – not just managers
OB & the bottom line
Successful OB practices have demonstrated to improve organizations survival and success.
Perspectives of Organizational Effectiveness
All organizational theories have objective of making organizations more effective (organizational effectiveness)
The best yardstick of organization effectiveness is a composite of four perspectives:
Open systems
Organizations are complex organisms that “live” within external environment
Depend on external environment for resources & for rules expectations and laws. Some of these external resources are transformed into outputs, which are exported to external environment. Other external resources (job applicants) become subsystems in transforming input to output
Inside organization are subsystems
Informal work groups, work processes
Organizations are effective when they have a good “fit” with their external environment and when they have organizational efficiency – meaning they produce more with less
Organizational learning (knowledge mgmt)
Knowledge is the key driver of competitive advantage.
Organizational effectiveness depends on organizations capacity to share, use and store valuable knowledge
Stock of organizational knowledge –exists in 3 forms collectively known as intellectual capital
Human capital – knowledge skills and abilities that employees carry in their heads
Structural capital – knowledge captured and retained in organizations subsystems and structures
Relationship capital – value derived from org relationships with customers and suppliers
Organizations nurture intellectual capital through 4 learning process
Knowledge Acquisition – extracting info from external environment
Knowledge sharing – distributing info to others across organization
Knowledge Use – competitive advantage of knowledge come from applying it in ways that add value to organization and shareholders
Knowledge storage – any means by which knowledge is held for later retrieval.
How to retain intellectual capital
Keeping knowledgeable employees
Systematically transfer knowledge to other employees
Transfer knowledge into structural capital
High Performance work practices
Human capital –the knowledge skills and abilities that employees carry around in their heads – is a competitive advantage for organizations. It tries to identify a specific bundle of system structures that generate the most value from the human capital
Employee involvement and autonomy - both activities strengthen employee motivation
Employee competence – organizations are more effective when they recruit and select people with relevant skills and invest in them
Employee performance and skill development is linked to various financial and non financial rewards
Each of these 4 work independently but are strongest when bundled together
Stakeholders Perspective
Organizations are more effective when they consider the needs and expectations of any individuals affected by organizations objectives or actions.
One of main strengths of this perspective is its incorporation of values ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Contemporary challenges for Organizations
Globalization
Economic, social and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world
Allows for greater access to knowledge and innovations and lower costs
Not as clear that it

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Questions On Organizational Behavior