The concepts behind the organisational behaviour:

Organisations are multifaceted and human behaviour in an organisation is even more complex and unpredictable. Hence, Organisational behaviour is needed. Organisational behaviour is the study of human behaviour in the organisation and how knowledge about human behaviour is useful in improving an organisation’s effectiveness. Its main purpose is to find out ways through which people can work more effectively. It deals in a methodical way to study and research in a theoretical development, getting information about different activities of other organisation. Organisational behaviour provides:

Analysis of different levels in an organisation.

Help in understanding the complexities involved in interpersonal relations of two or more people.

View to look and manage the organisations as systems which have inter-organisational relationship.

Holistic view of management’s behavioural approach and not representing the whole management.

A platform to coordinate between two different cultured groups.

Organisational behaviour is the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organisation. Organisational behaviour researchers systematically study individual team, and organisational-level characteristics that pressure behaviour within work setting. Organisational behaviour is interdisciplinary field and its appearance can be traced back to Human Relations Movement stimulated by Hawthorne experiments during 1920s. The idea of scientific management, propounded by Frederick Winslow Taylor, had come up with fundamental principles of the subject based on Motion and Time Studies, which were introduced in industry in the United States on a large scale. The major contributions of the scientific management have been (i) standardization of work; (ii) equality in payments of wages, and (iii) precision in training.1

2. The challenging nature of Work Organisation:

The effective management of people takes place in the context of wider environmental setting, including the changing patterns of organisations and attitudes to work. It is frequently documented that a global economy, increased business competitiveness, the move towards more customer driven market, advances in systematic knowledge, especially telecommunication and office automation, have led to a period of constant change and need for greater organisational flexibility.

The power and influence of private and public organisations, the rapid spread of new technology, and the impact of various socio economic and political factors have attracted increasing attention to the concept of corporate social responsibilities and business ethics. Increasing attention is also being focused on the ethical behaviour which underlies the decisions and actions of managers and staff; and many responsible organisations and professional bodies now choose to publish a code of ethics.

The changing nature of organisations and individuals at work has placed increasing pressure on the awareness and importance of new psychological contracts. Forces of global competition and turbulent change make employment guarantees unfeasible and demand a new management philosophy based on trust and teamwork. People are seen as a responsibility and a resource to be added to. Employees need to abandon the stability of lifetime employment and embrace the contact of continuous learning and personal development.

3. The Nature of Organisational Behaviour System:

Organisational behaviour is concerned with the study of the behaviour of people of people within an organisation setting. It involves the understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour. Common definitions of organisational behaviour are generally along the lines of: the study and understanding of individual and group behaviour, and patterns of structure in order to help improve organisational performance and effectiveness. There is a close relationship between organisational behaviour and management theory and practice.

Organisational behaviour is of interdisciplinary nature which integrates the behaviour science with other social science.

From the disciplines, it helps to improve the relationship between people and organisation.

A lot of research work and conceptual framework is emerging to ascertain human behaviour.

It has now become a separate field of study whose principles, concepts and processes are synthesized.

It is mainly meant for solving the organisational problems which are only related to human behaviour.

4. Challenges and Opportunities:

In recent year many challenges and opportunities are emerging in organisational behaviour which is:

An employee is becoming older.

Expectations of the employee are fast changing.

Loyalty towards organisations has faded away.

Competition is increasing day by day forcing the organisations to increase there productivity.

Globalisation of business is forcing workers to change themselves to new cultures and environment.

Thus, now a day organisational behaviour has taken a significant role in the organisation to face the new challenges taking place throughout the world. The following are some critical matters facing managers for which organisational behaviour provide solution.

Diversity of Workforce-

Through organisations are becoming cosmopolitan yet people work together but maintain there separate identities.

Manager should learn to respect this diversity as it can help in creating innovation and decision making in the organisation due to different perspectives on various problems.

Demographic of work force-

Couples of pursuing professional career which is hindering organisational flexibility in getting and development talents.

Young people with professional qualification are joining the organisation as they are more preferred.

Young people are ambitious, enthusiastic and have desire for learning.

Employees expectations are changing-

Due to changes in the work force demographics employees’ attitude, aspirations and expectations have also changed.

They do not care for job security, attractive wages, housing facilities and quality of working.

Employees require empowerment and quality of status.

Globalisation-

The internationalization of the business world has made a great impact on the organisations.

These days the managers must be more flexible and proactive as he has to deal with work force of other countries which have different needs and attitudes from there own country.

Even in there own country they have to face different problems due to dealing with people having different culture and background. Thus the manager need to know and understand their different culture and then adopt a suitable method to get cooperation from them.

5. Organisational Behaviour Modification:

Definition of organisational behaviour modification by Robbins is- “Organisational behaviour modification is a programme where managers identify performance related employee behaviours and then implement an intervention strategy to strengthen desirable behaviours and weaken undesirable behaviours”.

Organisational behaviour modification meant for improving the organisational effectiveness.

It is derived and developed from the concept of skinner’s operant conditioning.

If refers to eliminate or modify the undesirable behaviour and change it with the more suitable behaviour for goal attainment.

The manager should observe the overt behaviour of the person and then modify it accordingly.

Steps in organisational behaviour modification:

Identify complex behaviour-

First identify the complex behaviour which is applicable to organisational performance of the employee.

Complex or critical behaviours such as absenteeism, tardiness, complaints of not doing work etc; should be identified through the employee and his superior.

Impact of the behaviour-

Now it is necessary to measure the impact of such behaviour.

If the impact is under tolerable limit then it requires no action otherwise it is necessary to change it.

Analysis of the behaviour

Now the analysis should be done which involve full examination of the behaviour of the employees.

This refers why an organisational behaviour modification is used to change critical performance behaviour.

Intervention

An intervention strategy is required to deal with:

the identified critical behaviour to change and

the factors causing such behaviours

Evaluation

Finally it desire to evaluate the working of the intervention strategies and to see that they are changing the undesirable behaviours for improving the performance.

The positive change means that the strategies are successful otherwise other appropriate strategies should be applied to get the desired result.

6. Motivation:

The term motivation is derived from the Latin word “moveve” which means to move. Motivation is what drives a person into doing something. Much of what we do is driven by the thought of a potential reward, or a consequence can be obvious tangible benefits, such as financial reward; enjoyment; or the risk of these being taken away through loosing once job. There are also other benefits that are less obvious, but which still motivate people to do something such as an internal satisfaction; or feeling of achievement.

Grazier provides a useful referencing indicating that the expectation of a benefit is a major reason that somebody would be motivated to do something. “Each day brings with it an endless list of decisions to be made. The process of making those decisions is driven, in large part, by the hope of benefit of the fear of a consequence.”

The concept of motivation is related to, but distinct from other concepts, such as instincts, drives, and reflexes. Motivated behaviour is usually goal-oriented; the goal may be associated with a drive such as hunger or thirst (called primary motivation). However motivation is also closely tied to sensory stimuli: an animal will not usually exhibit eating behaviour unless food is presented. Unlike instinctive behaviour, motivation depends on affect. Finally motivation can be learned (in which case it is called secondary motivation) and typically elicits more complex behaviours then simple reflexes.

Motivation is:

The force that compel people to move and instigate them to act.

To create an urge or desire to do some better performance.

To in calculate enthusiasm in them so that they can take initiative in doing the work.

To generate the willingness to use there best effort in performing their work.

Thus, motivation is to include an act to get the desired goal. It is a process that motivates the drives or aspirations to achieve some object. As a matter of fact performance depends upon motivation as it affects the productivity and quality of the work.

Definitions of Motivation:

1. “Motivation means a process of stimulating people to action to accomplish desired goals”.

– Scott

2. “Motivation refers to the way in which urges, drives, desired, aspirations, strivings, needs direct control or explain the behaviour of human beings”. – Mac Farland

3. “Motivation is a process that starts with physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activities behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentives”.

– Fred Luthans

Characteristics of Motivation:

Motivation has very importance in each field of life. Here are some characteristics of motivation:

Motivation requires some urges of desires which can be fundamental or for ego-satisfaction.

Motivation is goal directed as it has to fulfil some need.

Motivation starts by internal feeling of an individual.

Motivation is the driving force to get satisfied for achieving some goals.

Motivation is a continuous process as all the needs are not satisfied at a time.

Motivation work in totality of a person.

Motivation is the main factor in inspiring the employers.

Importance of Motivation:

Organisational efficiency of any organisation depends upon motivation. It is the most importance factor as it deals with the behaviour of the employees. Performance depends upon behaviour which is a mixture of ability and motivation.

Thus, motivation is important as:

It generates will to do the work. For example- a person has the capacity to do the work but if he is not willing to do it the capacity becomes useless.

Resources in an organisation can be best utilized if the motivation is directed towards attaining the organisation goals.

Motivational plans in an organisation reduces labour problem i.e., absenteeism or indiscipline etc.

Through motivation the organisation can increase its production and productivity as the employees will employ full efforts to use correct methods, systems, or technology effectively.

Motivation produces in workers to carry out the work allocated to them for achieving the goal set by organisation.

Through motivation employees will use fill knowledge and skills to complete the work satisfactorily so that the organisation can satisfy their personal and social needs.

Thus, the motivation force is dynamic which must be satisfied by achieving the goal. Motivation requires effort which should persist and more through the direction of goal. Further, motivation is very important in an organisation to improve the behaviour of its employees towards their work and to direct them for achieving them target set by organisation. The efficiency of work is also enhanced if the people are well motivated. As without motivation the technology systems and methods all becomes ineffective. To increase the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation it is necessary to improve the performance of its employees which can be determined by two factors:

Level of Ability and

Affect of Motivation

These can be summarised as follows performance = Ability*Motivation

Theories of Motivation:

The nature of human beings is complex hence no generalization could be formed on motivation theories. Thus, the various theories of motivation are classified into main categories. These theories based on:

Human needs theories by:

Maslow

Herzberg

Mc Clelland

Human nature theories by:

Mc Gregor

Quchi

Argyris

Expectancy of Human Beings theories by:

Vroom

Porter and Lawler

Human Needs Theories

Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory:

It is based on human needs. The behaviour of a person at a particular time is usually depends upon his strong need. An individual first fulfils his basic needs and then seeks to satisfy other higher needs. Maslow believed that once a need is satisfied it no longer serves to further motivate him. He was of the opinion that needs have priority. As soon as lower level need is satisfied, other next higher level needs emerge. He arranged the basic human needs in a hierarchy as follows:

Physiological needs

Safety needs

Social needs

Esteem needs

Self actualisation needs

B. Human Nature Theories

Mc Gregor’s Participation Theories:

The management’s dealing with his employees in the organisation depends upon certain assumption and generalizations towards the behaviour and nature of their employees. Mc Gregor has given two alternative views of human behaviour based on their participation as worker. They are:

Theory X- Negative Theory

Theory Y- Positive Theory

Theory X-

The following assumptions about human nature are negative in approach:

People usually dislike and avoid work.

Need to be directed and controlled.

People are lazy and avoid responsibility.

Avoid leadership and prefer to be lead.

Lack of self motivation and ambition.

Theory Y-

The following assumptions about human nature are positive in approach:

Have great potential for work.

Can be motivated to achieve organisational goals.

Self motivated and taken initiative.

People want to learn and show responsibility.

People want rewards, recognition and appreciation.

C. Expectancy of Human Beings Theories

Vroom’s Theory of Expectancy:

This theory was developed by Victor H. Vroom. It is a process theory which is concerned with topic “How motivation Occurs”? This theory deals with the variables of motivation and their inter relationship. According to it motivation is the:

Sum of all values which lead to some action.

Through it employee achieves some level of his job performance.

His effort depends upon the outcome of his performance, i.e., the reward or value he obtains to satisfy his goals.

It can be depicted as follows:

Employee-Effort-Performance-Reward

Thus, this theory suggests that the effort one places on a particular work to get the desired performance in getting the related value or reward.

7. How an organisation can benefit with motivation:

First class card at Ritz Carlton Hotel, Champs cards at Yum Brands, telephone calls from the CEO of Keyspan, and various celebrations for good performances at Panafric Hotel are designed to maintain and improve employee motivation. Motivation refers to the forces within a person that affect the direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behaviour.3 Motivated employees are willing to extent a particular level of effort for a certain amount of time to ward a particular goal. Motivation is one of the four essential drivers of individual behaviour and performance and, consequently, is an integral component of employee engagement. An engaged workforce is an important predictor of an organisation’s competitiveness, so it’s easy to see why employee motivation is continuously on the mind of corporate leaders.

The quest for a motivated and engaged workforce has not been easy, however. Most employer-92 percent of them, according to one major survey- say that motivating employees has become more challenging. Three factors seem to be responsible for the increasing challenge. First, globalization, information technology, corporate restructuring, and other challenge have dramatically altered the employment relationship. These changes potentially undermine the levels of trust and commitment necessary to energize employees beyond minimum standard.4

Second, in decade past companies typically relied on armies of supervisors to closely monitor employee behaviours and performance. Even if commitment and trust were low, employees performed their jobs with the boss watching them closely. But most companies thinned their supervisory ranks when they flattened organisational structure to reduce cost. Supervisors now have many more employees, so they can’t possibly keep a watchful eye out for laggards.

The third challenge is that a new generation of employees has brought different expectations to the workplace. A few years ago various writers disparaged generation-X and generation-Y employees as slackers, cynics, whiners and malcontents. Now we know that the problem wasn’t their lack of motivational potential; it was that employers didn’t know how to motivate them. It seems that many companies still haven’t figured this out. According to one report more than 40 percent of employees aged 25 to 34 sometimes or frequently feel demotivated compared to 30 percent of 35 to 44 year olds and just 18 percent of 45 to 54 year olds.5

Hotels and other firms are returning to good old fashioned praise and recognition to motivate staff. Share options can evaporate and incentive plans might backfire, but a few words of appreciation almost always create a warm glow of satisfaction and renewed energy. The challenge of recognition is to ‘catch’ employees doing extraordinary thins. Keyspan Corporation chairman Bob Catell resolves this by regularly asking managers for list of unsung heroes at the New England gas utility. He calls an employee every week, often spending the first few minutes convincing the listener that the CEO really is calling. “They start by saying, ‘hey you can’t fool me, this isn’t Catell!’ But once they realize it is me, they are pleased that I would take the time to do this.”

Along with recognition from managers, approximately one third of large American firms rely on peer recognition as one way to motivate employees. Among them is Yum Brands Inc., the parent company of KFC, Taco bell, and Pizza Hut. Yum’s restaurants around the world use a recognition program in which employees reward colleagues with ‘Champs’ cards, an acronym for KFC’s values. The Ritz Carlton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, which is rated as one of the best places to work in Asia, applies a similar peer recognition process using First Class cards. Nancy Teoh, Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur’s human resource manager, explains that “congratulatory message or words of appreciation are written down by any member of the team to another and even as far as from the hotel and corporate senior leader.” Teoh adds, “This serves as a motivational aspect of the work environment.”6

So motivation is very important for growth and better service in any industry. I am going to explain importance of motivation through these two case studies:

Buddy’s Snack Company is a family owned company located in Rocky Mountains. Buddy forest started the business in 1951 by selling home made potato chips out of the back of his pickup truck. Now days Buddy’s is $36 million snack Food Company that is struggling to regain market share lost to Frito-Lay and other fierce competitors. In the early eighties Buddy passed the business to his son, Buddy Jr., who is currently grooming his son, Mark to succeed himself as head of the company.

Six month ago Mark joined Buddy’s Snacks as salesperson, and after four months he was quickly promoted to sales manager. Mark recently graduated from a local University with an MBA in marketing, and Buddy Jr. was hoping that mark would be able to implement strategies that could help turn the company around. Once Mark’s initial strategies was to introduce a new sales performance management system. As part of this approach, any salesperson who receives a bellow average performance rating would be required to attend a mandatory coaching session with his or her supervisor. Mark forest is hoping that these coaching sessions will motivate employees to increase their sales. This case describes the reaction of three salespeople who have been required to attend a coaching session because of their low performance over the previous quarter.

(Russell Casey, Clayton State University, and Gloria Thompson, University of Phoenix)

Mergers have roared back in corporate America, and with them have come highly lucrative payouts for the executives who triggered or accepted the acquisitions. One example is Gillette CEO James M. Kilts, who received a whopping $165 million, including stock options and severance, for selling the razor maker to Procter & Gamble. Bruce L. Hammonds, CEO of MBNA Corp., was apparently promised $102 million in connection with the credit card company’s acquisition by Bank of America Corp. Further behind but still well ahead of the average employee’s lifetime income is Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. CEO John H. Eyler, who will receive cash and benefits worth about $63 million when the struggling toy retailers is purchased by an investment group. But several observers say these special perks are blatantly unfair. Others point out that bonuses perversely reward the people who made the company vulnerable to takeover.7

(Business Week)

8. Conclusion:

Understanding the behaviour of organisations arises from combining the basics of the sciences or disciplines indicated with a number of more general and overtly subjective assertions. The total picture is incomplete, ever-changing and continually developing. The drive is therefore towards as complete an understanding as possible rather than absolute illumination. This understanding is based on the application of methods of research and inquiry that are capable of relative evaluation. This also concerns the validation and consistency of results and conclusions, especially when the divergent and conflicting nature of the different perspectives is considered. Ultimately, conclusions and predictions about human, and therefore organisational, behaviour are always subject to measures of uncertainty and interpretation.

Organisation behaviour is very important in business and our personal life as well. We have to organise everything. I have to attend class then want to study at home then assignment, everything should be organised and same thing applied in Company.