ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Organizational Behavior is the study of human behavior in an organizational setting. It is

about observing the individual or a group of people’s behavior in response to other individual or
group as a whole. By studying this, the management would know the attitude of an individual
towards particular circumstances. Also, by studying this, it provides an understanding of why
people behave the way they do in the organization.

Importance of Organizational Behavior

• Helps in understanding organization and employees in a better way

• Helps in motivating employees

• Helps in improving industrial/labor relations

• Helps in predicting and controlling human behavior

• Helps in effective utilization of human resource

EARLY ADVOCATES

Robert Owen was one of the early advocates and contributed thoughts on
organizational behavior. He was a Scottish business man, who suggested a utopian
workplace. Utopian workplace pertains to a kind of workplace that is somewhat idealistic
wherein everything is perfect. The second one is Hugo Munsterberg. He was the Father
of Industrial Psyhology.it deals with maximizing the productivity and adjustment of
individuals at work. He believed that industry can be benefited by psychologists in three
major areas:1.) Seeking modern ways to hire the right person for the right job.2.)
Achieving the optimum efficiency by identifying the psychological conditions. 3.) Finding
methods to direct behavior of individual employees to be in harmony with the
management’s objectives. The next one is Mary Parker Follett. She introduced the
concepts of social Work Political Science and she believed that the manager is
responsible or harmonizing group efforts. She also identified these concepts: Working in
groups is more important than working individually, “power with” rather than “power
over”, use of integration to resolve conflicts, and integrative unity is the secret of
success. Lastly, Chester Barnard who is a President of new Jerray Bell Telephone
Company. He suggested social systems approach to management and one of it is the
Acceptance Theory of Authority. In this theory, he believes that if a subordinate does not
accept his manager’s authority, it does not exist.

HAWTHORNE STUDIES

This study began when engineers at the Hawthorne Western Electric Plant
decided to examine the effects of varying levels of light on worker productivity. They
expected brighter light to lead to increased productivity, but the results showed that
varying the level of light in neither direction led to increased output. Also, they conducted
 experiments on job redesign, length of workday, length of break times, and incentive
plans.

GOALS OF ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES

1. Prediction- enables the prediction of future behaviors and can make meaningful
insights or solutions to any problems around misbehavior in an organization.
2. Explanation- enables organizations to understand why people behave as they do.
3. Management- enables organizations to get things done through people.

ATTITUDES

This is a summary of personal experiences and it has a tendency to react positively or

negatively to a person or circumstances. There are three components of attitude:

1. Cognitive – made up of beliefs, opinions, knowledge, of information held by a person.

2. Affective – this is the emotional or feeling part of an attitude
3. Behavioral – an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something

Types of Attitudes

• Job Satisfaction

 A collection of positive or negative feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job

• Job Involvement

 Participating on the job and considering performance important to self-worth

• Organizational Commitment

 Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, and wishing to maintain
membership in the organization

Functions of attitude

• Adjustment function – help people to adjust to their work environment and form a basis
for future behavior

• Ego-defensive function – help people to retain their dignity and self-image

• Value-expressive function – provide individuals with a basis for expressing their values

• Knowledge function – provide standards and frames of reference that allow people to
understand

PERSONALITY

• comes from the Greek word “persona”

• it is a combination of characteristics or qualities that forms a person’s identity

 Personality has two major features: inherited and learned. Inherited personality is something
that came from our parents. On the other hand, learned personality is something that we had
learned from the society.

Personality also has five traits that you have to maintain in an organization: extrovert,
emotionally stable, open, agreeable, and conscientious. Being extrovert is being sociable. Being
emotionally stable is being calm, self-confident, secure under stress (positive) and such. The
next one is being open. This means being imaginative, creative, sensitive and curious. The next
one is agreeable which shows being cooperative and trusting. Lastly, being conscientious
means being responsible, dependable, persistent and organized.

PERCEPTION

• An intellectual process of transforming sensory stimuli to meaningful information

There is a perceptual process:

1. Receiving – the stimuli are received from the various sources

2. Selecting – after receiving the stimuli, some data are selected and others are screened
out.
3. Organizing – this is about organizing the information into a meaningful whole
4. Interpreting – this is about giving meaning to the organized information

EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT/INTELLIGENCE

• Recognizing our own feeling and those of others

There are four areas of Emotional Quotient: Self Awareness, Social Awareness, Self-
Management, Relationship Management. Social Awareness is having the empathy,
organizational awareness, and service orientation while Self Awareness is having accurate self-
assessment and self-confidence. While Relationship Management talks about inspirational
leadership, developing others, teamwork and collaboration, Self-Management, on the other
hand, discusses emotional self-control, adaptability, and optimism.