organizationalbehaviours.com

Organizational Behaviour – What Is It ?

In this world of diverse definitions and diverse systems of learning how to understand behaviour, organizational behaviour and organizational change has become an integral part of most business school courses curriculum. It is important for the student to study the complexities of human relationships, specially in the context of their work fronts, and also to understand how organizations deal with their employees. For the student it helps them understand why people and organizations behave in certain manners, and how this knowledge can be used to improve their relationships with their colleagues and employers. (http://www.up-time.co.za/about.html – a company that specialises in organisational change.)

Organisations use this kind of study to build strategies, and define aims, and spell out the roles that they expect their employees to play in the organization. They understand why and how people behave in a certain manner, and above all they learn how to use this knowledge to improve the workings of their organization.

This is a much more complex system than what it seems at first sight. Many aspects are studied before any analysis can be made. People, individuals and groups make the inherent parts of any organization. Hence relationships have to be judged in terms of the whole entities of all three segments of an organization, and this also has to be integrated into the entire social system of the surroundings. The complexities of these relationships makes it necessary to acquire the knowledge about Organizational Behaviour (OB)

In this many tiered system, let us start from the top. An organisation’s base is derived from the values, goals, aims and strategies laid down by its management. This, then determines the culture of the organization, its social structure, its management processes, and the formal and informal organizational structure that it follows. The workers imbibe this as their culture, their motivation and the quality of their working career. All this has a direct influence on the growth of the organization and the performance and individual lives of its members. Since Organisational behaviour is mainly a study of human behaviour it cannot be categorized as one stream. It is based on sociology, anthroplogy and psychology, and also on various aspects of management techniques. Earlier, human beings were analysed as machine and divided up into various well defined sections. It is only later that that psycho-analysis went into the multilayered human personalities and the importance of understanding relationships and behaviour became clear. As is evident, it had a major impact on all organizations, and if understood and applied well, it has brought about changes for the better in all aspects of the organization.