INTRODUCTION

The study of Organizational Behaviour (OB) is very interesting and challenging too. It is related to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational factors interact. The study of organizational behaviour relates to the expected behaviour of an individual in the organization. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. It is the predictability of a manager about the expected behaviour of an individual. There are no absolutes in human behaviour. It is the human factor that is contributory to the productivity hence the study of human behaviour is important. Great importance therefore must be attached to the study. Researchers, management practitioners, psychologists, and social scientists must understand the very credentials of an individual, his background, social framework, educational update, impact of social groups and other situational factors on behaviour. Managers under whom an individual is working should be able to explain, predict, evaluate and modify human behaviour that will largely depend upon knowledge, skill and experience of the manager in handling large group of people in diverse situations. Preemptive actions need to be taken for human behaviour forecasting. The value system, emotional intelligence, organizational culture, job design and the work environment are important causal agents in determining human behaviour. Cause and effect relationship plays an important role in how an individual is likely to behave in a particular situation and its impact on productivity. An appropriate organizational culture can modify individual behaviour. Recent trends exist in laying greater stress on organizational development and imbibing a favourable organizational culture in each individual. It also involves fostering a team spirit and motivation so that the organizational objectives are achieved. There is a need for commitment on the part of the management that should be continuous and incremental in nature. The scope of the organizational behaviour is as under: (a) Impact of personality on performance (b) Employee motivation (c) Leadership (d) How to create effective teams and groups4 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR (e) Study of different organizational structures (f) Individual behaviour, attitude and learning (g) Perception (h) Design and development of effective organization (i) Job design (j) Impact of culture on organizational behaviour (k) Management of change (l) Management of conflict and stress (m) Organizational development (n) Organizational culture (o) Transactional analysis

(p) Group behaviour, power and politics (q) Job design (r) Study of emotions The field of the organizational behaviour does not depend upon deductions based on gut feelings but attempts to gather information regarding an issue in a scientific manner under controlled conditions. It uses information and interprets the findings so that the behaviour of an individual and group can be canalized as desired. Large number of psychologists, social scientists and academicians has carried out research on various issues related to organization behaviour. Employee performance and job satisfaction are determinants of accomplishment of individual and organizational goals. Organizations have been set up to fulfill needs of the people. In todays competitive world, the organizations have to be growth-oriented. This is possible when productivity is ensured with respect to quantity of product to be produced with zero error quality. Employee absenteeism and turnover has a negative impact on productivity. Employee who absents frequently cannot contribute towards productivity and growth of the organization. In the same manner, employee turnover causes increased cost of production. Job satisfaction is a major factor to analyse performance of an individual towards his work. Satisfied workers are productive workers who contribute towards building an appropriate work culture in an organization. Organizations are composed of number of individuals working independently or collectively in teams, and number of such teams makes a department and number of such departments make an organization. It is a formal structure and all departments have to function in a coordinated manner to achieve the organizational objective. It is therefore important for all employees to possess a positive attitude towards work. They need to function in congenial atmosphere and accomplish assigned goals. It is also important for managers to develop an appropriate work culture. Use of authority, delegation of certain powers to subordinates, division of labour, efficient communication, benchmarking, re-engineering, job re-design and empowerment are some of the important factors so that an organization can function as well-oiled machine. This is not only applicable to manufacturing organizations but also to service and social organizations. Managers need to develop their interpersonal or people skills if they are going to be effective in their jobs. Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization, then applies that knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. Specifically, OB focuses on how to improve productivity, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and increase employee citizenship and job satisfaction. We all hold generalizations about the behavior of people. Some of our generalizations may provide valid insights into human behavior, but many are erroneous. Organizational behavior uses systematic study to improve predictions of behavior that would be made from intuition alone. Yet, because people are different, we need to look at OB in a contingency framework, using situational variables to moderate cause-effect relationships. Organizational behavior offers both challenges and opportunities for managers. It recognizes differences and helps managers to see the value of workforce diversity and practices that may need to be changed when managing in different countries. It can help improve quality and employee productivity by showing managers how to empower their people as well as how to design and implement change programs. It offers specific insights to improve a managers people skills. In times of rapid and ongoing change, faced by most managers today, OB can help managers cope in a world of temporariness and learn ways to stimulate innovation. Finally, OB can offer managers guidance in creating an ethically healthy work climate.

Definition: Organizational Behavior: OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organizations effectiveness. Organizational behavior is a field of study. 1. OB studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. 2. OB applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to make organizations work more effectively. 3. OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how that behavior affects the performance of the organization. 4. There is increasing agreement as to the components of OB, but there is still considerable debate as to the relative importance of each: motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and work stress.

Contributing Discipline to Organisational Behaviour

Organizational behaviour is an applied behavioural science that is built upon contributions from a number of behavioural disciplines. The predominant areas are psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science Psychology - Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behaviour of humans and other animals. - To use psychological and organizational theory and research to improve organizational effectiveness and the work life of all individuals. - Psychologists concern themselves with studying and attempting to understand individual behaviour - learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making process, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee selection techniques, work design and job stress. Sociology - Sociologists study the social system in which individuals fill their roles - Sociology studies people in relation to their fellow human beings to improve organizational performance. - Study of group behaviour in organisations, group dynamics, design of work teams, organisational culture, formal organisational theory and structure, organisational technology, communications, power and conflict. Social psychology - An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another. - Major area: change how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance

- Study areas: measuring, understanding and changing attitudes, communication patters, building trust, the ways in which group activities can satisfy individual needs, group decision-making processes. Anthropology - The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. - Study on culture and environment has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behaviour between people in different countries and within different organisations. Political science - The study of the behaviour of individuals and groups within a political environment - Study areas: structuring of conflicts, allocations of power, how people manipulate power for individual self-interest

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

There are many challenges and opportunities today for managers to use OB concepts.

A. Responding to Globalization
1. Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders. 2. Globalization affects a managers people skills in at least two ways. First, if you are a manager, you are increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign assignment. Second, even in your own country, you are going to find yourself working with bosses, peers, and other employees who were born and raised in different cultures.

B. Managing Workforce Diversity

1. Workforce diversity is one of the most important and broad-based challenges currently facing organizations. 2. While globalization focuses on differences between people from different countries, workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries. 3. Workforce diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. It is an issue in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan, and Europe as well as the United States. 4. A melting-pot approach assumed people who were different would automatically assimilate. 5. Employees do n ot set aside their cultural values and lifestyle preferences when they come to work. 6. The melting pot assumption is replaced by one that recognizes and values differences. 7. Members of diverse groups were a small percentage of the workforce and were, for the most part, ignored by large organizations (pe-1980s); now: 47 percent of the U.S. labor force are women Minorities and immigrants make up 23 percent More workers than ever are unmarried with no children.

8. Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice. Shift to recognizing differences and responding to those differences Providing diversity training and revamping benefit programs to accommodate the different needs of employees

C. Improving Quality and Productivity

1. Total quality management (TQM) is a philosophy of management that is driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes. 2. Implementing quality programs requires extensive employee involvement (Exhibit 1-4). 3. Process reengineering asks the question: How would we do things around here if we were starting over from scratch? Every process is evaluated in terms of contribution to goals Rather than make incremental changes, often old systems are eliminated entirely and replaced with new systems

4. To improve productivity and quality, managers must include employees.

D. Responding to the Labor Shortage

1. If trends continue as expected, the U.S. will have a labor shortage for the next 10-15 years (particularly in skilled positions). 2. The labor shortage is a function of low birth rates and labor participation rates (immigration does little to solve the problem). 3. Wages and benefits are not enough to keep talented workers. Managers must understand human behavior and respond accordingly.

E. Improving Customer Service and People Skills

1. The majority of employees in developed countries work in service jobsjobs that require substantive interaction with the firms customers. For example, 80 percent of U.S. workers are employed in service industries. 2. Employee attitudes and behavior are directly related to customer satisfaction requiring management to create a customer responsive culture. 3. People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness. 4. OB provides the concepts and theories that allow managers to predict employee behavior in given situations.

F. Empowering People
1. Today managers are being called coaches, advisers, sponsors, or facilitators, and in many organizations, employees are now called associates. 2. There is a blurring between the roles of managers and workers; decision making is being pushed down to the operating level, where workers are being given the freedom to make choices about schedules and procedures and to solve work-related problems. 3. Managers are empowering employees. They are putting employees in charge of what they do. Managers have to learn how to give up control. Employees have to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decisions.

G. Coping with Temporariness

1. Managers have always been concerned with change: What is different today is the length of time between changes Change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of continuous improvement, for instance, implies constant change In the past, managing could be characterized by long periods of stability, interrupted occasionally by short periods of change. Today, long periods of ongoing change are interrupted occasionally by short periods of stability!

2. Permanent temporariness: Both managers and employees must learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability The jobs that workers perform are in a permanent state of flux, so workers need to continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements.

3. Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux. Predictability has been replaced by temporary work groups, teams that include members from different departments and whose members change all the time, and the increased use of employee rotation to fill constantly changing work assignments.

4. Organizations themselves are in a state of flux. They reorganize their various divisions, sell off poor-performing businesses, downsize operations, subcontract non-critical services and operations to other organizations, and replace permanent employees with temporaries.

H. Stimulating Innovation and Change

1. Successful organizations must foster innovation and the art of change. 2. Companies that maintain flexibility, continually improve quality, and beat their competition to the marketplace with innovative products and services will be tomorrows winners. 3. Employees are critical to an organizations ability to change and innovate.

I. Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts

1. The creation of the global workforce means work no longer sleeps. Workers are on-call 24-hours a day or working non-traditional shifts. 2. Communication technology has provided a vehicle for working at any time or any place. 3. Employees are working longer hours per weekfrom 43 to 47 hours per week since 1977. 4. The lifestyles of families have changes creating conflict: more dual career couples and single parents find it hard to fulfill commitments to home, children, spouse, parents, and friends. 5. Employees want jobs that allow flexibility and provide time for a life.

J. Improving Ethical Behavior

1. In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing worker productivity, and tough competition, many employees feel pressured to engage in questionable practices. 2. Members of organizations are increasingly finding themselves facing ethical dilemmas in which they are required to define right and wrong conduct. 3. Examples of decisions employees might have to make are:

Blowing the whistle on illegal activities Following orders with which they do not personally agree Possibly giving inflated performance evaluations that could save an employees job Playing politics to help with career advancement, etc.

4. Organizations are responding to this issue by: Writing and distributing codes of ethics Providing in-house advisors Creating protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal unethical practices

5. Managers need to create an ethically healthy environment for employees where they confront a minimal degree of ambiguity regarding right or wrong behaviors.

K. Job satisfaction
1. Job satisfaction is the difference between the amount of rewards workers receive and the amount they believe they should receive. 2. Unlike the previous three variables, job satisfaction represents an attitude rather than a behavior. 3. It became a primary dependent variable for two reasons: Demonstrated relationship to performance factors The value preferences held by many OB researchers

4. Managers have believed for years that satisfied employees are more productive, however: Much evidence questions that assumed causal relationship It can be argued that advanced societies should be concerned not just with the quantity of life, but also with the quality of life Ethically, organizations have a responsibility to provide employees with jobs that are challenging and intrinsically rewarding.

L. Turnover
1. Turnover is the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization. 2. A high turnover rate results in increased recruiting, selection, and training costs; costs estimated at about $15,000 per employee. 3. All organizations have some turnover and the right people leavingunder-performing employees thereby creating opportunity for promotions, and adding new/fresh ideas, and replacing marginal employees with higher skilled workers. 4. Turnover often involves the loss of people the organization does not want to lose.

M. Absenteeism
1. Absenteeism is the failure to report to work. 2. Estimated annual costover $40 billion for U.S. organizations; $12 billion for Canadian firms; more than 60 billion Deutsch Marks (U.S. $35.5 billion) each year in Germany 3. A one-day absence by a clerical worker can cost a U.S. employer up to $100 in reduced efficiency and increased supervisory workload. 4. The workflow is disrupted and often important decisions must be delayed. 5. All absences are not bad. For instance, illness, fatigue, or excess stress can decrease an employees productivityit may well be better to not report to work rather than perform poorly.

POINT-COUNTERPOINT Successful Organizations Put People First

Point Microsoft, Motorola, W.L. Gores & Associates, Southwest Airlines, Ben & Jerrys Homemade, HewlettPackard, Lincoln Electric, and Starbucks pursue people-first strategies. Evidence suggests that successful organizations put people first. Employees are a companys only true competitive advantage. Competitors can match most organizations products, processes, locations, distribution channels, and the like. What practices differentiate people-first organizations? 1) Cultural diversity; 2) Family-friendly; 3) Investing in employee training; 4) Empowering their employees. In turn, this converts into higher employee productivity and satisfaction. These employees are willing to put forth the extra effort to do whatever is necessary to see that their jobs are done properly and completely. People-first strategies also lead to organizations being able to recruit smarter, more conscientious, and more loyal employees. Counter Point Putting people first is easy to say. Putting people first is not necessarily consistent with long-term competitiveness. Organizations are more typically pursuing a labor-cost minimization strategy rather than a people-first strategy. As a result, most business firms place profits over people. 1) Cost-cutting measures; 2) Reengineering processes; 3) Substituting temporary workers for full-time permanent staff. Organizations with problems typically look to staffing cuts as a first response. Few organizations have the luxury to be able to provide workers with anything more than minimal job security. Employees are a variable cost. The labor-cost-minimization strategy appears to be spreading worldwide. It began in the United States, spread to Japan, South Korea, and Thailandplaces that historically protected their employees in good times and badbecause people-first policies are inconsistent with aggressive, low-cost, global competition.

Conclusion
Organizational behavior (abbreviated OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organizations effectiveness. As managers accomplish their work through others, OB provides the tools for guiding the productivity of others, predicting human behavior at work and the perspectives needed to manage individuals from diverse backgrounds. An organization is productive if it achieves its goals (effective) and does so by transferring inputs to outputs at the lowest cost (efficiency). As such, productivity implies a concern for both effectiveness and efficiency. Hospital exampleeffective when it successfully meets the needs of its clientele. It is efficient when it can do so at a low cost. Business firm exampleeffective when it attains its sales or market share goals, but its productivity also depends on achieving those goals efficiently. Achieving productivity through effectiveness and efficiency involves all three levels of an organization, the individual, the group, and the organizational system. OB provides the tools, insights, and ability to predict outcomes needed to balance these two elements.