Classical Organization Theory

Discuss about the Organizational Behavior for Journal of Production Research.

The essay put forwards an in depth insight into the organizational behavior that helps in understanding why it is effective for relying on stereotypes than entering into relationship with someone from other culture without  the idea of what they believe in. Organizational behavior represents the scientific study of the performance of the organization based on the analysis of individual human behavior or the groups while decision making (Wilson, 2018). It primarily focuses on the impact of the groups, individuals and structures of the human behavior within organizations.  Application of the organizational behavior is ensured for creating efficiency in the business organizations and in changing the internal and the external environments. The essay therefore focuses on the various organizational theories along with the merits and problems of the stated statement.

The beginning point of understanding the effectiveness of organization remains in classical organization theory. The theory represents a combination of scientific management theory, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory.  During the year 1917, Frederick Taylor led to the development of the scientific management theory based on four principles. This included the possible ways for performing each of the tasks carefully matching each of the workers to the task, closely supervising the workers and using the rewards and punishment as the motivators and ensuring that task management is nothing but control and planning (Andersson, Jackson & Russell, 2013). Frederick Taylor initially gained success in improving the production process. He ensured in driving the best people and equipment and then scrutinizing each of the component of production process. Through individual analysis of each of the task, Frederick Taylor found the right combinations of the factors that resulted in huge increase in the production. Although the Scientific Management Theory put forward by Frederick Taylor proved to be successful in the simplistic industrialized companies but was not much applicable in the modern companies (Carter et al., 2013)

In the year 1947, Max Weber tried to expand the theory put forward by Taylor by stressing on the need for reducing the ambiguity and diversity of the organizations. His focus remained in establishing the clear lines of the authority and control. This gave rise to the Bureaucratic Theory that stressed on the requirement of hierarchical structure in matters related to power. This theory helped in recognizing the importance of division of labor and their specialization (Carpenter, Berry & Houston, 2014). There was a set of formal rules tied to the structure of hierarchy for ensuring uniformity and stability. Max Web also tried to establish that organizational behavior represented a network of the human interactions where behavior represented by the effect and the cause.  Mooney and Reiley implemented the Administrative Theory also known as the principles of the management in the year 1930 (Aithal & Kumar, 2016). Here, the emphasis laid on the establishment of the management principles as a universal set and applied to all the organizations. Thus, the classical theory was mechanistic and its key deficiency was in the attempt of explaining the motivation of the people to work as the function of the economic reward.

Bureaucratic Theory and Administrative Theory

The organizational behavior is determined by the Neoclassical Organization Theory that ensures display of genuine concern for the needs of human (Yang, Liu & Wang, 2013). In the later part of 1920, Mayo and Roethlisberger found while experimenting on an electric plant in Hawthorne that change has a positive impact on the productivity. The manner of paying necessary attention to the employees in a nonthreatening and friendly manner was self sufficient in increasing the output.

However, the Contingency Theory of organizational behavior considered conflict as manageable but inescapable. Based on the studies on four large corporations of the United States it was proposed that an organization evolves naturally for meeting the strategic needs (Grotsch, Blome & Schleper, 2013). The implicit ideas in the theory remained in the fact that organizations would act in a linear, sequential and rational manner for adapting to the changes in environment. This theory indicated effectiveness as the ability of the manager in adapting to the environmental changes. As per the theory, in a highly volatile industry it was important to ensure authority to all the managers for undertaking decisions related to the domain. Here the managers would remain free to undertake decisions on current situation. 

In the year 1928, Ludwig Von Bertalanffy proposed the Systems Theory of organizational behavior (Altman, Valenzi & Hodgetts, 2013). The foundation of the system theory portrays that there is interrelation between all components of a particular organization so that the change in a single variable may have an impact on the others. This theory views organizations as an open system that continually interacts with the environment. They therefore remain in a dynamic equilibrium state for adapting to the environmental changes.

Entering into relationship with someone from another culture without the idea of their belief leads to the amplification of the issues related to the workplace. Therefore, an organization under such situation goes through different kinds of problem situation as follows:

Issues Related to the Employees: Employees from diverse culture often faces issues with not only the company structure but also the supervisor. There might also be cases of personal conflict and personal trauma (Miner, 2015). Therefore, it is necessary for the management to know the problem and the reason for the trigger of such issues. There might be situations of unclear communication about a chain of commands that might lead to employee issues as they might consider it a liability for answering to multiple supervisors.

Neoclassical Organization Theory

Problems Related to the Team: There might be personal disconnection amongst the team members who belong from a diverse culture that might lead to a team becoming non-functional. This might be to either management breakdown or lack of organizational communication that leads to the confusion of the team and the common goals. It is necessary for the managers to identify the problem and undertake necessary actions for avoidance of performance breakdown.

Problems Related to the Organization: The dissatisfaction amongst the employees might have a negative influence on corporate culture. The management should ensure avoidance of such situation through more dramatic and corrective actions (McShane & Von, 2013). There should be implementation of measures to avoid any negative influence and act as high performance entity.

The problem leads to proactive managerial interventions that lead to the improvement in every aspect of business starting from the marketing to employee relations. Such managers ensure successful execution of the project and will ensure careful analysis of the situation for determining major risks and thereby taking the required steps for minimizing the potentiality of the damage (Gotsis & Kortezi, 2013). Hence, a proactive manager helps in decreasing the likelihood of future problems within an organization and thereby minimizing the negative impacts. Proactive managers who are confident and optimistic also ensure inspiring the employees. For example, a sales manager who is encouraging as well as enthusiastic with the representatives of the sales team helps in stimulating the development of a similar behaviour amongst his staffs. This will lead to enhanced customer sales and confidence. Proactive managers also have a better understanding of the employee empowerment. They believe that the development of the employee skills will not only help in ensuring future capabilities but also enhances the strength of the entire organization. In contrast to this, reactive managers wait until there is an arousal of a need for focusing on the employee education and training.

According to Aithal and Kumar (2016), the problem in the 21st century focuses more on the performance management of the people. People represent one of the most important organizational resources that are also very difficult to manage. This is because human beings possess the most unpredictable nature and the act of the same person varies as per the different situations. In addition to this, they also have to face the complexity of the forces within the organizational environment. Thus, man management is a vital task for an organization and considered one of the current developments in the perspective of organizational behaviour (Burnes & Cooke, 2012). There are some theories that help in better adoption of the employee performance. These theories include the Theory of Need Hierarchy by Maslow, Incentive Theory and Two Factor Theory by Herzberg. The Maslow’s theory helps in understanding the needs of the humans and their prioritization based on a hierarchical form. The theory also states that fulfilment of need is taken care through organizational efficiency. The Incentive Theory put forward that action is followed by reward and timely and adequate reward is achieved through desired behaviour. On the other hand, the Two Factor Theory by Herzberg helps in understanding that job satisfaction as well its dissatisfaction acts independent of each other. This theory also helps in understanding the difference between the motivator and the hygiene factors. The motivator refers to the satisfaction, achievement, recognition and personal advancement while the hygiene factors refers  to those that creates dissatisfaction and  is  related to job security, fringe benefits, salary and working conditions. Understanding the various factors and implementing them effectively would result in a productive organizational environment.

Conclusion:

To conclude, one can say that organizational behavior has certain major goals which include systematic description of people’s behavior under various circumstances. It also involves understanding why people choose to behave in a particular manner and at the same time predict the future behavior of the employees. The essence of organizational behavior lies in partial control and development of certain human activity along with knowing the ways of motivating the employees for enhancing the group performance for boosting the organizational productivity.

References:

Aithal, P. S., & Kumar, P. M. (2016). Organizational Behaviour in 21st Century–’Theory A’for Managing People for Performance.

Altman, S., Valenzi, E., & Hodgetts, R. M. (2013). Organizational behavior: Theory and practice. Elsevier.

Andersson, L., Jackson, S. E., & Russell, S. V. (2013). Greening organizational behavior: An introduction to the special issue. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(2), 151-155.

Burnes, B., & Cooke, B. (2012). The past, present and future of organization development: Taking the long view. Human Relations, 65(11), 1395-1429.

Carpenter, N. C., Berry, C. M., & Houston, L. (2014). A meta?analytic comparison of self?reported and other?reported organizational citizenship behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(4), 547-574.

Carter, M. Z., Armenakis, A. A., Feild, H. S., & Mossholder, K. W. (2013). Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), 942-958.

Gotsis, G., & Kortezi, Z. (2013). Ethical paradigms as potential foundations of diversity management initiatives in business organizations. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26(6), 948-976.

Grötsch, V. M., Blome, C., & Schleper, M. C. (2013). Antecedents of proactive supply chain risk management–a contingency theory perspective. International Journal of Production Research, 51(10), 2842-2867.

McShane, S., & Von Glinow, M. (2013). M Organizational Behavior. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge.

Wilson, F. M. (2018). Organizational behaviour and work: a critical introduction. Oxford University Press.

Yang, C. X., Liu, H. M., & Wang, X. X. (2013). Organization theories: from classical to modern. Journal of Applied Sciences, 13(21), 4470-4476.