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Application Write-up # 1
[Name of the Writer]
[Name of the Institution]
Application Write-up # 1
Organizational behavior is a very important and integral part of Human Resource practices. The concept of Organizational behavior is not narrow and much of the work has been done on it since the past many years. Scholars and experts have been working on the various aspects of this field and constantly trying to improve organizational practices. One of the proofs of such efforts is an article published in the New York Times by the title “Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?” (Griffith, 2019). The article has been intelligently penned down by famous expert and researcher in Human Resource area Erin Griffith.
Definitions of OB are many. However, three features need to be emphasized in any definition:
OB is the study of human behavior
The studies about behavior in organizations
Knowledge about human behavior would be useful in improving organization effectiveness
Combining the above three features, OB may be understood to be the study of human behavior in organizational settings, of the interface between human behavior and the organization and of the organization itself. Knowledge gained from such a study is useful in improving organizational effectiveness. OB is the study of what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations. It looks at employee behavior, decisions, perceptions, and emotional responses. It examines how individuals and teams in organizations relate to each other and to their counterparts in other organizations. OB also encompasses the study of how organizations interact with their external environments, particularly in the context of employee behavior and decisions. OB researchers systematically study these topics at multiple levels of analysis, namely, the individual, team (including interpersonal), and organization.
The biggest issue is that we are still clinging to old irrelevant structures that make any kind of change very painful. We are still running our behavior on carrot or stick schemes, using an old model of mission and vision that is as useless as it is uninspiring. Worse of all, we still make the awful strategic plans that last 3, 4, 5 or even 10 years. In this changing world we have no idea what is going to happen in the next 6 months, how can we plan for 10 years? So changing the base structures of our organizations, from hierarchical power-based models, into more adaptable, learning and purpose-oriented systems, would be the biggest challenge we must face in order to nudge behavior in the right direction.
By “emerging issues in organizational behavior” It can also be assumed that “How can we design to deal with these issues”. The emerging issue that is most prominent is related to the issues of a human being in a ‘purpose-driven” organization. These “emerging issues” are really the issues that have been with us since the industrial age. Neither human nature nor organization structures have changed much. Human beings fundamentally value the same things. Organizations fundamentally ignore these things. The great question is, “Why is this so little changed after a century or two?”
One big factor is the rigid hierarchies based in command and control that are intended to control results are not a match for independently thinking and choosing human beings. The dissonance is huge. This is so because there has been no other way to coordinate action to produce results when success and financial resources combine to grow organizations beyond a human scale. This history is the basis of all inherited organizational structure and design. However, the possibility of new organizational design based in recognition of the nature of human cooperative action and technological breakthroughs in information and communication structures is upon us.
The old basis won’t survive long. But merely throwing it out or rebelling will fail just as miserably. We need to bring the technologies and traditional human social values together in new ways to enrich human productive experience and to gain energy and power of individuals working together for common ends. Most of the jobs of this century have not been invented. We have already witnessed a significant shift in the types of employees engaged in a company. They are better educated and have less experience than their parents. Those differences lead to different trends that OB practitioners and researchers will want to understand.
Certainly, OB is obsessed with the mindset of different generations. Much has been written about this but very little accomplishment can be seen in the workplace using the impressive findings. Pairing organizational strengths and weaknesses for expanded knowledge is a no-brainer. Knowledge Management and Learning Organizations are still very hot topics and will continue to be since the pace of change is continuous today. It is extremely interesting how consumerism will play out among the Millennials. Tiny homes, electric cars, ride share, public transport demand, simple living, renting for mobility…..these trends all have huge consequences for businesses around the globe. There is a great number of Millennials who have mastered good clinical educations and travel in their occupations, making a boatload of money in their youth. No family or kids, they spend half the year traveling. They invest in real estate but live in rentals to make leaving easier.
Some of the major reasons for behavioral issues in an organization lies with the Management itself. One major factor is the lack of coherence in the objectives of various teams of the organization. The conflicts arising out of this between teams lead’s behavioral issues. Secondly the hygiene factors of the organization if not addressed adequately. Some of the hygiene factors are:
Pay
Quality of supervision
Company rules
Physical working conditions
Co-worker relationships
Job security
If these are not adequately addressed causes dissatisfaction among employees and causes distrust, inadequate co-operation with peers, etc. Thirdly the individual's mindset depending on his background and his mental baggage causes behavioral issues with his peers and maybe bosses even. These may be hiding information, inadequate cooperation with peers, one-upmanship, etc. This affects team performance.
The article also points out that one of the main reasons there are organizational behavior issues is partly due to the socialization process or lack of one depending on the organization. The process of socialization can be described as the learning and adjustment process that allows an employee to create a role in the organization that both fits organizational and personal needs. The process involves learning the organizational culture and values of the organization as well as acquiring the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors that are acceptable within the organization. So because the organizational behaviors have already been established, the problem lies in passing those behavioral norms to each new employee.
According to the article, one of the other main issues is out-ethics on top of the company, which may spread out until the last worker at the bottom. The result you see when the company has to pay fines in million and billion dollars. If a co-worker is inflow oriented, that means, he is only on a big salary interested, then he is not a wrathful co-worker. The contrary is an outflow oriented co-worker. Command-and-control is a walking corpse that hasn’t realized it’s dead yet. There are many reasons for this, & Dee Hock lays them out in his “Birth of the Chaordic Age” far better than I can. However, there is one absolutely foundational issue which renders c-&-c impossible. One of the premises of c-&-c is the ability to control the flow of information. Our technology has rendered that impossible. When anyone within an organization (or outside of it, for that matter) who has the time, inclination, knowledge, & computing power can gain access to any information that exists anywhere in the organization, then it becomes impossible to make c-&-c work.
References
Griffith, E. (2019). Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/business/against-hustle-culture-rise-and-grind-tgim.html [Accessed 27 Sep. 2019].
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