Organizational Behavior: Merits and Demerits of Stereotyping in an Organizational Setting

This article discusses the merits and demerits of stereotyping in an organizational setting. It also explores the theories of management that can be applied in an organizational setting.

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Organizational behavior
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Organizational behavior
Stereotype means a permanent idea of something or someone. Sometimes it's better to
believe in stereotype than to enter into a relationship with someone without knowing their
culture, ethics or even beliefs. Stereotyping people sometimes is good because this is what can
be seen in a person on the first look. The Assumptions made about something or someone as
being good and getting into contact with them is wrong since it can lead to diverse challenges.
There are some merits which support the idea of relying on stereotype instead of getting into a
relationship with someone without knowing their culture (Pinder, 2014). The various problems
that affect the same stereotype are discussed in this essay.
There are merits of stereotyping which can be useful to someone especially when one is
in a new environment. For example, if someone gets married or visits a royal family, some of the
assumption made is that the family always acts formally. This stereotyping helps one to respond
with manners and be respectful whenever interacting with them (Miner, 2015). The second merit
of stereotyping in a relationship is that it can help one to understand the culture and the ethics
promptly. Stereotyping also helps to simplify our environments because it helps one to
understand different people and define the category they belong. Thus, making it easy to
understand and live with people. Stereotyping can also help in reducing conflict levels in
circumstances where one relies on it to make correct assumptions about the people’s character
and beliefs.
Nevertheless, stereotyping also has its dark side. Various challenges are associated with
stereotyping. Notably, stereotyping can be misguiding or sometimes end up being completely
incorrect leading to an adverse judgment on someone. Going by the proverbial saying that does
not judge a book by its cover since the outer look can deceive the reader about the content of the
book. Stereotyping in connection to the proverb may lead to misjudgments of the people. This
could negatively influence the relationship among the people developing into a broken society.
Judging someone because of their culture or the ethics which they subscribe can be wrong at
times because that does not necessarily mean that they believe in what their culture is perceived
to believe (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008). A good illustration is a scenario where a given
community has a cultural belief that the community should not take a specific type of food.
Additionally, one should not listen to a particular kind of music; it would be misleading to

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conclude that all the members of that community do not take the prohibited kind of food or say
assume that all the community members do not listen to the culturally banned music. The
appearance of someone or something does not depict their actual character since the person can
be completely different from what they look.
Organization behavior is the study of human behavior in organization settings which can
be used positively to bring diverse people together and interact peacefully and live happily
without judging others wrongly. There are theories of organizations that can be applied in the
organizational setting. There are classical theories of management, neo-classical management
theory and modern theories of management systems. The classical theory of management was
founded by three people. Fredrick Taylor came up with scientific management theory, Henry
Fayol came up with organizational principles, and max weber came up with bureaucracy theory
(Hellriegel, 2010). The Scientific management theory states that there should be a scientific
selection of the worker where every employee should be employed considering to his/her
qualifications. It further notes that Labor and management in the institution should be utilized
effectively by training and developing the employees to be in a position to handle all the tasks in
an organization (Titrek et al., 2014). The scientific management theory closes the loopholes of
introducing stereotype in the selection and distribution of duties in an organization. The scientific
employment virtues are applied across the board without any form of discrimination.
The administrative theory outlines the various principles of management like planning
where it was identified which work will be done and who will do it. The principle of staffing
gives the recruitment procedure in the organization. Organizing principle is where specific tasks
are assigned to a specific employee and also the allocation of working positions or duty stations.
The Controlling principle outlines the goals of the standards and ensures that the goals are
achieved (Pinder, 2014). The bureaucracy theory is applicable in an organizational setting in that
it encourages specialization where each person concentrates on areas where one can be the best.
It also advocates for democracy where every member of the organization has the right to an
opinion. It is through Bureaucracy where rationality is promoted to allow general and definite
criteria for decision making.
The neoclassical theory denotes the behavior of people either individually or in groups.
Neoclassical theory can be applied in the organizational setting as it exhibits the workgroup,

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individual and management participatory. This can help the employees to work in a group or
individually, and the work will be done in an efficient way (Hellriegel, 2010). Neoclassical
theories help to meet emotional needs of people, showing consideration to employees and
satisfying their social needs. The Modern theory is relevant to organizational setting because it
advocates for the assimilation of changes that occur with time in an organization and around its
environment (Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2014). The modern theory mainly majors on the
people's contribution to the organization either through technological innovation or
environmental conservation.
All these theories are geared towards helping people to work together, cooperate and be
able to socialize with each other without any form of stereotypic discrimination. Work is divided
among employees into what one is best. Workers are trained and can adapt to changes affecting
the organization and be able to adapt to those changes (Eder & Eisenberger, 2008). Stereotyping
in an organization has both merits and demerits. Through stereotyping, the manager can be able
to identify those employees who may not be performing as per the organization’s requirements.
Organizational behavior helps to learn about people and their behavior thus making it very easy
to work with them.
As organizations continue to grow and diversify, the challenges tend to intensify leading
to low productivity. A good illustration can be demonstrated in circumstances where there is an
employee- employee conflict or a conflict between an employee and a manager. These have
always led to poor performance and hence low productivity (Greenberg, 2012). The challenge of
team disagreement has been evident in many organization where a team fails to meet their set
targets due to a disagreement among the team members. Managers and concerned leaders should
always intervene and create a fair approach to resolving the issues before they escalate into
uncontrollable levels.
The inherent organizational challenges hurt its environment. The organization
management has a vital role to intervene and resolve the various work-related issues before
matters get out of the hand. This would also have a direct impact on its environment as the shock
of the disputes and conflicts will not be felt (McShane & Von Glinow, 2013). The intervening
parties, the managers, ought to identify the cause of the problem and carry out an assessment to
determine whether the dispute has had an impact on the environment. The managers (intervening

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parties) should consider applying the various dispute resolution mechanism including but not
limited to brainstorming where the employees are invited to present their preferred alternatives.
The best option is adopted and then implemented.
Cultural, ethical and social concerns should be considered when making decisions. There
are certain cultural activities or beliefs which cannot be changed and thus any attempt to interfere
with them would eventually be rejected (Luthans et al., 2015). Every Organization has its
culture. Every employee must respect the organizational culture which is in congruence with the
social culture. There should be no conflict between the organizational culture and the social
culture. Ethics being norms of a society or an organization should also be considered when
making a decision (Coldwell & Callaghan, 2013). These are the morals that govern a person’s
behavior. The process of decision making should be in a way that does not affect the social life
of the people.
There are emerging current developments in the organization behavior where analytic
tools are formed. Factor analysis and Principle component analysis are helping in measuring the
defined behavior parameters. This helps in knowing know the qualitative measure of the subject.
Another trend that can be noted is globalization. The organization’s activities are operationalized
globally. People from different continents can interact without having to move to the location of
the organization (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). The adoption of the emerging trend of business
process outsourcing has been triggered by the challenge of meeting each customer need.
Business process outsourcing creates a good working environment for people and also the
flexibility of lifestyle perks. Business process outsourcing attracts young people with skills and
high level of education.
The aspect of stereotyping has not been effective in most organizations despite the fact
that it has some positive contributions. This is evident when one gets into a relationship with
someone from another community without knowing their beliefs. The primary challenge of
stereotyping is that one can misjudge another person through making wrong assumptions through
stereotyping (Olguín et al., 2009). Organizational behavior has become such an essential
concept to people and organizations because it helps them to work together even though they are
from different cultures. With specialization and division of labor, it’s sporadic to get people
being discriminated in their work as opposed to the application of stereotypes. An organization

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which adopts organizational behavior setting as outlined in the various supportive theories tends
to realize high production since there are minimal disputes and conflicts. This is because
organization behavior promotes cooperation and strengthens the bonding relationship between
the employees and the employers.

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