Organizational Behavior: Theories and Current Developments

This essay provides an in-depth insight into organizational behavior, its theories, and current developments. It discusses the effectiveness of relying on stereotypes than entering into a relationship with someone from another culture without the idea of their belief. The essay also highlights the merits and problems of the stated statement.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational Behavior
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
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.
Discussion:
Organizational Behavior in Organizational Setting
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

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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.
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

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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.
Discussion of the Problem Situations
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:

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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.
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.
Merits of the Problem
Proactive Managerial Intervention
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

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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.
Current Developments in Organizational Behaviour
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

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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.

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