Organizational behavior deals with the application of scientific methods to the solution of practical managerial problems. This involves analysis at three different levels: individuals, groups, and organizations. Organizational behavior includes organizational theory, motivation, and satisfaction, communication and participation, teamwork, culture, and socialization. Hence, it is connected in-depth with major disciplines such as psychology, sociology, social psychology, and anthropology.
Psychology and OB
Cognitive psychology is a subject that includes many of the classic topics of sensation, perception, learning, and memory. When cognitive constructs are addressed within the field of organizational behavior, they are treated in two possible ways. The first begins with the cognitive theory and links it with an organizational issue. Klein’s (1989) control theory of work motivation is an example in this context. Working from classical control theory models, Klein added variables and reinterpreted behavioral theory related to control mechanisms in ways that fit organizational phenomena (Pfeffer, 1997). The resultant Klein’s case-control theory has an organizational twist. The second approach is when cognitive processes are used as explanatory constructs for understanding the organizational issue of interest. This is seen in modern methods of performance appraisal (Greenberg, 1994). This work begins with the organizational phenomenon of appraising other individuals in a formal appraisal system and introduces cognitive variables likely to influence the rater’s ability to observe, remember, recall, and record the performance of other individuals (Ilgen, Barnes-Farrell, & McKellin, 1993).
Social cognition theory (Wyer & Srull, 1986) holds that “a person’s expectations, beliefs, self-perceptions, goals, and intentions give shape and direction to behavior”. The social-cognitive theory is used to understand various organizational phenomena such as goal-setting, discrimination in the workplace, and performance. Weiner’s attribution theory (1974) proposes that individuals evaluate the performance of others and themselves not only based on performance level (high or low) but also the evaluators’ beliefs about the causes of performance. The attribution theory has played a major role in the OB literature. Cognitive theories such as Vroom’s (1964) expectancy theory, goal setting theory of Locke and Latham (1990), Maslow’s hierarchical theory of motivation have played a huge role in developing motivational strategies in the realm of organizational behavior.
Sociology and OB
The study of organizations was at one time a central focus of the discipline of sociology. Many of the central figures in sociological theory such as Weber, Marx, and Durkheim studied bureaucracy, the employment relationship, and the division of labor, and the basis of solidarity. According to Marx, organizational members become cogs in the machine owned and controlled by outsiders – capitalists (Farazmand, 2002). To Weber, the more developed and industrialized the society, the greater the degree and extent of bureaucratization it will experience. The most efficient type of modern organization for policy implementation as well as the most effective instrument of administrative and political control is his ideal-type bureaucracy where there is a clear line of hierarchy and chain-of-command system, division of labor and increasing degrees of functional specialization, formal rules governing the internal operations, formal and task-oriented communication, merit-based recruitment and promotion, and maintenance of files and records for future administrative action (Farazmand, 2002).
Sociology analyses organizations in the first line from an institutional perspective. According to the systems theory of organizations, organizations are social systems that receive inputs from outside environments, transform them into outputs, and return them to society. Thus, environment, change, adaptability, and purposive goals are some of the key features of the systems theory of organization. Sociology allows the organization to be perceived as a part of the bigger societal system including governmental, political, social, economic systems within which it operates and also sociology allows the perception of an organization as a whole system. Like all social systems, organizations are in constant search of equilibrium and stability, for environmental changes may be rapid and adaptability is essential for survival; therefore, they have a concern and desire for system maintenance and system enhancement. Here, to some theorists such as Katz and Kahn (1966, 1978), the environment determines organizational structure and actions, while others like Thompson (1967) argue in favor of strategies that organizations should use to influence and change their environments to suit their goals. Some typical features of the sociological ‘touch’ in the organizational analysis are the view that organizations are recalcitrant tools; the view that organizations form part and parcel of society; the interest in cultural aspects and cultural determinants of organizational forms and processes, and problem orientation as a specific ethos (Lammers, 1981). Organizational Behavior includes many theories based on sociology and these include the systems theory; contingency theory; market and transaction-cost theories; agency theory; informal theories; organizational humanism theories; population-ecology theory; critical and interpretive theories; Marxist theory and Marx’s alienation theory; Habermas’ neo-Marxist theory; and non-Marxist theories of natural selection, integrative, and non-hierarchical models (Farazmand, 2002).
Social Psychology
Social psychology is a special science resting directly upon psychology and sociology. It deals with knowledge of human institutional and cultural development as well as with the knowledge about individual psychology. Social psychology contributes to the study of micro-organizational behavior (Katz and Kahn, 1966). Traditional organizational theories have tended to view the human organization as a closed system. In social psychology, organizations are considered to be a special class of open systems with properties of their own, and sharing other properties in common with all open systems. Thus organizations are open systems that can transform energy from the environment, transform the imported energy into some product form which is characteristic of the system and export that product into the environment, and the reenergizing of the system from sources in the environment. One of the most important social psychological tendencies in organizations is the maximization principle, which reflects organizational efforts at growth, insured survival, and environmental control. This tendency solves at least temporarily many problems of internal strain and external threat (Katz and Kahn, 1966). In the light of social psychology, human organizations are informational as well as energic systems, and both the exchange of energy and the exchange of information must be considered to understand the functioning of organizations. Social psychology perceives social systems as restricted communication networks. Thus, social psychology contributes to the study of organizational behavior.
Anthropology
Ethnography is a method, devised and refined in the early days of anthropology for the study of non-industrial societies, and today it is used in the study of organizational behavior in the industrial world. Unlike business managers, anthropologists are inclined to look for evidence of different views and divergent interests, even if these are based on shared assumptions about how things should work out (Wright, 1994). According to the anthropological view, despite a shared governing ethos, many organizations experience, at the same time, entrenched factional ‘warfare’ between constituent parts; such factions often come together and act as one when the institution as a whole faces opposition or scrutiny from outside; organizations do not exist in a vacuum; they operate in a wider context which both provides them with the aims they pursue and sets limits to the way they may operate (Wright, 1994). The main asset of anthropology in the context of organizational behavior is that it explores the interface between organizations and people – culture. Anthropological studies of culture offer a more interpretive approach through which to understand organizations as sites for constructing meaning. However, anthropology is best known for its fieldwork by participant observation. The distinctive anthropological process of ‘problematizing’ relies on continually testing the ability of existing ideas or theories about society to explain the detail of what is experienced in the field. Anthropological methods help in analyzing concepts like culture. Douglas and Geertz are often cited in organization texts. Douglas (1987) is concerned with the ways ‘institutions think’, whereas Geertz feels that culture is seen in the flow of behavior and social action in an organizational setting (Wright, 1994).
Bibliography
Farazmand, Ali (2002). Modern Organizations: Theory and Practice. Praeger. Westport, CT.
Greenberg, Jerald (1994). Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hillsdale, NJ.
Ilgen D. R., & Feldman J. M. (1983). “Performance appraisal: A process focus”. Research in Organizational Behavior, 5 (pp. 141-199).
Katz, Daniel, and Kahn, Robert (1966). The Social Psychology of Organizations. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York.
Lammers, J. Cornelis (1981). Contributions of Organizational Sociology. Organization Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4, 361-376.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey (1997). New Directions for Organization Theory: Problems and Prospects. Oxford University Press. New York.
Vroom V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. Wiley, New York.
Weiner B. (1974). “An attributional interpretation of expectancy-value theory”. Cognitive views of human motivation (pp. 51-69). Academic Press. New York.
Wright, Susan (1994). Anthropology of Organizations. Routledge. New York.
Wyer R. S. & Srull T. K. (1986). “Human cognition in its social context”. Psychological Review, 93, 322-359.