Introduction to OB

Presented By: Manmit Mahanta

Asst. Professor
GCMS
“There is no animal more difficult to understand
than man”
-Leonardo Salviati.
 Business organisation is a combination of
Men Money Material Machinery Management
Management i.e. people who takes care of the other four.
 Functioning of an organisation depends on how people work or behave in
the organisation.

 Understanding human behaviour has assumed great significance for the

managers for managing people effectively.

 Human Behaviour are always Caused and Unpredictable.

 Knowledge about two issues helps managers extract maximum results from
people’s effort for accomplishing organisational goals in an effective
manner.
1. Why people behave as they behave or why people do what they do at
work?
2. What influences people behaviour at work ?
Definition:
Organisational Behavior is the study and application of how
people as individual and as groups behave or act in an
organisation.

“Organisational Behavoiur is directly concerned with the

understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour in
organisation.” ------Luthans

“Organisational Behaviour is a field of study that investigates

the impact that individuals, groups and structures have on
behaviour within organisations for the purpose of applying
such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s
effectiveness”. ---- S. P. Robbins
Key elements of Organisational Behaviour:
1. People:
 Differ from each other in their trait, personality, perception and attitude.
 Individual’s family life can’t be separated from organization’s life,
who join the organisation along with her social background, likes
and dislikes, pride and prejudices.
 Behavior is always caused; directed towards a goal.
Understanding of cause will solve the problem.
2. Structure:
 Organizations are social systems of 2 types Formal & Informal.
 Different jobs have to be created and have to be properly
coordinated to accomplish the organizational goal.
3. Technology:
 Technology provides the resources with which people work and
also affects the task that they perform.
4. Environment:
 Organization is a part of larger system that contains elements
like government, family and organization.
 Environment affects people by influencing their attitudes,
working conditions etc.
 Nature of Organization Behavior:
1. A separate field of study & not a discipline only
 OB is not based on a specific theoretical background.
2. An interdisciplinary approach
 integrates knowledge from related disciplines like psychology, sociology,
anthropology.
3. An applied Science
4. A normative Science
 OB prescribes how the findings of the applied research is applied to the
socially accepted (i.e. accepted by the individuals and society engaged in the
organization) organizational goal.
5. A humanistic and optimistic approach
 Treat people as living, thinking, feeling human beings.
6. A total systems approach
 This approach integrates all the variables affecting organizational
functioning.
Scope of Organization Behavior:
Scope of OB includes the study of individuals, groups and
organization/structure

Individuals: - Personality, perception, attitudes, motivation, job-

satisfaction, learning, values.

Group: - Group dynamics, group conflicts, communication,

leadership, power & politics.

Structure: Formation of organizational structure, culture, change

and development.
 Need of OB:

Helps us to understand ourselves and others in a better way. This

helps greatly in improving our inter-personal relations.
Knowledge of OB helps to understand & motivate employees for
work better.
OB helps to learn how to predict human behavior and then apply it
in some useful way to make the organization more effective.
OB helps in making effective utilization of human resources.
OB helps in developing team work.
OB helps in putting right person in the right place.
OB helps in better controlling.
Contributing Discipline to OB:

 Psychology: - Science that focuses directly on understanding and predicting

individual behavior.
 Sociology: - Sociology studies the people in relation to their fellow human
beings. Sociology studies group of behavior.
 Anthropology: - It studies societies to learn about human beings and their
activities. Helps to understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes and
behavior between people in different regions and organizations.
 Other social Science: -
 Economics – Economic models help in taking decision which choices are given.
 Political science: Power, politics and authority are the topics derived from the
field.
 History: Describes the lives of great leaders and the successes and failures of
organization they managed.
The Challenges faced by Management:

1. Work-Force Diversity:
 Accommodating diverse group of people at work place by addressing their
different lifestyle, cultural moving, family needs and work style is a great
challenge
2. Changing demographics of work force:
 Increasing number of women joining work- force.
 Higher promotion of young workers.
 More joining the work force.
 Increasing share of aged people in work-force due to increased life-
expectancy.
 Increase in tendency for husband and wife to work.
 Increasing numbers of minority members entering occupations, requiring
greater skills.
 More mothers and married female employees.
 Steadily increasing majority of white-collar employees in place of the blue-
collar.
3. Changing Employee Expectation:
 They strive for good and attractive remunerations, housing facility to
 Empowerment, quality and equality of work-life.
3. Ever Expanding Globalization:
 Major challenges for managers caused by globalization are:
a. In a new country due to transfer the managers have to manage a workforce that
is vary in need, aspiration and attitudes.
b. In their own country the managers have to work with superiors, subordinates
and peers who were born and brought up in a different culture.
c. Overseeing movements of jobs to low cost countries (exporting loads to the
undermining the job market in the developing countries).
d. Managing peoples fear about terrorism.
4. Towards Improving Quality:
 Total quality management is a philosophy of modern management which is
driven by constant attainment of customers satisfaction through the continuous
 Functions of a Manager (Henry Fayol): -
1. Planning: - Defining goal, establishing strategy, setting plans to coordinate
activity.
2. Organizing: - What task? Who will do? How they will do? Who will report
whom? Where the decisions are to be taken?
3. Leading: -
1. Motivate employees.
2. Direct the activities to others.
3. Select the most effective communication channel
4. Resolves conflicts among employees
4. Controlling:-
1. Set the standard or target
2. Measure the actual result
3. Compare the actual result with the set standard and find out any if there are any
deviations
4. Finally they take corrective action to minimize the deviation from the standard.
Managerial Role (Henry Mintzberg): -
10 different managerial roles, all grouped under three headings
A. Interpersonal role:- All managers required to perform duties that are symbolic or
ceremonial in nature. Those are; -
 Figurehead:- Symbolic head required to perform a number of routine duties of a
legal social nature.
 Leader:- Responsible for hiring motivating, directing, disciplining and training
employees.
 Liaison:- Maintaining a network of outside contacts that provide favors and
information.
B. Informational role:- Collect information from outside organizations and
institutions.
 Monitor:- Serve as a nerve centre of internal and external information. Obtain it by
reading magazines and talking with the other people to learn of the changing in the
public’s taste, what competitors may be planning, etc.
 Disseminator:- Transmits information received from outsider to employees or other
members of the organization.
 Spokes person:- Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans,
policies, actions and results.
C. Decisional Role:
 Entrepreneur: Searches organization and its environment for opportunities
and initiates projects to bring about change. Initiate and oversee new
projects.
 Disturbance Handlers: Take corrective actions in response to unforeseen
problem.
 Resource Allocator: Responsible for allocating human, physical and
monetary resources.
 Negotiator Role: Discuss issues and bargains with other units to gain
advantages for their own units.
Management Skills (Robert Katz) :-
3 different managerial skills
1. Technical Skills:
 Encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
 Through extensive formal education and also through practices they acquire on
the job expertise skills.
2. Human Skills:
 The ability to work with, understand and motivate other people, both
individually and in groups, defines human skills.
 Interpersonally incompetent managers are poor listeners, unable to understand
the needs of others or have difficulty in managing conflicts.
3. Conceptual Skills:
 Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex
situations. These tastes require conceptual skills.
 Decision making, required to identify problems, develop alternative solutions,
and select the best one.
 If managers fail to interpret information they may be unsuccessful.
Models of Organizational Behaviour
1. Autocratic models: -
 Managers exercise command over employee.
 Have to obey the manager’s orders.
 Minimum performance and maximum wages.
2. Custodial model: -
 Concern about better employee satisfaction and security.
 This approach beliefs that if the employees becomes dependent an organization
they own quit.
 Through welfare programs like housing facilities, subsidized transport
facilities, child care facilities, etc organization can ensure employees
satisfaction.
 The organization becomes custodian of its employees.
3. Supportive model: -
 Model is founded on leadership, not money or authority.
 Given due chances, the workers become ready to share responsibilities, ready
contribute and developed themselves.
 Management orientation is to support employees.
Models of Organizational Behaviour
 Collegial model: -
 Related to team/work concept.
 Management building a felling of partnership with employees.
 Employees become more responsible backup by self discipline.
Effective vs Successful leaders:
All managers engaged in four different managerial activities. Those are:
1. Traditional management: Decision making, planning and controlling
2. Communication: Exchanging routine information and processing paper work
3. Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict,
staffing and training
4. Networking: Socializing, politicking and interacting with outsiders.

Traditional Communication HRM Networking

Avg. Manager 32% 29% 20% 19%

Successful Manager 13% 28% 11% 48%

Effective Manager 19% 44% 26% 11%
Thank You