MOB Notes

INTRODUCTION.

Organizations, especially business organizations have been part of

human life for many centuries. Today, more than ever before, society
depends on business organizations to meet the changing needs of all its
members. However it is not only business organizations that satisfy the
complex needs of society. Government organizations such as State
hospitals provide health care, and there is a host of other state owned
organizations providing other services. Organizations are currently
striving in a dynamic and ever changing environment which calls for
leaders with unquestionably high Management skills.

Definitions

Organizational Behaviour (OB) is the study of human behaviour in

organizational settings, the interface between human behaviour and the
organization, and the organization itself.

Organizational Behaviour researchers study the behaviour of

individuals primarily in their organizational roles.

One of the main goals of organizational behaviour is to revitalize

organizational theory and develop a better conceptualization of
organizational life.
As a multidisciplinary field, organizational behaviour has been influenced
by developments in a number of allied disciplines including sociology,
psychology, economics, and engineering as well as by the experience of
practitioners.
Origins
Origin of Organisational Behaviour can trace its roots back to Max
Weber and earlier organizational studies. The Industrial Revolution is the
period from approximately 1760 when new technologies resulted in the
adoption of new manufacturing techniques, including increased
mechanization. The industrial revolution led to significant social and
cultural change, including new forms of organization.

Analyzing these new organizational forms, sociologist Max Weber

described bureaucracy as an ideal type of organization that rested on
rational-legal principles and maximized technical efficiency. In the
1890’s; with the arrival of scientific management and Taylorism,
Organizational Behavior Studies was forming it as an academic
discipline. Failure of scientific management gave birth to the human
relations movement which is characterized by a heavy emphasis on
employee cooperation and morale.
Human Relations Movement from the 1930’s to 1950’s contributed to
shaping the Organizational Behavior studies. Works of scholars like
Elton Mayo, Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett,
Frederick Herzberg, Abraham Maslow, David McCellan and Victor
Vroom contributed to the growth of Organisational Behaviour as a
discipline.
Herbert Simon’s Administrative Behavior introduced a number of
important concepts to the study of organizational behavior, most notably
decision making. Simon along with Chester Barnard; argued that people
make decisions differently in organizations than outside of them. Simon
was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on
organizational decision making.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the field became more quantitative and
produced such ideas as the informal organization, and resource
dependence. Contingency theory, institutional theory, and organizational
ecology also enraged.

Starting in the 1980s, cultural explanations of organizations and

organizational change became areas of study. Informed by
anthropology, psychology, and sociology, qualitative research became
more acceptable in OB.

Organizational Behaviour Definition

Organizational behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding,

prediction and control of human behaviour in organizations. (Fred
Luthans]

Organizational behaviour is the study of both group and individual

performance and activity within an organization.

This area of study examines human behaviour in a work environment

and determines its impact on job structure, performance,
communication, motivation, leadership, etc.

It is the systematic study and application of knowledge about how

individuals and groups act within the organizations where they work. OB
draws from other disciplines to create a unique field.
For example, when we review topics such as personality and motivation,
we will again review studies from the field of psychology. The topic of
team processes relies heavily on the field of sociology.

When we study power and influence in organizations, we borrow heavily

from political sciences.

Even medical science contributes to the field of Organizational

Behaviour, particularly in the study of stress and its effects on
individuals.

There is increasing agreement as to the components or topics that

constitute the subject area of OB.

Although there is still considerable debate as to the relative importance

of change, there appears to be general agreement that OB includes the
core topics of motivation, leader behaviour, and power, interpersonal
communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude
development, and perception, change processes, conflict, work design,
and work stress.
Objectives of OB
The organizations in which people work have an effect on their thoughts,
feelings, and actions. These thoughts, feeling and actions in turn affect
the organization itself. Organization behaviour studies the mechanisms
governing these interactions, seeking to identify ad foster behaviours
conducive to the survival and effectiveness of the organization.
1. Job satisfaction
2. Finding the right people
3. Organizational culture
 4. Leadership and conflict resolution
5. Understanding the employees better
6. Understand how to develop good leaders
7. Develop a good team
8. High productivity

These 8 objectives of organizational behavior show that OB is

concerned with people within the organization, how they are
interacting, what is the level of their satisfaction, the level of
motivation, and find ways to improve it in a way that yields
most productivity.

Features of Organizational behaviour

Organizational Behaviour is the study and application of knowledge
about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does
this by taking a system approach.
That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the
whole person, the whole group, the whole organization, and the whole
social system.
Its purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human
objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives.

Fundamental Concepts of Organizational Behaviour

Organization behaviour is based on a few fundamental concepts which
revolve around the nature of people and organizations which are:-

 Individual Differences.
 Perception.
 A whole Person.
 Motivated Behavior.
 The desire for Involvement.
 The value of the Person.
 Human Dignity.
 Organizations are Social System.
 Mutuality of Interest.
 Holistic Concept.

MANAGEMENT DEFINED.

Management can be defined

(a) As the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the
resources of the organisation to achieve stated organizational
goals as productively as possible. [Smith and Cronje 2002: 10]

a) According to Robbins and Coulter [2003: 6] management is defined

as a process of coordinating work activities so that they are
completed efficiently and effectively with and through other people.

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

Management principles can be referred to as the guidelines to effective

management. One can view these principles as functions performed by
a manager to achieve desired goals. According to Robbins and Coulter
[2003] management principles have been condensed down to four basic
and important principles that is planning, organising, leading and
controlling. These principles can be remembered by the acronym POLC.
PLANNING

Musaazi [1982: 119] sees planning as a rational process of preparing a

set of decisions for future actions directed at achieving goals and
objectives by optional means. According to Musaazi’s 1982 definition,
planning is future goal oriented. Planning does not exist in a vacuum but
it takes place in a specific environment. It could be historical, political,
economical, social and technological factors to be taken into cognisance
of during planning. Whatever managers do, they have to consider one or
more of these afore mentioned factors. Goals and objectives must be
established first before a viable plan is made. Planning is not an event
but is a process which is continuous with evaluation taking place at
every stage of the planning process.

Besides focusing on goals and objectives, planning is also concerned

with how and when to achieve them. In other words planning shows the
modalities and resources that are necessary for the achievement of
these goals.

If you have no particular destination in mind then you can take any road.
However if you have some place in particular you want to go then you
have got to plan the best way to get there. Because organizations exist
to achieve some particular purpose someone must clearly define that
purpose and the means for its achievement. The planning process
involves defining goals, establishing strategies for achieving these goals
and develops plans to integrate and coordinate activities.

PURPOSE OF PLANNING [Its importance]

- Planning gives direction, reduces the impact of change, minimises
waste and redundancy and sets the standards used in controlling.
[Robbins and Coulter 2003].

- Planning sets the stage for the acquisition of resources, it directs on

what resources are needed and whether they are available or not.

Therefore planning is vital for the achievement of efficiency and

effectiveness that is maximising the use of resources.
Planning gives direction to managers as it establishes a map to follow.
According to Smith and Cronje [1992] the most important contribution
that planning gives to the managerial process is that it gives direction to
an organization in the form of goals and objectives and how these are to
be achieved.
Planning also reduces uncertainty by forcing managers to look ahead,
anticipate change and develop appropriate responses. It also clarifies
the consequences of actions managers might take in response to
change. Planning cannot eliminate change but it helps managers to
anticipate changes and develop the most effective response to them.

Added to this planning reduces overlapping and wasteful activities.

When work activities are coordinated around established plans, wasted
time and resources and redundancy can be minimised.

As managers you must know that failing to plan is planning to fail.

TYPES OF PLANS

1. STRATEGIC PLAN.
 It encompasses the entire organization. It is a long term plan covering
a period of up to 10 years. In corporate organizations it is usually 5
years. It is not advisable to have a plan covering more than 5 years
because it is difficult to predict the future. This entails the broad
objectives of the organization for example Vision 2020, Health for all
by the year 2030, and the like. Strategic planning looks ahead over
the next few months to several years. These are crafted by top
management.

2. TACTICAL PLANS.

They are concerned with how to achieve goals of the strategic plan.
The focus could be on the functional areas of an organisation such as
the Human Resources Development [HRD] of an organization. A
tactical goal of the Training Officer HRD could be to create a training
department that will ensure that supervisors and employees possess
the right skills for policing.

3. OPERATIONAL PLANS.

These are developed by middle level and lower level managers.

These are there to achieve tactical plans which will in turn achieve
strategic plans. They are narrowly focused and have relatively short
time horizons that are monthly, weekly and day-to-day.

ORGANISING
Organizing is the process of creating a structure for the organization that
will enable its people to work effectively towards its vision, mission and
goals. [Smith and Cronje 2003] the process of organizing consists of
assigning the tasks necessary to achieve the organizations goals to
relevant units, departments or sections and providing the necessary
coordination to ensure that units, departments or sections work
synergistically. [This means that sections should be congruent].

REASONS FOR ORGANISING

Plans devised and strategies formulated will never become reality if

human and other resources are not properly deployed and the relevant
activities suitably coordinated. Some of the reasons why organizing is
necessary include: -

 Allocation of responsibilities. Organizing leads to an

organization structure that indicates clearly who is responsible
for what tasks.
 Accountability. This refers to the need for individuals to explain
and justify any failure to fulfill their responsibilities to their
superiors in the hierarchy.

 Establishing clear channels of communication. This ensures

that communication is effective and that all information required
by managers and subordinates at all levels of the organization
to perform their duties effectively reaches them through the
correct channels.
  Resource deployment. Organizing helps the manager to deploy
resources meaningfully.

 Division of work and departmentalization. The related tasks and

activities of employees are grouped together meaningfully in
specialised sections, departments so that experts in various
fields can deal with their specialised tasks.

LEADING

If organizations consisted solely of machines that could implement plans

promptly, predictably and with mechanical precision, only the planning
and organizing tasks of management would be necessary to reach the
organizations goals. But organizations are made up of machines and
people. It is people who give life to the organization. It is people who
constitute the intellectual value of the organization. However people are
the most important resource and the most complex resource of the
organization because people are unpredictable and different.

Each individual in an organization has a different combination of

interests, capabilities, habits, beliefs, skills and personal goals and is
motivated by different things. Research on motivation has shown that a
significant percentage of people dislike work because of genetic factors,
while others have a favorable disposition towards work [Lussier 1997].
Therefore different people find themselves in organizations for different
reasons and with different perceptions of their role in the organization.
It therefore follows that an equally complex activity is required to direct
an organizations human resources towards reaching the organizations
goals.

Whenever an organization finds itself in trouble, it should investigate

leadership as a possible cause of the problem. Ask employees about
their jobs and chances are that they will complain about leadership skills.
Without leadership, organizations stagnate, lose their way and
eventually become irrelevant and close down.

If an organization is to reach its goals, someone must set certain

activities in motion and keep them going.

Leadership is the activity that infuses energy into the organization to

activate its members and resources to get things moving and keep them
in motion. Leadership entails activities such as formulating the
organization’s mission, goals and strategies and explain these to
followers, giving orders and instructions, deliberating with them and
supervising their work, taking steps to improve their performance,
disciplining them and dealing with conflict. A leader should also inspire
and motivate subordinates.

Smith and Cronje [2003] define leadership as a process of influencing

and directing the behaviour of individuals and groups in such a way that
work willingly to pursue the goals of the organizations.

CONTROLLING
The term control implies that the behaviour can be influenced in the
course of activities and events. If things are under control, they are
proceeding, as they should i.e. according to plan. In management
literature the term control has a specific meaning namely the process
whereby management ensures that the actual activities fit in with the
predetermined goals and planned activities. An effective manager is
someone who follows the planned activities, sees to it that the things
that need to be done are in fact carried out and checks that the
predetermined goals are reached. When activities of individuals,
sections, departments or units are evaluated and actual performance
compared with the standard required management will know whether
activities are executed according to plan and will be able to identify
weaknesses in the plan.

Control is therefore the regulatory task of management in that it

correlates action with plans, it is an important guide in the execution of
plans and it measures performance of the whole organization. In a sense
control is supervisory, it supervises and measures the progress that has
been made towards attaining a particular goal. The control task of
management is to determine whether or not there has been a deviation
in the plans so that steps can be taken to prevent and rectify errors. This
is a process of checks and balances. Control is a continuous process
and is interwoven with planning, organizing and leading. It is the final
stage in the process because it evaluates the management effort. The
knowledge, experience, information and facts acquired and collected
during the control process become the most important inputs or
ingredients in the next round of planning to keep the management
process on course.

MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Tactical Skills

These include knowledge of and proficiency in a certain specialised field

e.g. plumbing, motor mechanics, computers and the like.
Human Skills

This involves the ability to work well with other people both individually
and in a group. The skill is crucial because managers deal directly with
people. Managers should know how to communicate, motivate, lead and
inspire enthusiasm and trust.

Conceptual Skills

These are the skills managers must have to think and conceptualise
about abstract and complex situations. Using these skills, managers
must be able to see the organization as a whole, understand the
relationships among various sub units and visualise how the
organization fits into its broader environment. These skills are most
important to the top management.

CONCLUSION

Management is not based on simplistic principles. Different and

changing situations require managers to use different approaches and
techniques.