Organisational Behaviour: Elements, Nature, and Importance

Organisational behaviour is generally confused with organisational theory, organisational psychology, and human resource management. This article also explains their Elements, Nature, and Importance. Organisational psychology restricts itself to psychological factors only whereas organizational behavior considers and combines all the branches of study e.g. Science, technology, economics, anthropology, psychology, and so on.

Organisational Behaviour: Elements, Nature, Need, and Importance.

It is the basis of human resource management and development. The former is concept-oriented whereas the latter is concerned with the technology of human development. The variables influencing human development are scientifically studied under organisational behaviour.

Elements of Organisational Behaviour:

The key elements in organisational behaviour are people, structure, technology, and the environment in which the organization operates.

1. People: People make up the internal and social systems of the organization. They consist of individuals and groups. Groups are dynamic and they work in the organization to achieve their objectives.
2. Structure: Structure defines the formal relationships of the people in organizations.
3. Technology: Technology such as machines and work processes provide the resources with which people work and affect the tasks that they perform.
4. Environment: All organizations operate within an external environment.

Nature of Organisational Behaviour:

Organisational behaviour in the study of human behavior in organizations. Whenever an individual joins an organization he brings with him a unique set of personal characteristics, experiences from other organizations, and a personal background.

• At the first stage, organizational behavior must look at the unique perspective that each individual brings to the work setting.
• In the second stage, organizational behavior is to study the dynamics of how incoming individuals interact with the broader organization. No individual can work in isolation.

He comes into contact with other individuals and the organization in a variety of ways. The individual who joins a new organization has to come into contact with the co-workers, managers, formal policies and procedures of the organization, etc.

Each individual brings to an organization a unique set of personal characteristics, experiences from other organizations, the environment surrounding the organization and they also possess a personal background. In considering the people working in an organization, organizational behavior must look at the unique perspective that each individual brings to the work setting. But individuals do not work in isolation.

They come in contact with other individuals and the organization in a variety of ways. Points of contact include managers, co-workers, formal policies and procedures of the organization, and various changes implemented by the organization. Over time, the individual, too, changes, as a function of both the personal experiences and the organization. The organization is also affected by the presence and eventual absence of the individual.

The study of organisational behaviour must consider how the individual and the organization interact. An organization, characteristically, exists before a particular person joins it and continues to exist after he leaves it. Thus, the organization itself represents a crucial third perspective from which to view organizational behavior.

Why Need for studying Organisational Behaviour?

The rules of work are different from the rules of play. The uniqueness of rules and the environment of organizations forces managers to study organisational behaviour to learn about normal and abnormal ranges of behavior.

Organizational behavior is essentially an interdisciplinary approach to study human behavior at work. It tries to integrate the relevant knowledge drawn from related disciplines like psychology, sociology, and anthropology to make them applicable for studying and analyzing organizational behavior.

Purposes of Organisational Behaviour:

More specifically, organisational behaviour serves three purposes:

1. What causes behaviour?
2. Why particular antecedents cause behaviour?
3. Which antecedents of behaviour can be controlled directly and which are beyond the control?

A more specific and formal course in organizational behavior helps an individual to develop more refined and workable sets of the assumption that is directly relevant to his work interactions. Organizational behavior helps in predicting human behavior in the organizational setting by drawing a clear distinction between individual behavior and group behavior.

They do not provide solutions to all complex and different behavior puzzles of organizations. It is only the intelligent judgment of the manager in dealing with a specific issue that can try to solve the problem.

They only assist in making judgments that are derived from tenable assumptions; a judgment that takes into account the important variables underlying the situation; the judgment that is assigned due recognition to the complexity of individual or group behavior; the judgment that explicitly takes into account the managers own goals, motives, hang-ups, blind spots, and weaknesses.

Importance of Organisational Behaviour:

Organisational behaviour is the analysis of an organization’s structure, func­tions, and the behavior of its people. The behavioral study encompasses both groups as well as individuals. It is an interdisciplinary field and has its roots in sociology and psychology. Organizational behavior is based on sociol­ogy, as the word organization itself represents social collectivity. It is linked to psychology because the subject encompasses the study of people, individu­ally and in groups at the workplace (essentially, an organization).

Individual and group behaviour is again the function of many factors, which extend to other interdisciplinary fields such as economics, political science, social an­thropology, engineering, and human resource management. The scope of organizational behavior is therefore extensive. An organization needs to manage all these aspects so that it can sustain itself in a competitive market.

Some importance of OB:

The following basic importance is below;

• It builds a better relationship by achieving people’s, organizational, and social objectives.
• It covers a wide array of human resources like behavior, training and development, change management, leadership, teams, etc.
• They bring coordination which is the essence of management.
• It improves the goodwill of the organization.
• It helps to achieve objectives quickly.
• They make optimum utilization of resources.
• It facilitates motivation.
• It leads to higher efficiency.
• They improve relations in the organization.
• It is multidisciplinary, in the sense that it applies different techniques, methods, and theories to evaluate the performances.

Theoretically, it is difficult for us to draw a line between management and organizational behavior. It can say that one supplements the other. Some organizational behavior issues have their roots in management processes. The study of management began much before the study of organiza­tional behavior. Studies in organizational behavior started in the middle of the twentieth century.

Organizational behavior studies, therefore, draw from management theories to understand aspects such as organizational structure, the behavior of people in an organization, and the issues concerning external and internal fit. Successful management of organizational behavior largely depends on the management practices that prevail in an organization. Understanding organizational behavior, therefore, requires a clear understanding of the basics of management.