What Is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

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What Is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

Organizational behavior, or OB, is the study of how people interact in groups, and it's widely applied in business to boost individual and group performance. As an academic field, you'll find it in business, psychology, and sociology programs. It covers research on enhancing job performance, increasing satisfaction, promoting innovation, and fostering leadership.

Key Takeaways

You should know that OB forms the basis of corporate HR programs, including employee retention, engagement, training, and culture. Academic programs pull from anthropology, ethnography, and leadership studies. The Hawthorne Effect, where behavior changes under observation, is the most famous OB study.

Learning Organizational Behavior

You'll encounter OB programs in business schools, social work, and psychology departments. They draw on anthropology, ethnography, and leadership, using quantitative, qualitative, and computer models to test ideas. Depending on the program, you might dive into specific topics like cognition, decision-making, learning, motivation, negotiation, impressions, group processes, stereotyping, power, and influence. Broader areas include social systems, change dynamics, markets, organizational environments, social movements' market impacts, and social networks' power.

Why Is It Important to Study Organizational Behavior?

Studying OB helps organizations grasp how employees behave and interact with each other and the organization. From those insights, you can make changes to improve performance, efficiency, and employee satisfaction.

Organizational Behavior Origins

OB traces back to the late 1920s with Western Electric's studies at the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. Researchers aimed to boost productivity through better lighting and design, but found social factors mattered more—like getting along with coworkers and feeling appreciated by bosses. Studies from 1924 to 1933 explored work breaks, isolation, lighting, and other factors. The Hawthorne Effect, where subjects change behavior when observed, is the standout finding, and researchers must account for it in human behavior studies. OB gained full recognition from the American Psychological Association in the 1970s, but Hawthorne validated it as a field and founded modern HR.

Evolution of Organizational Behavior

Hawthorne leaders had radical ideas: using scientific methods to increase work quality and viewing workers as unique, not interchangeable. Post-World War II, focus shifted to logistics and management science, with Carnegie School studies in the 1950s and 1960s reinforcing rational decision-making. Today, OB explores cultural aspects like race, class, and gender in group building and productivity, considering how identity shapes decisions. Remember, OB is just psychological analysis applied to business settings.

Organizational Behavior Study Methods

You can study OB through various data collection methods. Surveys ask questions, often on a Likert scale, to get quantitative data on attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions. Interviews gather insights on experiences and attitudes. Without direct interaction, observations watch real-life behaviors, interactions, and decisions. Case studies examine organizations, groups, or individuals in depth. For novel situations, experiments manipulate variables to observe outcomes and understand behavior changes. Data can be quantitative or qualitative.

What Are the Different Theories and Models of Organizational Behavior?

Key theories include Classical Management Theory, Human Relations Theory, Systems Theory, Contingency Theory, and Transformational Leadership Theory. These are tools, but real application demands accounting for more complexity.

Organizational Behavior and HR

OB is crucial for HR, helping organizations recruit, retain, and deploy workers effectively. In recruitment, it identifies essential skills and traits for job descriptions and assessments, especially for soft skills roles. For training, it designs programs on communication, leadership, teamwork, and inclusion, customizing to individual styles. Performance management aligns goals with metrics, feedback, and appraisals to see how personnel work toward objectives. Employee engagement strategies include recognition, involvement, and career development, going beyond paychecks to enhance the workplace.

Organizational Behavior vs. Organizational Culture

OB research develops and maintains positive organizational culture, the shared beliefs and values guiding behavior. It blends personalities, integrates backgrounds, and unites people for common goals, supporting well-being, trust, and shared vision.

Organizational Behavior vs. Organizational Theory

OB focuses on individual behavior improvement, while organizational theory develops theories on structure and function, drawing from economics, sociology, and political science. OB can be seen as a subset, but theory is broader, not individual-focused. Both overlap in improving performance.

Examples of Organizational Behavior

Executives and HR use OB to understand culture, its impact on productivity and retention, and to evaluate candidates. Components include personality's role in interactions and work, leadership's forms and sources, and the interplay of power, authority, and politics under workplace rules.

Why Is Organizational Behavior Important?

OB describes interactions within organizations, influencing behavior and performance. It streamlines efficiency, boosts productivity, and sparks innovation for a competitive edge.

What Are the 4 Elements of Organizational Behavior?

The elements are people, structure, technology, and external environment. Understanding their interactions allows improvements, though organizations control some more than others and must adapt to external changes.

What Are the 3 Levels of Organizational Behavior?

Individual level covers psychology and incentives. Group level involves social psychology and dynamics. Organizational level uses theory and sociology for systems analysis and firm interactions.

What Are Some Common Problems that Organizational Behavior Tries to Solve?

OB addresses issues like lack of direction, employee buy-in, workplace conflict, training problems, poor communication, and more to improve performance.

The Bottom Line

OB studies human behavior in organizational settings, including individual and group interactions with the organization. It's key to HR and embedded throughout companies.

What Is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

Highlights