Which of the following organizational variables mainly affects human behavior at work?

Introduction

Organizational behavior research draws on multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and anthropology, but predominantly examines workers within actual organizational settings, rather than in experimental or quasi-experimental settings. Organizational behavior researchers are primarily concerned with measuring the presence of employee motivation, job alienation, organizational commitment, or similar work-related variables in order to understand how these attributes explain employee work behaviors and how they are affected by other variables, such as working conditions, company policies, human resource programs, or pay plans.

Individuals regularly behave in various ways at work, and these behaviors are described in various ways: someone putting forth a great deal of effort might be described as “motivated”; a person who approaches his or her job in a resigned fashion, putting forth only the minimum effort required, might be described as “alienated”; an employee who stays late to help a customer might be described as “committed.” In each case, there are alternative possible explanations for the observed behaviors. Plausible alternatives could be that the employee putting forth lots of effort has knowledge about a possible layoff, that the person putting forth the minimum required may be ill or preoccupied with family problems, and that the person staying late may be hoping to secure a job with the customer. Many of the variables of interest in organizational behavior reflect employee perceptions. In fact, many researchers consider the perceptions of organizational members to be the reality within work settings. Perceptions and other similar phenomena on which people may vary are not directly observable as attributes (such as hair color, height, and size), but are nonobservable aspects, or latent variables. Nonobservable variables are latent in that they are assumed to be underlying causes for observable behaviors and actions. Examples of individual latent variables include intelligence, creativity, job satisfaction, and, from the examples previously provided, motivation, job alienation, and organizational commitment. Not all latent variables studied in organizational behavior are individual in nature. Some latent variables apply to groups and organizations. These include variables reflecting aggregate characteristics of the group, such as intragroup communication, group cohesion, and group goal orientation. Furthermore, organizations may be globally described as centralized, flexible, or actively learning, also representing latent variables.

Although some theories in organizational behavior (OB) include manifest variables that are directly observable, such as age, gender, and race of workers or the age and location of a work facility, many OB theories are concerned with relationships among latent variables. For example, job satisfaction is a variable that has been studied extensively over the history of organizational behavior. In particular, researchers (and practitioners) are frequently concerned with which variables are related to higher levels of job satisfaction. Generally, an employee's perceptions of the nature his or her work (interesting, boring, repetitive, difficult, demanding, skill intensive, autonomous) greatly influence job satisfaction. These perceptions are all latent variables. Some researchers have measured these aspects of a worker's job using estimations by trained observers. The agreement between the observer estimations and the worker self-assessments of perceptions is often low, and the observations have a weaker relationship with job satisfaction. Thus, measurement in organizational behavior often deals with how to obtain the specific beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals that appropriately represent, or operationalize, a latent variable. An example of one way to measure a latent variable, intelligence, is to sum the scores of an individual on tests of verbal, numerical, and spatial abilities. The assumption is that the latent variable, intelligence, underlies a person's ability in these three areas. Thus, if a person has a high score across these three areas, that person is inferred to be intelligent.

A central issue in measurement in organizational behavior is which specific perceptions should be assembled to form adequate measures of latent variables such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Because satisfied and committed employees are valued, managers are very interested in what policies, jobs, or pay plans will help promote such states in workers. Researchers, in turn, want to be sure that the things they use to represent satisfaction and commitment are in fact good indicators of the unseen variables. Because latent variables such as satisfaction may be based on different aspects of a job or an organization, it is necessary for an indicator of job satisfaction to include all these aspects—as many as is necessary. The result is that indicators of job satisfaction and other latent variables important in organizational behavior are based on multiple items representing statements or questions addressing measurable aspects of the concept being measured.

Abstract

Organisational behaviour with regard to competitive intelligence is of great importance for the success of the operation. Four ways of scanning behaviour have been discovered and explored by Hamrefors (1999): ‘private scanning’, ‘anarchistic scanning’, ‘scanning in principle’ and ‘directed scanning’. Directed scanning is the most efficient method while having a centralised competitive intelligence unit is by far the least common way to organise competitive intelligence activities. Such operations are most often decentralised. This is also the most suitable way for most organisations, but in order to get the most out of competitive intelligence efforts, the decentralised operations must be coordinated. Some pros and cons with regard to centralised versus decentralised competitive intelligence are given in this chapter.

1 Micro-theory: Person–Situation Interactions

Micro-organizational behavior examines both personal and situational characteristics and, as in the field of psychology, researchers debate the relative utility of each in explaining behavior. Some have emphasized the stability of attitudes and behaviors over time. For example, a person's satisfaction with his or her job remains relatively stable over years and even decades (Staw and Ross 1985). From this perspective, individual characteristics are the best predictors of behavior since they derive from personal dispositions that remain stable over time and across situations. Others have criticized this view and posited that organizations should be conceptualized as ‘strong’ situations that are powerful enough to shape individual behavior (e.g., Davis-Blake and Pfeffer 1989). In strong situations individual differences are unlikely to be expressed. Instead, people learn appropriate attitudes and behaviors from their co-workers, established norms, and organizational practices and procedures; these social influence processes are presumed to predict individual behavior better than are personal characteristics.

Researchers have typically considered personal and situational factors in isolation from one another, but a complete understanding of organizational behavior requires their simultaneous consideration. An interactional approach is more complex than a mere additive melding of personal and situational characteristics because it attempts to represent both personal and situational factors and their reciprocal influence.

Interactions between personal and situational characteristics may take at least four forms. First, as specified above, some situations are stronger than others, leading to different levels of behavioral uniformity. Second, work situations do not affect everyone in the same way; some people's behavior is more consistent across varying situations. Third, certain people, such as those exhibiting ‘charismatic’ leadership, can influence situations more than others. Finally, people do not select into situations randomly, but rather, into situations in which they think their attitudes and behaviors will be appreciated. Developing a complete theory of behavior in organizations, then, requires moving from considering personal and situational factors in isolation to considering the complexity and diversity of possible person–situation interactions and their effects on work outcomes. We illustrate this by identifying the types of person–situation interactions that are relevant to a set of vibrant research domains within organizational behavior: organizational culture, demography, leadership, and creativity.

3 Unresolved Issues and Future Directions of OB

The multilevel perspective of OB poses an intriguing theoretical problem: how can and should the relationships of several system levels be conceptualized? One case in point is problems such as the structural inter-relations of organization-specific features (organization strategy and structure, membership resources, organizational practices, output) and characteristics of their institutional and societal environment (dominant culture, education and legal system, economic and technological status). While there is growing evidence that these features are interrelated and influence each other, theoretical integration remains lacking. A possibly promising theoretical solution might be found in Giddens' theory of structuration. Giddens (1984) postulates a dual nature of institutions recursively reconstituting and maintaining each other. On the one hand, institutions, by virtue of their existence, facilitate action of individuals and of organizations, and on the other hand, by virtue of the acting actors, the institutions are recursively constituted and sustained. The theory still being on a rather abstract level requires further development in order to make it fruitful in OB.

A methodological problem of considerable difficulty is the need to account for effects of time. Change and continuity of organizations may be likened to quasi-stationary equilibria (Lewin 1952). Like rivers they are in continual flux while preserving their identity and basic characteristics for some time. One methodological response of OB to study change and continuity was to repeat several cross-sectional studies at various points in time, thus approaching some sort of longitudinal evaluation. Another response was to trace organizational developments historically through document analysis and interviewing. Yet another approach seems to be to employ more ‘dense’ descriptions of organizational processes over time by way of ethnographic participant observation. This is a choice that is increasingly advocated and implemented by many researchers in spite of its cost, simply because of its superior information yield.

Finally, it may be that at the turn of the millennium, societal changes as alluded to above will gather further momentum to induce also a new organizational era impacting on OB. According to Rousseau (1997), organizations seem to be faced with the challenge of increasing upheaval and transition of depth and magnitude that were hitherto unknown. She refers to governmental measures of deregulation, global competition, the explosion of information technology in manufacturing and service sectors, the uncoupling of traditional education from work demands, the emergence of small-firm employment, new and more differentiated employment relations, outsourcing among firms and inter-organizational networking, shifts from managerial prerogatives to self-management, transition from rule-regulated work to self-reliance, and continuous adaptation of workers. In short, traditional internal organizational structures are becoming more fluid and the boundaries of organizations blurred. The perceived meaning of organization as a clear-cut entity seems in need of change to adaptive organizing. A reorientation of OB with reference to thematic foci in addition to theoretical underpinnings would have to be the consequence of such developments. Theoretically, a renewed emphasis on the conceptualization of the dynamics of organizational and interorganizational processes is called for. New topical issues are likely and desirable to emerge as concern for OB, such as the changing nature of employment and equitable forms of remuneration, emergence of multiple loyalties, individual learning for self-management and career development, organizational learning, and intervention methods to introduce and to sustain change. OB seems to be facing new and wide areas to be examined, a task for which its intrinsic multilevel and interdisciplinary outlook will be a definite asset.

Comprehensive treatments of the field can be found in the following publications: Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vols. 1–4 (see Frese and Zapf 1994); Annual Review of Psychology; International Reviews of I/O Psychology; Administrative Science Quarterly; Organizational Studies; Human Relations; and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

Publisher Summary

This chapter focuses on organizational behavior, distinct from household or individual behavior, as the most promising means for realizing significant near-term reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It surveys field experience from behavior-change driven efficiency programs, reviews the limited research literature in the field, and describes in more depth the experience of specific organizations and program models. It also reviews macro-level nonresidential building energy-use data that sets the stage and focuses more specifically on analyses and case studies that illustrates the effects of superior energy management practices in producing significant energy performance improvements. The chapter also defines the measured energy performance in buildings that appears to correlate better with operation and management practices than with the presence of specific efficiency technologies.

Abstract

The goal of the scientific study of organizational behavior is to solve problems related to joint production marked by division of labor and interdependence. In this chapter, we focus on one key challenge of interdependent work in organizations—unethical behavior—to illustrate how experiments have and can be used to advance the understanding of organizational behavior. The specific example of the study of unethical behavior serves the purpose of highlighting general principles about experimentation in organizational behavior research and pointing out how experiments can generate practical insights for organizations. We also examine why experimental methodology is not only the sole internally valid method but also often the most practical means of conducting research in organizational behavior. In so doing, we argue that the relative underuse of experiments by organizational behavior scholars is unfortunate and unnecessary. We advocate a greater use of experiments in organizational behavior research and propose that a combination of experimental and passive observational methodologies represents the most appropriate approach in most cases.

7.9 A Comment by Joe Scanlon

The persistence of myths about individual and organizational behavior in emergencies raises the question: Where do these myths come from? Some of them appear to come from scholars such as Gustav LeBon who, in his book The Crowd, argued that in times of crisis man reverts to what he called the lower orders, which he said include animals, women and children. He was basing his theories on observation—probably inaccurate—of the French revolution. Other myths may have survived because of a gender bias: Until recently, emergency agencies were staffed largely by men who saw their role as taking over and assisting what they perceived as the less able elements in society, namely women and children. They incorrectly assumed that individuals, especially women and children, could not cope in a crisis.35

But the peculiar aspect of these beliefs is that although they are widespread, they appear to affect organizational behavior only during emergencies. Individuals may believe the myths but do not act in line with them. They do not panic. They do not normally loot. Instead, they look around them, see what needs to be done, and do it. That is not always true for organizations. They sometimes hold back warnings because of a fear of panic. They focus on security because of a belief that looting is an issue. They order evacuations even when there is no continuing threat, in the belief that people will not be able to cope.

Despite decades of research showing that these beliefs are myths, the media also persist in acting as if they were real. That is partly because the media expect emergency agencies to know what has happened—unaware that initial search and rescue has been done by survivors―and partly because they look for and interview persons who match their stereotypes. The belief that individuals cannot cope leads to another phenomenon: determination on the part of emergency personnel that civilians must not take part in organized response. This has been challenged recently by the Amsterdam fire department, which has started teaching its personnel to evaluate the initial response by civilians and where appropriate, incorporate it into their response. This innovative approach was shared in recent articles36 in a police and a fire journal in Canada, although it has not yet (as far as is known) been incorporated into Canadian emergency response planning.

Perhaps the best example of an informal response occurred after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. With normal transportation systems shut down, several hundred thousand people were evacuated by water. This was accomplished without any plan and without any attempt by the Coast Guard or other agencies to enforce any rules. And it was accomplished without a single mishap.

None of these findings is written in stone, and it is true that Dr. E.L. Quarantelli recently modified his position on looting. He now says it may occur on some occasions and that when it does, it is usually targeted—as is true when riots occur. That means the looters do not usually attack everyone and everything but rather, for example, they target business establishments against which they have a grudge. Sometimes reports of what happens, even official reports, can be misleading. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there were several hundred charges alleging that people had cheated when they sought and received disaster assistance. Almost all were convicted. An analysis of the charges showed that at the most a handful―perhaps as few as three of four victims―had actually defrauded the system. The rest were not victims, but saw a chance to exploit the system: some of those who received compensation were actually in jail when the hurricane struck.

It is true that most disaster research has been done by Americans and that most of it covers what has happened in U.S. incidents. It is also true that most other research has been done in developed countries like the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia, to mention just three where there are very active research communities. However, the data available suggest that behavior in other world regions matches behavior in the western world. For example, an earthquake in Tangshan, China, led to massive over-response―a phenomenon identified by two U.S. researchers, Fritz and Mathewson, as convergence. In another incident, a forest fire in Mongolia led to many deaths when officials held back warnings for fear of causing panic.

2.1.2 Facilitative law as dependent variable

Alongside these analyses of how legal arenas shape organizational behavior, a handful of studies have reversed the causal arrow, to explore how organizational behavior shapes legal arenas. As the transaction-cost tradition suggests, law is only one of many governance mechanisms, and if litigation arises in part from the failure of other controls, then extra-legal organizational conditions may play a crucial role in shaping the work of the courts.

For the most part, the existing literature assumes that the relevant extra-legal conditions are material rather than cultural, with factors such as economic globalization, industrial turbulence, and relational discontinuity topping the list. Clearly, however, cultural conditions may also exert a significant influence. Preliminary findings suggest, for example, that professional ideologies strongly affect whether an organization's culture favors ADR or litigation; and organizational cultures, in turn, affect whether employees seek to resolve workplace grievances in-house or through the courts. Further, in a mirror image of Selznick's legalization dynamic, the spread of ADR techniques in the workplace tends to inject private organizational values into public legal discourses: Several major employment laws now explicitly encourage the use of ADR to resolve legal claims, and courts themselves increasingly employ ‘appended’ ADR to expedite settlement negotiations. Thus, the changes that began with rising litigation rates now appear to be coming full circle: where organizations once embraced ADR to escape the perils of formal legal arenas, the legal system is now remodeling its own facilities to replicate these initially alien organizational proceedings. Even when legal institutions are at their most passive, the relationship between law and organizations proves to be both reciprocal and complex.

1940 – systems theory

To somehow wed the unlikely bedfellows of bureaucracy and organisational behaviour, theorists began to view organisations as systems. In an age of scientific advance, corporations were perceived as well-ordered systems and subsystems. The more order in the corporation the better its organisation, the better its output, and the happier its employees. To achieve this ideal outcome, management needed to work in harmony with its environment (as in contextual, not natural) and goals needed to emphasise efficiency and orderliness. For the first time, theory began to blur the edges a little as it was ‘discovered’ that there were more ways than one of achieving the ideal outcome.

While systems theory allowed the whole to be more than the sum of its parts, it did not provide specific guidance to managers. Their role was left somewhat nebulous and severely generalised. Organisations were encouraged to adapt to context in order to be more effective but how this might be achieved was left largely unexplored. Certainly the systems theorists exploded the ‘one way’ approach but did not construct a viable alternative in its place.

Publisher Summary

This chapter provides application of complexity theory in organizational management and evolution. Organizational behavior must be such as to allow organizational evolution, or the organization will fail. The rules that allow organizational evolution are: the presence of mechanisms that produce internal heterogeneity, which will involve freedom, ignorance and underlying error-making, exploratory processes; differential performance needs to be detected and evaluated with respect to their alignment with higher level goals. This will then provide the selection process that will amplify or suppress different elements of individual behavior. Successful management must behave as evolution does and make sure that mechanisms of exploration and experiment are present in the organization. Though they will not be profitable in the short term they are the only guarantee of survival into the longer term. In reality, the organizations that we observe and describe formally at any given moment are “structural attractors”, which, if they persist over time, will change qualitatively as successive organizational forms emerge. Further, this discussion of organizational dynamics reinforces the replacement of maximal efficiency with “sufficient efficiency” combined with the adaptability, but emphasizes the significance of self organized, organizational change in underwriting this process.