Introductory to Organisational Behaviour Principles

Essay Title:Introductory to organisational behaviour principles Books, journals and articles on organisational behaviour (OB) can be found anywhere nowadays. Experts and professionals in this area have done a lot of research, coming up with theories, models, concepts, explanations and views on how a person will behave in an organisation. This paper argues that there are other resources to help us understand OB better.

This paper will firstly define what OB is and discuss the similarities and differences found from other resources to our main textbook, ‘Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim’ written by Steven Mcshane and Tony Travaglione. It will then analyse the relevance and usefulness of information to people working in organisations and students of OB. So what does OB actually mean? Robbins and Judge (2007, P. ) defined that ‘OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organisation’s effectiveness. ’ While, Nahavandi and Malekzadeh (1999, P. 3) points out that ‘OB is the study of how people behave in organisations as individuals, teams and how the organisations structure human resources to achieve goals. ’ Comparing these two long definitions on OB, I would rather go along with the statement by Mcshane and Travaglione (2007, P. ), where it says that OB is the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organisations. It’s so much easier to grasp and understand the gist of OB especially to students like me. What all these experts are trying to say is actually the same and what they had done is only putting their own thoughts into words. This signifies that we humans have a lot of views on one issue, it can be either the same or different, there’s no right or wrong either, it’s just a matter of how we perceive things.

Thus we need to look into other resources to tap into other peoples’ views and concepts to learn more about OB. So why do we study OB? As Mcshane and Travaglione (2007) had put it, we need to understand, predict and influence the behaviour of people, by doing so it will benefit the individual and the organisation. However, Tosi, Mero and Rizzo have a slightly different kind of say, they say that we study OB to understand, predict and improve the performance of people and ultimately to the organisation which they work (2000, P. 2).

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The latter statement seems to be more appropriate. Organisations are always trying to improve their employee’s performance, communication and decisions making ability by sending their employees for courses like team building. Mcshane and Travaglione (2007) have clearly identified and explained the five anchors on which OB is based on, which are the multidisciplinary anchor, systematic research anchor, contingency anchor, multiple levels of analysis anchor and lastly the open systems anchor. It appears that this is the only book that includes all five anchors in one book.

These clearly explained concepts would help students to understand OB with ease and clarity than any other resources researched. With regards to the multidisciplinary anchor, Robbins and Judge (2007) only talks about the contributions to OB field from four behavioural disciplines which are psychology, social psychology, sociology and anthropology. Mcshane and Travaglione talks more than that, they even listed and discussed how emerging disciplines like communications and marketing contribute to the study of OB.

Mcshane and Travaglione (2007) say that scholars have been depending on systematic research to form research questions, and apply test hypotheses against collected data. Mcshane and Travaglione also suggest that researchers are adopting grounded theory to understand the working environment. It’s a qualitative method whereby concepts and theories are formed by data collections like observations and interviews. For example, the Department for transport in the United Kingdom did a project to find out what factors affect the choice of transport of their citizens (Department for transport 2003).

Maybe the Land Transport Authority in Singapore can refer to this article and find out the reason for the increasing number of people owning cars in Singapore. Mcshane and Travaglione (2007, P. 17) state that ‘no single solution is best in all circumstances. ’ What works in one situation may not be successful in a different situation (12Manage, 2008). This is a view shared by Nahavandi and Malekzadeh (1999) where they say for each situation a different kind of respond is required.

An example can be money; money can be a motivator for some people but may not be that effective on others, it all depends on the person’s financial needs and status (Vries 2007). Therefore, OB experts and managers in organisations learn to understand factors of different situations in order to respond more appropriately and effectively (Nahavandi and Malekzadeh (1999). Similarly to our main text, Robbins and Judge (2007) states that there are three levels of analysis on OB, the micro which studies the individual, middle level which covers the small group and the macro level which looks into organisations.

However, the latter book had included a model for visualisation, creating an image of importance on this classification will help students to understand topics area of concern later in the book. Now let’s look at the last anchor, the open system anchor. Similarly to our main text, Thomas (2005) points out that organisations are open systems that will receive input of information and resources from the environment and in turn transform them into goods or service before returning them back into the environment.

Organisations are always restructuring and strategising to survive in the corporate world (Taplin 2005). This information will definitely be useful to top managements of organisations. They can apply this knowledge to strengthen their market share and strengthen their company image. This paper has argued that in order to understand OB principles more, a lot of reading and research had to be done. We have looked at what OB exactly is and due to the ever changing environment, peoples view and perceptions change, so we need to understand, predict and influence the changing needs of people.

By using the five anchors we will be able to do that. Even though some information researched is the same, it still increases my knowledge on OB through the constant readings, some information may be irrelevant, but it is still useful even if only one percent of new knowledge is gained. Total word count (1060) References Cummings, TG 2005, ‘open systems’, Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Organizational Behavior, viewed 2 August 2008, < http://web. ebscohost. com. libproxy. sim. edu. sg/ehost/detail? id=4&hid=120&sid=add89e44-3e79-4bf6-ac4d-7c90f405c030%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=lmh&AN=20986772> Department for Transport 2003, ‘Psychological Factors Affecting Transport Mode Choice’, viewed 2 August 2008, . Mcshane, S. & Travaglione, T. 2007, ‘Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim’, 2nd edn, McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd, NSW. Nahavandi, A. & Malekzadeh, A. R. 1999, ‘Organizational Behavior, The person-organization fit’, Prentice –Hall Inc, New Jersey. Robbins, S. P. & Judge, T. A. 2007, ‘Organizational Behavior’, 12th edn, Pearson education Inc, USA.

Taplin, I. M. 2005, ‘Strategic change and organisational restructuring: How managers negotiate change initiatives’, Journal of international management, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 284-301, viewed 4 August 2008, Science Direct. Tosi, H. L. , Mero, N. P. & Rizzo, J. R. 2000, ‘Managing Organizational Behavior’, 4th edn, Blackwell Publishers Inc, USA. Vries, M. K. D. 2007, ‘Money, Money, Money’, Organizational Dynamics, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 231–243, viewed 29 July 2008, Science Direct. 12 Manage 2008, ‘Contingency Theory’, Bilthoven, viewed 2 August 2008,

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