Organisational Behaviour - Classical Theories of Organisational Structure

Classical management theories can be divided into three areas as follow:

1. Scientific Management Theory (Taylorism): Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) is the father of Scientific Management theory. He proposed in this theory that how productivity of workers can be improved by applying scientific methods to their work. He advocated for incentive wage system through which workers can earn extra for their extra work and the management can earn extra revenues. Which also helps in building employees' motivation to work at their full capacity. He used different scientific techniques such as time and motion studies, Gnatt chart, etc for developing scientific methods of performing tasks.

Principles of Scientific Management

Taylor's four important principles of scientific management are as follow:

1. Develop a science for each task of a man's work and replace it with the old rule of thumb.
2. Scientifically select and then train, teach and develop the workman.
3. Management should heartily cooperate with the workers so that it ensures that all the work has been done in accordance with the scientific methods which have been developed.
4. Divide equally the work and responsibility among management and workers. The management take over almost all the work for which they are better fitted than the workmen.

2. Administrative Management  Theory (Fayolism)

3. Bureaucratic Management Theory

Organisational Behaviour - Max Weber's Bureaucratic Management Theory

Max Weber (1864-1920) a German sociologist is the father of bureaucratic theory of management. He wrote the book "The Theory of social and Economic Organisation." According to him Bureaucracy is the organisational structure with highly routine operating tasks performed under formalised rules and regulations with tasks assigned to various departments. It is the formal system of organisation and administration designed to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

Principles of Bureaucracy

1. Division of work: Work is divided into simple, routine and well defined tasks and categorised on the basis of competency and specialisation.
2. Hierarchy: Positions in an organisation are organised in an hierarchy where superiors control their subordinates.
3. Rules and Regulations: The organisation is governed by certain rules and regulations which have to be strictly followed. It governs decision making and leads to impersonal relationships.
4. Impersonal relations: The conduct of a manager should be highly formal and impersonal, not affected by his personality and personal relations. He should treat all the employees equally.
5. Employment: Selection of the employees is totally formal based on his performance in selection exam and technical knowledge. There is a probation period and after that employee is a full time employee protected from arbitrary dismissal.
6. Jurisdiction: Jurisdiction of work is clearly defined by rules and official duties and is not governed by superior's order only.
7. Departmentalisation: Similar kind of tasks are grouped into functional departments.
8. Records: A written record of day to day all the official activities is maintained in files.
9. Rationality: Decision making is based on rationality on the prescribed rules and regulations and not upon ones liking.
10. Compensation: Compensation of the bureaucrats is not based on work done by them but on the basis of rank held by them in the organisation. They are compensated by regular salary and facility of pension for their old age.

Organisational Behaviour - Fayol's Administrative Management Theory

Henry Fayol (1841-1925) was a French management theorist. He developed Administrative theory of management and wrote the book "General and Industrial Administration". This theory is also known as Fayolism. He developed 14 principles that can be used by management to coordinate the internal (administrative) activities of an organisation. Other theorists who contributed to to administrative management theory were James D. Mooney, Sheldon, Urwick, Luther H. Gulick.

Fayol's functions of management:

1. Planning
2. Organising
3. Commanding
4. Coordinationg and
5. Controling

Fayol classified business operations into six major activities:

1. Technical
2. Commercial
3. Financial
4. Security
5. Accounting and
6. Managerial

Fayol's 14 Principles of Management:

1. Division of work: Work of all kind must be divided and subdivided and then allotted to various persons according to their expertise in a particular area. Specialisation leads to efficiency and economy in business.
2. Authority: Authority and responsibility comes together. Managers must be given authority for performing tasks.
3. Discipline: Discipline means sincerity, obedience, respect of authority and observance of rules and regulations of the enterprise. It can be enforced by the effective leadership and punishment can be applied judiciously whenever required.
4. Unity of command: Subordinates should receive orders from only one superior at a time and they should be accountable to their orders only.
5. Unity of direction: There should be one plan for activities having similar objectives and these activities should be grouped together. They should also be under the command of a particular manager.
6. Equity: Managers should be fair and impartial while dealing with the subordinates.
7. Order: There should be systematic arrangement of things and people in the organisation.
8. Subordination of individual interest to the general interest: There should be harmony between individual and organisation's interests. Organisation's interest should prevail over individual interest.
9. Remuneration: Remuneration paid to the employees should be fair, reasonable, satisfactory and rewarding to the efforts.
10. Centralisation and decentralisation: Centralisation is concentration of power to the management and decentralisation is disseminionation of power to subordinates. Degree of centralisation and decentralisation depends on size of business, experience of superiors, dependability and ability of subordinates, etc.
11. Scalar Chain: It is the chain of authority from top most level to the lowest level. Normally communication is done following the chain of authority. But if there is urgency communication should be done directly between the sender and ultimate receiver cutting short the chain of authority which is known as Gang Plank.
12 Stability of Tenure: Tenure of employee at a particular job should be fixed so that he get used to that work and become efficient at it which will increase quality as well as quantity of his work.
13. Initiative: Management should provide healthy environment to his employees to take initiative, suggest ideas, experiences and new and improved methods of performing jobs. Monetary and non monetary incentives can be useful in this.
14. Espirit De' Corps: Encouraging team spirit, understanding, and trust among work groups helps them to perform better and they offer their best towards the organisation.

Organisational Behaviour - Skills and Roles in an organisation

Management Skills

Skills are those mind tools with which a manager performs certain tasks. Different kind of skills are required to perform different tasks. According to Katz there are three essential basic skills which a manager needs to perform a task. These are as follow:

1. Technical Skills: Technical skills are the proficiency and knowledge required in an specific area like IT skills in the field of IT, Finance skills for finance work, Mechanical Engineering, Architecture for buildings, etc. Technical skills are more required at the execution level of a project for junior and middle management level.

2. Interpersonal Skills: Interpersonal skills of a manager shows how he interacts with subordinates, peers, seniors, customers and business partners. Interpersonal skills are required at all the levels in an organisation. It helps a manager to understand, to motivate and to resole conflict if any in his team. It helps him to lead the team effectively by knowing every person of his team well, by taking maximum output from the strengths of his team member. It includes motivational skills, understanding other's perception and attitude, communication skills, negotiation skills, etc. These are normally called as soft skills.

3. Conceptual Skills: Conceptual skills are more required at the top management level as they are the people who are basically involved in giving direction to the organisation and big decision making. Conceptual skills are those skills which helps a manager to see the organisation in a big picture like impact of upcoming government policies in the related field, budding competition, expansion plans in a new territory, need of a marketing campaign, etc. It helps a manager to understand the relationship between various sub units and visualize how organisation fit into this broader environment.

Roles in an organisation

According to Mintzberg (1975) managers of all levels of hierarchy behave in the same way, carry into effect similar activities and therefore fulfill similar roles. He divided these activities into 10 roles and defines them as “organized set of behaviours”.
Further Stoner and Wankel (1997) grouped these 10 roles into 3 main roles as:

1. Interpersonal Roles: Interpersonal roles are concerned with creating and maintaining interpersonal relationships in work. These are:

a) Figurehead role: Manager represents organisation in all matters of formality, legality and socially to inside or outside the organisation. He is like a symbolic of the organisation.

b) Leader Role: Manager being a leader of the department sets goals, makes plan to reach the goal, motivates employees look after their needs and leads the team to achieve that goal.

c)  Liaison role: Manager interacts with people inside and outside the organisation to gain valuable information, to come into an agreement, to gain orders for the organisation.

2. Informational roles: These are concerned with  informational aspect of managerial work like receiving, collecting, and disseminating information. These are:

a) Monitor Role: Manager looks out for information regarding the organisation. He collects the information from inside (like information regarding problem areas of the organisation) as well as outside (information regarding competition, new technology, etc) the organisation through reports, magazines, etc.

b) Disseminator Role: Manager transmits the important information gathered from inside or outside the organisation to related organisational members. He may do this by holding informational meetings, sending reports or emails, making phone calls etc.

c) Spokesperson: Manager transmits organisation's information to outside like government, departments, public, media etc. This information may include organisation's annual reports, achievements, plans, policies, etc. They may do it by holding board meetings or advertising in newspapers, etc.

3. Decisional roles: These are related to making decisions. These are:

a) Entrepreneur: Manager analyses organisation's development opportunities and possibilities and bring about organic changes to grow the organisation and make it more profitable. He motivates employees to give their suggestions and achieve organisation's objectives.

b) Disturbance Handler: Manager takes corrective actions whenever any disturbance or crisis occurs inside or outside the organisation. Handles disputes among employees, among employees and business partners, and among business partners. Thus he plays the role of a rescuer.

c) Resources Allocator: Manager allocates the organisation's resources like people, money, infrastructure, etc so that it is optimally utilised and enhance its productivity. He approves plans, budgets and programmes, and set priorities.

d) Negotiator: Manager negotiates with the team, departments and organisations to defend business interests and gain advantage for his team, department and organisation.

The concept and significance of organisational behaviour

Definetion: According to Stephen P. Robbins, "Organisational behaviour (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness."

According to Aldag and Brief, " OB is a branch of social sciences that seeks to build theories that can be applied to predicting , understanding and controlling behaviour in a work organisation."

Organisational behaviour is the multidisciplinary approach which is an integration of different field of studies like psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science.

OB studies human behaviour at individual level, group level and organisational level.

Basically, organisations are made up of peoples, therefore managers in the organisation must know how they behave in an organisation to make organisation productive.

Determinants of behaviour in an organisation are:

1. Individuals
2. Groups and
3. Structure

Elements of Organisational Behaviour

1. People: People make up the internal social system of the organisation. They consists of individuals and groups. Groups may be formal or informal.

2. Structure: Structures define the formal relationship between people in an organisation.

3. Technology: Technology consist of physical objects, activities and process, knowledge, etc through which people accomplish their tasks to achieve organisational objectives.

4. Environment: All organizations operate within an external environment. It is part of a larger system that contains thousand of other elements.This includes the suppliers, customers, competitors, governments’ agencies, employees, unions, political parties, and economic, political, cultural, technological and social factors in which the organization embedded.

Significance of Organisational Behaviour

OB is concerned with understanding, applying and controlling of behavioural and structural knowledge of an organisation for organisation's effectiveness. Management function includes Planning, organising, leading and controlling where people are involved in different roles (interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles) and different capacities. Therefore, for an organisation to succeed it is very important for it to understand its organisation's culture, people by way of understanding their perception, attitudes, motivation, personality, key personality characteristics relevant to workplace, learning, job satisfaction, etc through theories of motivation, learning, and reinforcement. And mould their dissatifaction to satisfaction, motivate them to achieve desired results, provide them appropriate work culture, growth opportunities, punish their inappropriate behaviour, and infusing learning environment and leadership.