ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

SESSION 3

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P.C. BAHUGUNA

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR – HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM & ENERGY STUDIES

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Historical Background Of OB• Why study History ?By looking back at the history of OB, we gain a great deal

of insight in to how the field got to where it is today. It helps us to understand, how mgt came to impose rules and regulations on employees, why many workers in the organizations do standardized and repetitive tasks etc.

Human beings and organized activities have been around for thousand of years but we will start our discussion 18th century onwards.

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Early PracticesThere are hundreds of people who have contributed to the

development of OB. The three individuals ,however were particularly important in promoting ideas that had influenced the direction and boundaries of OB

• ADAM SMITH – An Economist ( An Enquiry into the Nature & Causes of Wealth of Nations – 1776 )

The organizations & society would reap from the division of labor. Smith concluded that Division of labor raised productivity by increasing each workers skill and dexterity.

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Early Practices• CHARLES BABBAGE – A Mathematician ( On the Economy of

Machinery & Manufacturer - 1832) added to the smith’s list of advantages that result from the Division

of labor.

1. Reduces the time needed for learning the job.2. Reduces the waste of material.3. Allows for the attainment of high skill levels.4. Allows more careful matching of skills & physical abilities with

specific tasks.

Moreover Babbage proposed that the economies from specialization should be as relevant to doing mental work as physical labor.

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Early Practices• ROBERT OWEN – An Entrepreneur – One of the first industrialists

to recognize how growing factory system was demeaning to workers.

He emphasized that the returns from investment in human resources would be far superior to the investment in machinery and equipments.

He claimed that showing concern for employees is profitable for management. he was more than a hundred years ahead of his time when he argued, in 1825,for regulated hours of work for all.

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The Classical Era• The classical era covered the period from about 1900 to the

mid a1930s. It was during this period that the first general theories of management began to evolve.

The classical contributors – include • Frederick W. Taylor• Henri Fayol,• Marx Weber, • Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard.

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Scientific Management• Frederick W. Taylor - A Mechanical engineer

( Principles of Scientific Management ) called for a careful analysis of tasks and offered four principles for scientific management. These principles are :

1. Every job should be broken in to its elements and a scientific methods to perform each element should be established.

2. Workers should be scientifically selected with right attitudes for the job & ability and then properly trained to perform the work.

3. Management should cooperate with the workers to ensure that all work is done in accordance with the scientific principles.

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Scientific Management4. Scientific distribution of work & responsibility between workers and

the managers and take over all work for which it is better suited than the workers.

In his book Taylor described how the scientific method could be used to define the ‘One best way” for a job to be done ,that created a mental revolution among both the workers and management by defining clear guidelines for improving production and efficiency.

Taylor’s Scientific management primarily emphasized on economic rationality, efficiency & standardization and ignored the roles of individuals and groups in the organization

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Administrative Theory• Administrative theory describes efforts to define the universal

functions that managers perform and principles that contribute good management practice. The major contributor to administrative theory was a French industrialist Henry Fayol.

Writing at about the same time as Taylor, Fayol proposed that all managers perform five management functions – They Plan, Organize, Command, coordinate and Control.

He stated fourteen principles of management

1. Division of work2. Authority3. Discipline

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Contd4. Unity of command5. Unity of direction6. Subordination of individual interests to the general

interests.7. Remuneration8. Centralization9. Scalar chain10. Order11. Equity12. Stability of tenure of personnel13. Initiative14. Espirit de corps

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Structural Theory• While Taylor was concerned with management at shop floor level

& Fayol focused on general management functions, the German Sociologist Max Webber was developing a theory of authority structures and describing organizational activity as based on authority relations. Weber described an ideal type of organization that he called a bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy was a system characterized by division of labor, a clearly defined hierarchy, detailed rules & regulations and impersonal relationship.

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Contd• The features of Weber’s ideal bureaucratic structures are :

1. Job specialization.2. Authority Hierarchy.3. Formal Selection.4. Formal rules & regulations.5. Impersonality.6. Career Orientation.

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Social Man Theory• People like Taylor, Fayol & Weber could be faulted for forgetting

that human beings are the central core of every organization.

Mary Parker Follett & Chester Barnard were two theorists who saw the importance of social aspects of organizations.

Mary Parker was one of the earliest writers to recognize that organizations could be viewed from the perspective of individual and group behavior. Her views have clear indication for organizational behavior.

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Contd• Follett thought organizations should be based on a group ethic

rather than on individualism.

Follett’s humanistic ideas have influenced the way we look at motivation, leadership, power and authority today.

In fact much of the current emphasis in organizations on group effort undoubtedly has its origins in Follett’s work.

• Unlike Weber who had a mechanistic and impersonal view of organizations, Barnard saw organizations as social systems that require human cooperation.

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Contd• Bernard viewed organizations as made up of people who

have interacting social relationships. He also argued that success also depends on maintaining good relations with people & institutions outside the organization with whom the organization regularly interacts.

Much of the contemporary interests in how the environment affects organizations and their employees can be traced to ideas initially suggested by Barnard

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The behavioral Era• The “people side” of organizations came into its own

during the period we call The behavioral Era.This era was marked by the human relations movement

and the wide spread application in organizations of behavioral science research.

The essence of the human relations movement was the belief that the key to higher productivity in organizations was increasing employee satisfaction.

In this respect the highly influential Hawthorne studies ( The most important contribution to OB ) need special mention.

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The Hawthorne studies• The most important contribution to the human relation

movement with in organizational behavior came out of the Hawthorne studies undertaken ( 1924 – early 1930s ) at the western electric Company’s Hawthorne works.

• Initially the study was undertaken to examine the effect of various illumination levels on workers productivity. control and experimental groups were established. The experimental group was presented with varying illumination intensities, while control group worked under constant intensity.

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The Hawthorne studies• The engineers had expected individual output to be directly

related to the intensity of light. However they found that as the light was increased in the experimental group, output for both groups rose.

• To the surprise of the engineers, as the light level was dropped in the experimental group, productivity continued to increase in both the groups.

• In fact, a productivity increase was observed when the light intensity had been reduced to that of moonlight.

• The engineers concluded that illumination was not directly related to group productivity. They could not explain the behavior they had witnessed.

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The Hawthorne studies• The illumination studies were followed by a study in the

relay room where operators assembled switches. This phase of study tried to test specific variables such as length of work day, rest breaks & method of payment. The results were basically the same as those of the previous one.

• The conclusion was that the independent variables were not by themselves causing the change in dependent variable.

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The Hawthorne studies• Another phase was the bank wiring room study. Unlike

the relay room experiments, the bank wiring room study involved no experimental changes once the study had started.

• The results of the bank wiring room study were essentially opposite to those of the relay room experiments.

• Of particular interest from a group dynamics standpoint were the social pressures used to gain compliance with the group norms.

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The Hawthorne studies• Scholars generally agree that Hawthorne studies had

a large and dramatic impact on the direction of OB & management practice. The research findings are concluded as the group influences closely affected individual behavior, group standards established individual worker output & that money was less a factor in determining out put than were group standards, group sentiments and security.

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• Besides The famous Hawthorne studies, there have been

various other researchers whose contribution to OB is equally important specially Dale Carnegie ( How to win friends & influence people), Maslow ( Need hierarchy )& Douglas McGregor ( Theory X & theory Y )

• In the late 1950s managers’ attention was caught by the ideas of people like Maslow & Douglas McGregor. Motivation & leadership theories offered by David McClelland, Hertzberg & other behavioral scientists during the 1960s & 1970s.

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The Historical Background OF OB

Modern Approach• All most all contemporary management & OB

concepts are contingency based. That is they provide various recommendations depending on situational factors. It implies that there is no” One best way” of managing but the “Best way” depends on the situations and circumstances. it is necessary to look at all the factors in the situations.

• The contingency view of OB was first proposed by Fred E. Fiedler who stated that mgt should identify specific responses to specific problems under specific situations.

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