Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Overview
• 2 History
o 2.1 Current state of the field
• 3 Methods used in organizational studies
• 4 Systems framework
• 5 Theories and models
• 6 Managerial roles[5]
o 6.1 Theories of decision making can be subdivided into three categories
• 7 Organization-focused journals
• 8 See also
• 9 References
• 10 Further reading
[edit]Overview
Organizational studies encompass the study of organizations from multiple
viewpoints, methods, and levels of analysis. For instance, one
textbook[1] divides these multiple viewpoints into three perspectives: modern,
symbolic, and postmodern. Another traditional distinction, present especially in
American academia, is between the study of "micro" organizational behaviour
— which refers to individual and group dynamics in an organizational setting
— and "macro" strategic management and organizational theory which studies
whole organizations and industries, how they adapt, and the strategies,
structures and contingencies that guide them. To this distinction, some scholars
have added an interest in "meso" scale structures - power, culture, and the
networks of individuals and units in organizations — and "field" level analysis
which study how whole populations of organizations interact.
One of the main goals of organizational theorists is, according to Simms (1994)
"to revitalize organizational theory and develop a better conceptualization of
organizational life."[2] An organizational theorist should carefully consider
levels assumptions being made in theory,[3] and is concerned to help managers
and administrators.[4]
[edit]History
Though it traces its roots back to Max Weber and earlier, organizational studies
is generally considered to have begun as an academic discipline with the advent
ofscientific management in the 1890s, with Taylorism representing the peak of
this movement. Proponents of scientific management held that rationalizing the
organization with precise sets of instructions and time-motion studies would
lead to increased productivity. Studies of different compensation systems were
carried out.
After the First World War, the focus of organizational studies shifted to
analysis of how human factors and psychology affected organizations, a
transformation propelled by the identification of the Hawthorne Effect.
This Human Relations Movement focused on teams, motivation, and the
actualization of the goals of individuals within organizations.
The Second World War further shifted the field, as the invention of large-scale
logistics and operations research led to a renewed interest in rationalist
approaches to the study of organizations. Interest grew in theory and methods
native to the sciences, including systems theory, the study of organizations with
a complexity theory perspective and complexity strategy. Influential work was
done by Herbert Alexander Simon and James G. March and the so-called
"Carnegie School" of organizational behavior.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the field was strongly influenced by social
psychology and the emphasis in academic study was on quantitative research.
An explosion of theorizing, much of it at Stanford University and Carnegie
Mellon, produced Bounded Rationality, Informal Organization, Contingency
Theory, Resource Dependence, Institutional Theory, and Organizational
Ecology theories, among many others.
Douglas McGregor
The field is highly influential in the business world with practitioners like Peter
Drucker and Peter Senge, who turned the academic research
into business practices. Organizational behaviour is becoming more important
in the global economy as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values
have to work together effectively and efficiently. It is also under increasing
criticism as a field for its ethnocentric and pro-capitalist assumptions
(see Critical Management Studies).
During the last 20 years organizational behavior study and practice has
developed and expanded through creating integrations with other domains:
[edit]Systems framework
The systems framework is also fundamental to organizational theory
as organizations are complex dynamic goal-oriented processes. One of the early
thinkers in the field was Alexander Bogdanov, who developed his Tectology, a
theory widely considered a precursor of Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory,
aiming to model and design human organizations. Kurt Lewin was particularly
influential in developing the systems perspective within organizational theory
and coined the term "systems of ideology", from his frustration with
behavioural psychologies that became an obstacle to sustainable work in
psychology (see Ash 1992: 198-207). The complexity theory perspective on
organizations is another systems view of organizations.
[edit]Managerial roles[5]
In the late 1960's Henry Mintzberg, a graduate student at MIT undertook a
careful study of five executives to determice what those managers did on their
jobs.. On the basis of his observations, Mintzberg classifies managerial roles
into 3 categories 1. Interpersonal Roles 2. Decisional Roles 3. Informational
Roles
Motivation in organizations
[edit]Organization-focused journals
Primary organization-focused journals
Other journals
[edit]See also
• Organization design
• Organization development
• Organizational Dissent
• Organizational engineering
• Organizing education by drawing on OS
• Customer dynamics
[edit]References
1. ^ Hatch, M. & Cunliffe, A., 2006
2. ^ Lillian Margaret Simms, Sylvia Anderson Price, Naomi E. Ervin (1994). The
professional practice of nursing administration. p.121.
3. ^ Fredric M. Jablin, Linda Putnam (2000). The new handbook of organizational
communication: advances in theory. p.146.
4. ^ Michael I. Reed (1985). Redirections in organizational analysis. p.108.
5. ^ ROBBINS, S. P. (2009). Organisational behaviour : global and Southern African
perspectives. Cape Town, Pearson Education South Africa.
6. ^ Baron, Robert A., and Greenberg, Jerald. Behavior in organizations – 9th edition.
Pearson Education Inc., New Jersey: 2008. p.248
7. ^ Journal of Management
8. ^ Journal of Management Inquiry
9. ^ Organization Studies
10. ^ Organization
11. ^ Management Communication Quarterly
12. ^ Journal of Management Studies
13. ^ Strategic Management Journal
14. ^ Strategic Organization - SO
15. ^ International Journal of Knowledge Culture and Change Management
16. ^ Journal of Organizational Change Management
17. ^ European Management Review
18. ^ Anthropology of Work Review
19. ^ Research in Organizational behaviour
20. ^ Organizational behaviour and Human Decision Processes
21. ^ Journal of Management Development
[edit]Further reading
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• Ash, M.G. 1992. "Cultural Contexts and Scientific Change in
Psychology: Kurt Lewin in Iowa." American Psychologist, Vol. 47, No.
2, pp. 198–207.
• Hatch, M.J., "Organization Theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern
perspectives." 2nd Ed. Oxford University Press (2006) ISBN 0-19-
926021-4.
• Jones, Ishmael, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional
Intelligence Culture. New York: Encounter Books (2008) ISBN 978-1-
59403-382-7.
• Robbins, Stephen P. Organizational Behavior - Concepts,
Controversies, Applications. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall (2004) ISBN 0-13-
170901-1.
• Scott, W. Richard. Organizations and Organizing: Rational, Natural,
and Open Systems Perspectives. Pearson Prentice Hall (2007) ISBN 0-
13-195893-3.
• Weick, Karl E. The Social Psychology of Organizing 2nd Ed. McGraw
Hill (1979) ISBN 0-07-554808-9.
• Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-
Making Processes in Administrative Organizations, 4th ed. 1997, The
Free Press.
• Tompkins, Jonathan R. "Organization Theory and Public
Management".Thompson Wadsworth (2005) ISBN 978-0-534-17468-2
• Kanigel, R. (1997). The One Best Way, Frederick Winslow Taylor and
the Enigma of Efficiency. London: Brown and Co.