Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity of human individuals or groups to respond to

internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Behavior is driven by genetic and environmental
factors that affect an individual.

Source: Wikipedia

Organizational behavior or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational

Source: Wikipedia

Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of how people interact within groups and its principles are
used to make businesses operate more effectively.

What are the benefits of studying Organisational Behaviour?

Organizational behavior can also help to improve an organization in the following areas:

Better customer service.

Cooperative teamwork.

Creativity and innovation.

Effective leadership.

Ethical behavior among staff and management.

Job performance.

Positive, upbeat atmosphere.

What Is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

Organizational behavior is the academic study of how people interact within groups. The principles of
the study of organizational behavior are applied primarily in attempts to make businesses operate more
effectively.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Organizational behavior is the academic study of how people interact within groups and its principles
are applied primarily in attempts to make businesses operate more effectively.

The study of organizational behavior includes areas of research dedicated to improving job
performance, increasing job satisfaction, promoting innovation, and encouraging leadership and is a
foundation of corporate human resources.

The Hawthorne Effect, which describes the way test subjects' behavior may change when they know
they are being observed, is the best-known study of organizational behavior.

Organizational Behavior

Understanding Organizational Behavior (OB)

The study of organizational behavior includes areas of research dedicated to improving job
performance, increasing job satisfaction, promoting innovation, and encouraging leadership. Each has its
own recommended actions, such as reorganizing groups, modifying compensation structures, or
changing methods of performance evaluation.

Organizational Behavior Origins

The study of organizational behavior has its roots in the late 1920s, when the Western Electric Company
launched a now-famous series of studies of the behavior of workers at its Hawthorne Works plant in
Cicero, Ill.

Researchers there set out to determine whether workers could be made to be more productive if their
environment was upgraded with better lighting and other design improvements. To their surprise, the
researchers found that the environment was less important than social factors. It was more important,
for example, that people got along with their co-workers and felt their bosses appreciated them.

Those initial findings inspired a series of wide-ranging studies between 1924 and 1933.

They included the effects on productivity of work breaks, isolation, and lighting, among many other
factors.
The Hawthorne Effect—which describes the way test subjects' behavior may change when they know
they are being observed—is the best-known study of organizational behavior. Researchers are taught to
consider whether or not (and to what degree) the Hawthorne Effect may skew their findings on human
behavior.

Organizational behavior was not fully recognized by the American Psychological Association as a field of
academic study until the 1970s.

However, the Hawthorne research is credited for validating organizational behavior as a legitimate field
of study, and it's the foundation of the human resources (HR) profession as we now know it.

Special Considerations

The leaders of the Hawthorne study had a couple of radical notions. They thought they could use the
techniques of scientific observation to increase an employee's amount and quality of work, and they did
not look at workers as interchangeable resources. Workers, they thought, were unique in terms of their
psychology and potential fit within a company.

Over the following years, the concept of organizational behavior widened. Beginning with World War II,
researchers began focusing on logistics and management science. Studies by the Carnegie School in the
1950s and 1960s solidified these rationalist approaches to decision-making.

Today, those and other studies have evolved into modern theories of business structure and decision-
making. The new frontiers of organizational behavior are the cultural components of organizations, such
as how race, class, and gender roles affect group building and productivity. These studies take into
account how identity and background inform decision-making.

Academic programs focusing on organizational behavior are found in business schools, as well as at
schools of social work and psychology. These programs draw from the fields of anthropology,
ethnography, and leadership studies, and use quantitative, qualitative, and computer models as
methods to explore and test ideas.
Depending on the program, one can study specific topics within organizational behavior or broader
fields within it. Specific topics covered include cognition, decision-making, learning, motivation,
negotiation, impressions, group process, stereotyping, and power and influence. The broader study
areas include social systems, the dynamics of change, markets, relationships between organizations and
their environments, how social movements influence markets, and the power of social networks.

Examples of Organizational Behavior

Findings from organizational behavior research are used by executives and human relations
professionals to better understand a business’s culture, how that culture helps or hinders productivity
and employee retention, and how to evaluate candidates' skills and personality during the hiring
process.

Organizational behavior theories inform the real-world evaluation and management of groups of
people. There are several components:

Personality plays a large role in the way a person interacts with groups and produces work.
Understanding a candidate's personality, either through tests or through conversation, helps determine
whether they are a good fit for an organization.

Leadership—what it looks like and where it comes from—is a rich topic of debate and study within the
field of organizational behavior. Leadership can be broad, focused, centralized or de-centralized,
decision-oriented, intrinsic in a person’s personality, or simply a result of a position of authority.

Power, authority, and politics all operate inter-dependently in a workplace. Understanding the
appropriate ways these elements are exhibited and used, as agreed upon by workplace rules and ethical
guidelines, are key components to running a cohesive business.

Why Is Organizational Behavior Important?

Organizational behavior describes how people interact with one another inside of an organization, such
as a business. These interactions subsequently influence how the organization itself behaves and how
well it performs. For businesses, organizational behavior is used to streamline efficiency, improve
productivity, and spark innovation to give firms a competitive edge.
What Are the 4 Elements of Organizational Behavior?

The four elements of organizational behavior are people, structure, technology, and the external
environment. By understanding how these elements interact with one another, improvements can be
made. While some factors are more easily controlled by the organization—such as its structure or
people hired—it still must be able to respond to external factors and changes in the economic
environment.

What Are the 3 Levels of Organizational Behavior?

The first is the individual level, which involves organizational psychology and understanding human
behavior and incentives. The second level is groups, which involves social psychology and sociological
insights into human interaction and group dynamics. The top-level is the organizational level, where
organization theory and sociology come into play to undertake systems-level analyses and the study of
how firms engage with one another in the marketplace.

What Are Some Common Problems that Organizational Behavior Tries to Solve?

Organizational behavior can be used by managers and consultants to improve the performance of an
organization and to address certain key issues that commonly arise. These may include a lack of
direction or strategic vision for a company, difficulty getting employees on board with that vision,
pacifying workplace conflict or creating a more amenable work environment, issues with training
employees, poor communication or feedback, and so on.

Ethics and Organizatinal Behavior

For individuals, the role of ethics in organizational behavior helps ensure that each person is treated
fairly and maintains personal responsibility. The functionality and success of an organization may be
attributed to many factors, including productivity, business acumen, and a healthy organizational
culture.