Top 5 Models of Organizational Behavior

– Explained!
Article shared by Diksha Kashyap

This article throws light on the five important models of organizational behavior,
i.e, (1) Autocratic Model , (2) The Custodial Model , (3) The Supportive Model , (4)
The Collegial Model , and (5) Other Models

1. Autocratic Model:

The basis of this model is the power of the boss.

Max Weber defined, power as, “the probability that one actor, within a social
relationship, will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance.”

Walternord defined power as, “the ability to influence flow of available energy and
resources towards certain goals as opposed to other goals. Power is assumed to be
exercised only when these goals are at-least partially in conflict with each other.”

The essential features of this model are as follows:

(i) Organisation with an autocratic environment is authority oriented. This authority is

delegated by the right of command over the people to whom it applies. The management
believes that it is the best judge to determine what is better for the health of both the
organisation and its participants and that the employees’ obligation is to follow orders. It
assumes that the employees have to be directed, persuaded and pushed into performance.
Management does the thinking and employees obey the orders. This view of managing
organisations has been developed by D. McGregor in his theory X. This conventional
view leads to tight control of employees at work.

(ii) Under autocratic model, the employee’s orientation is obedience to the boss; they
need not be respectful to him. The bosses have absolute power to hire fire and perspire
employees. The employees depend upon the boss and are paid minimum wages for
minimum performance. This theory of scientific management was developed by F.W.
Taylor as the conventional view of management. The employees sometimes give
minimum performance, though reluctantly because they have to satisfy the subsistence
needs of themselves and their families. Some employees give higher performance
because of a drive to overcome challenges. According to the research of David C.
McClelland of Harvard University, “some people like to work under strong authority
because they feel that their boss is a natural born leader.”

(iii) The autocratic model has been successful in some situations where the workers are
actually lazy and have a tendency to shirk work. It is also required in the situation? where
the work to be done is time bound. The threat generally used by the managers is that the
reward or wages will be withheld if the workers do not obey them.

(iv) The leadership in an autocratic model is negative because the employees are
uninformed, insecure and afraid.

(v) Nowadays, this model is not applicable in strict sense because there are minimum
wages laws in most of the countries. Thus, the managers cannot threaten to cut down the
wages or rewards of the workers. Moreover, the workers are educated and organised, thus
they cannot be dictated to by the managers all the time.

2. The Custodial Model:

To overcome the shortcomings of the Autocratic model, the custodial model came into
existence. The insecurity and frustration felt by the workers under the autocratic model
sometimes led to aggression towards the boss and their families. To dispel this feeling of
insecurity and frustration, the need was felt to develop a model which will improve the
employer-employee relations. The custodial model was used by the progressive
managers.

Some of the important features of this model are as explained below:

(i) The success of the Custodial Model depends upon the economic resources because
this model emphasizes the economic rewards and benefits. Since employee’s
physiological needs are already met the employer looks to security needs as a motivating
force.

(ii) The employees under Custodial Model depend upon organisation rather than their
boss. If the organisation has got good welfare and development programmes for the
employees, they cannot afford to leave the organisation.

(iii) Under this model, the employees are satisfied and happy and they are not strongly
motivated. So they give only passive cooperation. They do not work more vigorously
than under the autocratic approach.

(iv) The main benefit of this model is that it brings security and satisfaction to the
employees.

(v) The difficulty, with this model is that it depends upon material rewards only to
motivate the employees. But the workers have their psychological needs also.

Due to the drawbacks of this method, a search began to find out the best way to motivate
the workers so that they produce with their full capacity and capabilities.

3. The Supportive Model:

The supportive model has originated from the ‘Principles of Supportive Relationships.”
According to Rensis Likert, “The leadership and other processes of the organisation must
be such as to ensure a maximum probability that in all interactions and all relationships
with the organisation, each member will, in the light of his background, values and
expectations, view the experience as supportive, and one which builds and maintains his
sense of personal worth and importance.”

The main features of this model are as follows:

(i) The Supportive Model depends on leadership instead of power or money.

Management, with the help of leadership try to create a favourable organisational climate
in which the employees are helped to grow to the greater capacities and achieve things of
which they have the capability, in compliance with the goals of the organisation.

(ii) The leader assumes that the worker will take responsibility, make their contributions
and improve themselves, if given a chance. It is assumed that the workers are not lazy
and work shirkers by nature. If properly motivated, they can be self directed and creative
to the organisation.

(iii) It should be the orientation of the management to support the employees’ job
performance, rather than simply giving them payments and benefits as in the custodial
approach.

(iv) This model takes care of the psychological needs of the employees in addition to
their subsistence and security needs. It is similar to McGregor’s theory and the human
resources approach to people.

(v) This model is an improvement over the earlier two models. Supportive behaviour
helps in creating friendly superior-subordinate interaction with a high degree of
confidence and trust. This model has been found to be effective in affluent countries
where the workers are more concerned about their psychological needs like high self
esteem, job satisfaction etc. But it has limited application in India, where the majority of
the workers are below the poverty line. For them, the most important requirement is the
satisfaction of their physiological needs and security. They are not much concerned about
the psychological needs.

4. The Collegial Model:

The collegial model is an extension of the supportive model. The Dictionary meaning of
collegial is a body of persons having a common purpose. As is clear from the meaning,
this model is based upon the partnership between employees and the management.

The features of this model are as follows:

 (i) This model creates a favourable climate in the organisation as the workers feel that
they are the partners in the organisation. They don’t see the managers as their bosses but
as joint contributors. Both the management and workers accept and respect each other.

(ii) The collegial model inculcates the team spirit in an organisation. The workers accept
responsibilities because they find it their obligation to do so, not because that they will be
punished by the management. This helps in developing a system of self discipline in the
organisation.

(iii) In this kind of collegial environment, the workers have job satisfaction, job
involvement, job commitment and some degree of fulfillment.

(iv) The collegial model is especially useful in research laboratories and similar work
situations.

After studying all the four models it becomes very clear that there is no single model
which is best suited to the requirements of all the organisations. The managers will have
to make use of a combination of models depending upon the circumstances of the case.
But keeping in view the emergence of professional management, we can say that the use
of Supportive and Collegial will be more as compared to the Autocratic and Custodial
Models.

5. Other Models:

Some models of organisational behaviour can also be classified by a number of

approaches.

A few of these models are as explained below:

(i) Normative Models:

The normative models seek to find out that what should be done to produce optimum
results. These models are concerned with the determination of optimum actions. Most of
the management theories are comprised of the normative models, because while
preparing the plans and policies the management is more concerned with what should be
done or what should not be done by the managers and the employees.

(ii) Empirical Models:

While the normative models are concerned with what should be done, the empirical
models describe the activities the employees actually perform. This model becomes an
integral part of organisational behaviour because organisational behaviour is concerned
with what is actually taking place in the organisations and how do people actually
behave.

(iii) Ecological Models:

No business enterprise can exist in a vacuum. It has to continuously interact with the
environment. All the functions of the organisation are affected by the environment as the
environment supplies the inputs which are converted by the organisation into outputs.
Through a process of feedback output causes the emergence of new inputs.

This interaction between the organisation and environment is known as ecological

interaction and this is the crux of ecological approach. Models which deal with the
changes which take place in the environment and which understand the complexities of
environment are ecological models.

(iv) Non-Ecological Models:

As the name suggests this model is the opposite of ecological model. Whereas the
ecological model accepts that the environment is complex and changes keep on taking
place, the non-ecological models assume stability in the environment and that everything
will remain the same. This model does not help in generalizing that what will happen in
future. In the modern day world, when the environmental factors are assuming a lot of
importance, this model is not very useful.

(v) Ideographic Models:

The models that are developed to deal with specific cases or unique situations are called
ideographic models. This model deals with situations like single nation, single
organisation, single group, individual, biography, historical episode etc. When the
organisational behaviour is concerned with micro-level analysis this model is generally
used.

(vi) Nomothetic Models:

These models deal with general situations. These are concerned with theory building on
the macro level basis. These are concerned with generalizations, laws, hypothesis which
indicates regularity of behaviour and correlation between variables. These models deal
with situations like cross country, cross organisation, cross group, cross individual
analysis of organisational system. To summaries, we can say that organisational
behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and
structure have on behaviour within an organisation and then the results of the
investigations are applied to make organisations work more effectively.

Organisational behaviour uses systemic studies to improve predictions of behaviour that

would be made from instructions of the management alone. But, because each
organisation is different from the other one, we have to find organisational behaviour
model which will suit that particular organisation. Organisational behaviour offers both
challenges and opportunities for the managers and it also offers guidance to the managers
in creating an ethically healthy working environment.