Chapter 1
Introducing Management
and Organizational
Behaviour
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHAT ARE ORGANIZATIONS?
Organizations are:
social entities that are goal-directed, that are
inextricably linked to their environment yet
have nominal boundaries, and that employ
deliberately designed and coordinated activities
and approaches to achieving their objectives.
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHY DO ORGANIZATIONS EXIST?
• They are more effective than the
alternatives - they offer the opportunity to
achieve objectives unachievable without
them; and
• They offer efficiencies compared to their
alternatives - they help achieve these
objectives faster or with less economic,
cultural, social, political, or moral costs.
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?
• Management – a process that involves
planning, organizing, leading (or deploying),
and controlling resources in order to achieve
goals
• People management - the process of trying
to achieve goals in organizations with and
through people.
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
The process of management
• Figure 1.1
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?
• Involves:
– complexity - a large number of potentially
relevant factors that may have a bearing on
the intended outcome, and
– uncertainty - the absence of sufficient
information about the nature and likelihood of
certain events that may have a bearing on the
intended outcome
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR?
• OB is concerned with the behaviour of
individuals and groups in an organizational
context
• Its main sphere of interest includes
anything relevant to the design,
management and effectiveness of an
organization, together with the dynamic
and interactive relationships that exist
within them
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR?
• The study of OB involves two distinct features:
– Interdisciplinary - draws from research in psychology,
sociology, political science, economics, anthropology,
philosophy, ergonomics, other social sciences
disciplines
– Explanatory - sets out to explain the behaviour of
individuals and groups in organizations. in the form of
theories and models that describe the relationships
between variables
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
WHY STUDY ORGANIZATIONAL
BEAHVIOUR?
• Most jobs contain a technical and people oriented
dimension
• Organizations are complex, dynamic places
• Helps to understand ambiguity in the social world
and to be more able to work with and around those
uncertainties
• Creates self-awareness that will help understand
how you and others interface with organizations,
and so equip you to better survive the experience of
doing so!
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
HOW TO STUDY ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Get involved
• Consider all the organizations that you have been
involved with
• Think about all of the jobs that you have done
• Think about the movies , books and games that
involve jobs
• Integrate all your experience and reading about
organizations
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
The Impact of People and Organizations
on Management
• Figure 1.2
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Reciprocal impact between management and
aspects related to people and organizational
context
• Figure 1.3
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Comprehensive Framework for Organizational
Behaviour and Management in Organizations
•Figure 1.4
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
RESEARCH AND ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Figure 1.5
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Critical studies
Reed (1989) identifies three important sociological
perspectives on management:
• Technical perspective.
• Political perspective.
• Critical perspective.
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Critical studies
• Requires approaches to the study of organizations to be:
– Reflexive
– Embedded
– Multi-dimensional
– Dialectical and contradictory
– Socially transforming
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Critical studies
• Alvesson & Willmott (1996) describe the critical perspective as
incorporating the following:
– Management is a social practice
– Tensions exist in management practice
– Critical studies are themselves embedded
– Critical studies seek to illuminate and transform power relations
– Critical theory contains an emancipatory intent
– Critical analysis is concerned with the critique of ideology
– Critical theory
implies more than a reconstruction of mainstream
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
perspectives
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning
Modernism and postmodernism
• Thompson & McHugh (1995) suggest that:
– Modernism is the representational aspects of the
‘grand narrative, a coherent story about the
development of the social and natural, revealed
through the application of reason and science’
– Postmodernists, reject that cohesion, arguing that
reality is made up of a differing range of realities and
that it is constructed by our ability to express (or
formulate) it. It is a view that holds that the ‘truth is a
product of language games’
For use with Organizational Behaviour and Management
by John Martin and Martin Fellenz
1408018128© 2010 Cengage Learning