HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN ORGANIZATION
MODULE 2
The Dynamic Environment
The environment of business is changing at an unprecedented rate. To truly understand
the behavior of people in organizational settings, it is also necessary to understand the
changing environment of business.
Five of the central environmental forces for change faced by today’s organization:
globalization, diversity, technology, ethics and corporate governance, and new
employment relationship.
Globalization is a term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world
into a more connected and interdependent place. Describe the growing interdependence
of the world’s economies, cultures and others.
Forces that have increased international business:
1. Improved communication and transportation facilities
2. Larger potential markets
3. Lower costs of production and distribution
4. Response to international activity of competitors
Cross-Cultural Differences and Similarities
General observations cultural and national boundaries do not necessarily coincide. On
this assumption, reached five basic conclusions:
1. Behavior in organizational settings does indeed vary across cultures. (Different
attitudes and patterns of behavior).
2. Culture itself is one major cause of this variation. Culture is a set of shared values,
often taken for granted, that help people in a group, organization or society
understand which actions are considered acceptable and which are deemed
unacceptable.
3. Although the causes and consequences of behavior within organizational settings
remains quite diverse across cultures, organizations and the way they are
structured appear to be growing increasingly similar.
4. The same individual behaves differently in different cultural settings. A manager
may adopt one set of behaviors when working in one culture but change those
behaviors when moved to a different culture.
5. Cultural diversity can be an important source of synergy in enhancing
organizational effectiveness.
Specific Cultural Issues – specific attitudes and behaviors differed significantly because of
the values and beliefs that characterized different countries.
Individualism exists to the extent that people in a culture define themselves primarily as
individuals rather than as part of one or more groups or organizations. People from more
individualistic cultures tend to be more concerned about themselves as individuals than
about their work group, individual tasks are more important than relationships, and hiring
and promotion are usually based on skills and rules.
Collectivism is characterized by tight social frameworks in which people tend to base their
identities on the group or organization to which they belong. Employee-employer links
are more family relationships, relationships are more important than individuals or tasks,
and hiring and promotion are based on group membership.
Power Distance, also called orientation to authority, is the extent to which people accept
as normal an unequal distribution of power.
Uncertainty Avoidance also called preference for stability, is the extent to which people
feel threatened by unknown situations and prefer to be in clear and unambiguous
situations.
Masculinity called as assertiveness or materialism, is the extent to which the dominant
values in society emphasize aggressiveness and the acquisition of money and other
possessions as opposed to concern for people, relationships among people, and overall
quality of life.
Long-term orientation is based on the values that lead to focusing on the future, working
on projects that have a distant payoff, persistence, and thrift.
Short-term orientation is tied more to values that are oriented toward the past and the
present and include respect for traditions and social obligations.
The important issue to remember is that people from diverse cultures value things
differently from each other and that people need to take these difference into account as
they work.
Work-force diversity refers to the important similarities and differences among the
employees of organizations.
Stereotype is a generalization about a person or a group of persons based on certain
characteristics or traits.
Prejudices are judgments about others that reinforce beliefs about superiority and
inferiority.
Dimensions of Diversity
Primary dimensions of diversity are those factors that are either inborn or exert
extraordinary influence on early socialization, includes age, race and ethnicity, gender,
physical and mental abilities and sexual orientation.
Secondary dimensions of diversity include factors that matter to us as individuals and that
to some extent define us to others; however, they may be less permanent than primary
dimensions and can be adapted or changed, includes educational background, geographic
location, income, marital status, military experience, parental status, religious beliefs, and
work experience.
Assimilation is the process through which members of a minority group are forced to learn
the ways of the majority group.
Valuing Diversity means putting an end to the assumption that everyone who is not a
member of the dominant group must assimilate. It is not just the right thing to do for
workers, it is the right thing to do for the organization both financially and economically.
Technology refers to the methods used to create products, including both physical goods
and intangible services.
Manufacturing is a form of business that combines and transforms resources into tangible
outcomes that are then sold to others.
Service organization is one that transforms resources into an intangible output and
creates time or place utility for its customers.
Technology is the basis of competition for some firms, especially those whose goals
include being the technology leaders in their industries. Businesses have increasingly
found that they can be more competitive if they can systematically decrease cycle times.
Breakthroughs in information technology have resulted in leaner organizations, more
flexible operations, increased collaboration among employees, more flexible work sites,
and improved management processes and systems.
Ethics are person’s beliefs about what constitutes right and wrong behavior. Example of
ethical issues is the Enron’s accounting reports failed completely to reflect the firm’s
disastrous financial and managerial condition.
Some ethical issues in information technology are individual rights to privacy and the
potential abuse of information technology by individuals.
Corporate Governance refers to the oversight of a public corporation by its board of
directors. The board of a public corporation is expected to ensure that the business is
being properly managed and that the decisions made by its senior management are in the
best interests of shareholders and other stakeholders.
New Employment Relationships
Knowledge Workers are those employees who add value in an organization simply
because of what they know, includes computer scientists, physical scientists, engineers,
product designers and video game developers.
As the importance of information-driven jobs grows, the need for knowledge workers will
grow, but these employees require extensive and highly specialized training, and not
everyone is willing to make the human capital investments necessary to move into there
jobs. Compensation and related policies for them must be specially tailored.
Outsourcing is the practice of hiring other firms to do work previously performed by the
organization itself. It is an increasingly popular strategy because it helps firms focus on
their core activities and avoid getting sidetracked into secondary activities. A snack bar
at a large commercial bank may be important to employees and some customers, but
running it is not the bank’s main line of business and expertise. Outsourcing makes good
business sense in areas that are highly unrelated to a firm’s core business activities.
*End*
Reference: Human Behavior in Organization (Philippine Edition)
By: Ricky W. Griffin / Gregory Moorehead