Organizational Behavior

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The interdisciplinary subject Organizational Behavior (in British English also: Organizational Behavior or Organizational Behavior for organizational behavior , in short: OB ) examines on the one hand how people behave as individuals, in groups and in entire organizations based on their perception, thinking and feeling and on the other hand, how people are influenced in their behavior by the activities, processes and structures of / in organizations. The focus of interest is the concrete human behavior in organizations, which is always embedded in various internal and external contexts.

The approach of systems theory, especially the theory of social systems , is often used and is primarily oriented towards the effective rules of interactions between the individual, the group, the overall system and its socio-economic environment. In the Anglo-American language area, organizational behavior is part of the foundation of all social sciences and economics courses at an academic level.

In organizational theory, there are a number of different approaches, each of which describes an organization from a specific point of view. All approaches have in common that they view organizations to a large extent as complex, dynamic structures with a socio-economic mixed character. Organizational theory aims to explain the purpose, emergence and functioning of organizations and understands organization to mean the targeted arrangement of interfaces between areas of responsibility along value-added processes based on the division of labor.

In contrast to this, the Organizational Behavior department is concerned with the targeted handling of forms of designing and securing social rules , processes , functions and structures to influence human behavior in organizations. Different contexts (e.g. expectations , behavior or meaning ) are also examined in terms of their behavior-controlling effects.

Understanding of organization

There are different basic concepts of what is meant by organization.

  • If one understands organization as a reality outside of an observer, then a description reveals real structures and causal relationships and analyzes them. An organization is therefore recognized by the effective things.
  • If one understands organization as a mental model of an observer, then a description captures the cognitive models of the environment and the own behavior patterns of the participants. Accordingly, an organization is constructed by the observers through distinctions and naming of what is thereby differentiated.
  • If one understands organization as a discourse of the participants, then a description captures the verbal understanding of reality of the participants. An organization is therefore brought about by the discourses in which we participate.
  • If one understands organizations as a social, autopoietic system that can only be influenced to a limited extent by mechanistic controls, then an organization consists of (communicated) decisions as a consequence of previous decisions and as a prerequisite for further decisions.

Analysis levels

The organizational behavior department uses the three levels of analysis of individual behavior , behavior in groups and behavior in organizations . These levels are neither clear-cut nor cover-up, because an individual can consider subjective goals in a situation (e.g. a meeting) and agree group goals with other group members in order to influence the formulation of organizational goals in favor of the group as part of the strategy development.

The behavior-controlling effect of goals thus acts on all three levels of analysis.

Individual behavior

Individual human behavior is fundamentally shaped by subjective ideas about the inherently constant flow of states of perception, emotion and motivation in the form of mental models based on one's own observations. Observations made are assigned a meaning by the observer ( attribution ), whereby personal values , attitudes and goals are just as important as one's own ability to verbalize one's own thoughts .

Human behavior in organizations is fundamentally aimed at building common meaningful content ( sensemaking ) and is therefore determined by the targeted building of common ideas, which is mostly done through the verbalization of mental models in direct communication processes.

Behavior in groups (individual behavior in social processes)

Individual behavior in social situations is fundamentally shaped by the fundamental openness / uncertainty of human life experiences. Just by observing the other person, everyone has expectations about the behavior of the other person and, at the same time, about the other person's expectations of him. In a social encounter everyone regards the initially indefinite progression of their own behavior as freedom and the initially indeterminate progression of the behavior of the other as contingency. In the simplest case of two people, this means that each assigns contingency to the other , so that there is a double contingency . Often this uncertainty of expectations is cushioned by communication and (social) norms .

The observed behavior of the other person is assigned a meaning by the observer ( attribution ). This assignment follows to a large extent learned conventions and (expected) expectations. The assignment of meaning is therefore very closely connected with the biography of the observer and almost not at all with the observed. The understanding of observed individuals is based on observation and on the expectation that the observed will behave according to the assigned meanings. Human behavior in organizations is therefore determined, particularly in social situations, by the design of matching expectations and assignments of meaning.

Learning about matching expectations and assignments of meanings in groups can lead to groupthink , in which individuals adapt their own opinion to the presumed group opinion in a joint decision-making process without external compulsion.

Behavior in organizations (individual behavior in organizational processes)

With their behavior in organizational processes, people pursue subjective goals that go beyond the official organizational goal ( added value ), but do indeed pursue their own interests and shape the expectations and behavioral structures of those involved.

From a behavioral point of view, organizations can be understood as coalitions of individuals who bring their individual goals into different negotiation processes. The cornerstones of this approach are the incompleteness of knowledge, the difficulty of evaluating future events , the limited choice of alternatives and the search for satisfactory rather than optimal solutions.

Human behavior in organizations is therefore determined by the design of negotiations in and between coalitions. The resulting order is emergent and arises neither through individual behavior nor through the behavior of many individuals, but through the interaction ( self-organization ) of all behaviors. This interplay is largely due to the effect of the double contingency , due to mutual expectations and due to attributions.

The formal and informal expectations of the individual process participants with regard to a situation, a person or the expectations of other actors, together with the official and unofficial attributions, form the context in which people (in particular the decisions they make) communicate. This is exactly where systemic leadership comes in, which on the one hand tries to change the effective social norms and values ​​with conscious interventions in the communication and expectation structures of those involved and on the other hand tries to promote the current rules of self-organization with the aim of ensuring that the current organizational processes can develop further.

Core areas

The theoretically well-founded representation of all three levels of analysis of the behavior of people in different contexts is mostly held together by the core areas of communication and (multi- person ) decision theory , which is ensured on the level of metatheory by the theory of social systems .

In essence, marketable organizations consist of the communication of and about decisions, whereby each individual decision is linked to previous decisions and is itself a prerequisite for subsequent decisions. In view of the effective reciprocal references of decisions to other decisions in the interfaces along the value-added processes based on the division of labor, a recursive decision-making network results, whose self-reflection takes place on the basis of internal decision-oriented communication processes: Budgets, goals and tasks have to be specified, interpreted and explained again and again to arrive at accepted decisions.

Further articles

Critical appraisal

The term organization is not clear. The American organizational psychologist Karl E. Weick describes the problem as follows:

“ The term organizational behavior causes difficulties because you are never sure whether it means behavior that takes place in a certain place, behavior that relates to a certain place, behavior that is controlled by an organization becomes, a behavior that an organization creates, or whatever. "

- Karl E. Weick

Strictly speaking, an organization only exists when a person carries out an action in which he acts on behalf of the organization or interacts with other members within the organization.

If there is a connection between the action and the generation of added value (and this is exactly what organizations are about), questions of the design and safeguarding of social rules, processes, functions and structures come into view and that is exactly the core of organizational behavior.

According to Popper's World 2 , an organization always remains a conceptual concept and between "acting in the interests of the organization" and "acting in self-interest" can never be distinguished precisely or objectively.

The behavioral theory of the organization therefore understands an organization as a coalition of individuals who bring their individual goals into an internal negotiation process. An observable decision in an organization is therefore the result of a negotiation process between coalition members or between coalitions.

This negotiation process is characterized by incompleteness of knowledge, problems of evaluating future events, a limited selection of decision alternatives and the search for a satisfactory rather than optimal solution. Here, social rules, processes, functions and structures in different contexts come into focus again.

Precisely because an organization ultimately always remains a conceptual concept, according to Weick, the development of common meaningful content (sensemaking) of the organization members through communication plays a central role in shaping the organization's internal reality.

Luhmann even sees the central character of an organization in the communication of decisions, because the reciprocal references of the communications and decisions made result in a recursive network that forms the core of an organization.

Gareth Morgan pointed out early on that organizations can be observed from different angles. Depending on the observation, there are significantly different implications for the structure, the change and the control and management concepts. Morgan postulates the following metaphors:

  • Organization as a machine (mechanical leadership styles, bureaucratic structure and process organization)
  • Organization as an organism (survival is a key goal)
  • Organization as a brain (openness to exploration and self-criticism)
  • Organization as culture (social realities)
  • Organization as a political system (interests, conflicts and power)
  • Organization as a mental prison (intrapsychic processes and the impulses from the unconscious)
  • Organization as flow and change (feedback loops)
  • Organization as an instrument of power (rationality versus business ethics)

Thinking in metaphors helps to take into account the ambiguities and paradoxes we make of organizations. New images of an organization can produce new internal forms of action, which then lead to new results in the experience of an organization: The interpretation of an organization influences the way in which we help shape the organization through our actions!

literature

German-language literature

Basic English-language literature

  • FH Allport: Institutional Behavior. Chapel Hill, 1933.
  • RM Cyert , JG March: A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. 4th edition. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (NJ) 1963.
  • RL Daft, R. Noe: Organizational behavior. Southwestern Publishing, Thomson Learning 2001, ISBN 0-03-033931-6 .
  • PN Johnson-Laird: Mental Models. New York 1983.
  • JG March: A Primer on Decision Making. How Decisions Happen. 8th edition. Free Press, New York 1994.
  • JG March, HA Simon: Organizations. New York 1958.
  • Gareth Morgan : Images of Organization. actual Edition. Sage Publications, 2006, ISBN 1-4129-3979-8 .
  • DA Norman: Some Observations in Mental Models. In: D. Gentner, AL Stevens (Ed.): Mental Models. Hilsdale, NJ 1983, pp. 7-14.
  • Stephen P. Robbins: Organizational Behavior - Concepts, Controversies, Applications. 4th edition. Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0-13-170901-1 .
  • Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations. 4th edition. 1997.
  • JR Taylor, L. Lerner: Making Sense of Sensemaking. In: Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies. Vol. 2.2, 1996, p. 259 ff.
  • KE Weick: Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage 1995, ISBN 0-8039-7177-X .

Current English-language literature

  • JL Bowditch, AF Buono: A Primer on Organizational Behavior. 7th edition. Wiley, 2007.
  • R. French, Ch. Rayner, G. Rees, S. Rumbles: Organizational Behavior. European Ed edition. Wiley, 2008.
  • LJ Mullins: Essentials of Organizational Behavior. 2nd Edition. FT Press, 2008.
  • St. P. Robbins, TA Judge: Organizational Behavior. 14th edition. Prentice Hall, 2010.

Trade journals

Web links

swell

  1. ^ JM Reimer: Behavioral management theory. Haupt, Bern et al. 2005, pp. 117–150.
  2. ^ Niklas Luhmann : Organization and decision. 2nd Edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 68.
  3. ^ Karl E. Weick: The process of organizing. Suhrkamp Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 48.
  4. ^ Derek S. Pugh , David J. Hickson : Writers on Organizations. 5th edition. Penguin Books, London 1996, ISBN 0-14-025023-9 , pp. 208-213.