Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of behavior in an organization. There are three determinants of behavior in order to make an organization more effective: individual, groups, and structure (Robbins 5). The people within the organization and their behaviors affect the performance of the organization. There are a number of behavioral disciplines that contribute to OB: psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science. There are lot of challenges and opportunities today for managers to use OB concepts. One of the most important and broad-based challenges facing organizations today is adapting to diverse work environments. Organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. Understanding the concepts of OB allows management to facilitate the needs of a diverse workforce.
Classical organization theory, evolved during the first half of this century, did not account for the needs of diverse workforce. It represented the merger of scientific management, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory. This theory had four basic principles: find the best way to perform each task, carefully match each worker to each task, closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators. Working through these principles, the.
task of management was planning and control. While this management theory proved successful in simple industrialized companies at the turn of the century, it had not played well in modern companies. The philosophy of production first, people second, left a legacy of declining .
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production and quality, dissatisfaction with work, loss of pride in workmanship, and a near complete loss of organizational pride.
According to the textbook, organizational structure is described as a mechanism through which effort is integrated through the coordination and control of activities, symbolic management, and the management of organizational culture (18).