This chapter begins by looking at whether or not it can be claimed that new forms of work organization have emerged in recent decades. It analyzes different forms of working, managing change, and technology, including the Japanese model of management. It also explains how the Japanese model was perceived in the 1970s and early 1980s as a new way of improving productivity and competitiveness, how real that was, and how well it translated into Western organizations. The chapter documents some of the key changes that are widely celebrated and discussed in the management literature. It critiques how much change has actually happened in terms of work organization in the last two or three decades.
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This chapter defines organization theory as a multidisciplinary enterprise that draws from diverse sources, indicating perspectives and disciplines that contributed ideas to its development. It focuses on concepts and theories developed within the modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives and presents influential ideas from which these perspectives emerged. It also looks at the tension between theory and practice that leads to the continual formulation of new concepts, theories, and perspectives. The chapter introduces political economists and sociologists whose ideas were highly influential when organization theory was born and whose work continues to inform this field of study today. It points out that the historical record concerning organization does not extend much into ancient times as Adam Smith was the first person on record to publish a formal theory of organization in 1776.
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Bringing it all together
Fond farewells
This chapter explains the importance of connecting organizational behaviour theories together. Organizational behaviour is often thought about, researched, and taught as a collection of separate topics. Issues such as motivation, culture, or teamwork often draw on different theorists and are presented as independent issues. Yet, to really understand how things work in practice, we need to see the connections between these elements. The chapter then examines the differences between the rational and social perspectives of organizing, before considering the differences between the formal and informal perspectives of understanding organizational behaviour. It then looks at the assumptions between mainstream perspectives that seek to produce greater control over workers and critical perspectives that search for freedom and emancipation. The chapter also assesses why from a critical perspective managers and workers have different interests.
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Changing the organization
Planning and emergence
This chapter begins by studying how people have different perspectives on change. On the one hand, change might be seen by managers as a reasonable action to take in response to certain triggers or pressures. On the other hand, change can cause anxiety, fear, and upset among the workforce that it affects. The chapter then presents three broad approaches which examine the implementation of change against the backdrop of such conflicting perspectives. First, it considers a naïve approach to change which stems from viewing the organization in simplistic terms, as a set of building blocks. Second, the chapter suggests that viewing the organization as an iceberg (the planned approach) shows its hidden depths which affect the implementation of change. Finally, an emergent approach to change sees the organization as a river, constantly in flow.
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Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and business ethics
Can businesses act sustainably, ethically, and responsibly?
This chapter discusses business ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability. Business ethics deals primarily with the principles that should be used to govern business conduct, how people should act, and the underlying philosophies behind ethical actions. CSR looks at the wider social and environmental responsibilities that businesses have and how they should meet them. Meanwhile, sustainability focuses on increasing concerns with the environment (particularly climate change), but it also has the wider meaning of the long-term sustainability of the firm itself. Should privately owned, profit-seeking companies be concerned with acting in a socially responsible, moral, and humane way? The response that one makes to this question depends, to a large degree, on one's beliefs as to the central purpose and responsibility of businesses, which can be summed up in the following five categories: shareholder capitalism, stakeholder capitalism, ethical capitalism, ethical within capitalism, and ethical against capitalism.
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This chapter looks at what culture means in the context of behaviour in organizations, questioning whether it is possible to assume that everyone means the same thing when talking about culture. It determines whether it makes sense to talk about different cultures in an age of globalization and if it is viable to consider changing culture. It also traces how the concept of organizational culture is defined and discussed, assessing the theory and evidence that have insight into a wide range of aspects of culture within organizations. The chapter highlights culture as a popular explanatory concept frequently used to describe a company, a rationale for people’s behaviour, a guideline for action, a cause for condemnation or praise, or a quality that makes a company ‘what it is’. The chapter examines the concept and definition of organizational culture that led to many debates.
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Developments in rational organization
Towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution
This chapter begins by tracing how rationalization developed in the Third Industrial Revolution, drawing on the development of computerization. More recently, commentators have suggested that we are entering a Fourth Industrial Revolution. While this brings new forms of organization, it is also an evolution and development of the computerization of the Third Industrial Revolution, and the Taylorist and bureaucratic systems of the Second Industrial Revolution. The chapter then looks at two current and ongoing examples of the trends of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. First, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are natural extensions of the desire in both the Second and Third Industrial Revolutions to replace human with machine labour; the chapter considers which jobs are in danger of being automated in the near future. Second, the chapter examines the recent rise of the gig economy, where workers take on one short-term job after another, the whole process managed by computer algorithms.
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Discovering the social organization
The Hawthorne studies and the human side of the organization
This chapter looks at the Hawthorne studies, one of the most influential pieces of research in organizational behaviour. It begins by recounting the perspective that the Hawthorne studies grew out of Taylorist assumptions about the importance of the physical conditions of work and the emergence of interest in the informal side of the organization. The chapter then challenges this typical account, arguing that it is not all it appears. While Elton Mayo and his colleagues stated that they ‘discovered’ the social side of the organization and that workers are naturally cooperative, several critics have argued that the way Mayo interpreted his data was highly ideological, claiming that the research methodology and interpretation of findings were flawed. Moreover, they argue that the results of the Hawthorne studies have been used by management as a better way of controlling workers, rather than empowering the workers as Mayo and his colleagues claimed.
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This chapter examines research that discusses what employees, particularly those at the bottom of the hierarchy, feel about work, how they view their jobs, and what work means to people. The chapter talks about esteem and disrespect, status and subordination, opportunity and cost, and commitment and alienation in the workplace. It also highlights the management of people that requires an understanding of how they think about their jobs and how those from different social groups experience work, drawing on the sociology of work, developed to provide a critical understanding of the world of work. The chapter explores how work for those with less satisfying jobs has been described and researched, and what has been learned about what these jobs mean to those who do them. It recounts attempts that have been made to improve the meaning of work by redesigning jobs.
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Equality, diversity, and inclusion
Exploring identities, diversity, and difference
This chapter highlights general issues around equality, diversity, and inclusion and how these are addressed in a workplace and organizational context. It begins with the equalities approach, based around legal protection from discrimination for particular categories of people in society. Equal opportunities policies are implemented to comply with these laws and organizations gather data which monitors whether different groups of people are being treated fairly. The diversity approach moves from sameness to highlighting the many differences that exist between people. Meanwhile, a critical approach to diversity suggests that both equality and diversity approaches fail to understand the complexity of individual identity, and that they ignore some of the power dynamics within organizations and society which contribute to discrimination and disadvantage. The chapter then considers inequality regimes, differentiating between institutional and structural discrimination. Finally, it looks at inclusion, which considers the actual experience that different people have in an organization.
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Globalization
Managing between the global and the local
This chapter reviews the commonly held view of globalization which suggests that we have become one, united globe, with individual nations becoming less relevant; with the economy, business, and politics increasingly interconnected; and, at the same time, with global culture becoming increasingly homogeneous. It examines the move towards a ‘global village’ and the features of globalization that contribute to this trend, including the role of organizations. The chapter then looks at the history of globalization as a violent and oppressive history of colonialism. While this era has ended, postcolonialism suggests that its legacy still exists in the form of enduring inequalities. The chapter also explores how, despite trends towards globalization, individual nations, and the differences between them, are still important. It considers the implications of national and cultural differences for managing and organizing on a global basis.
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This chapter gives a more complete view of the realities of life and work, both within and outside of organizations, and uncovers some of the more hidden realities. It talks about how violence is legitimated in some organizations, such as in the military and police, or in martial arts organizations. It also mentions how violence may also be found in relationships between workers and managers, between organizational peers, or between clients and professionals. The chapter defines work-related stress as a harmful reaction people have to undue pressures and demands placed on them at work. It refers to emotion management, which is typically performed in the presence of individuals that frequently interact with people at work and are thought to spend a significant amount of time controlling their emotions.
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Introducing organizational behaviour
New beginnings
This chapter presents an overview of organizational behaviour. Organizational behaviour is fundamentally interested in people: how they are managed, motivated, and shaped by the world around them, and how they behave. To study organizational behaviour, therefore, is to study how and why things happen in workplaces and organizations. The chapter introduces the case study of the fictional Junction Hotel, which provides a more rounded picture of organizational life rather than just looking at organizational behaviour from the manager's viewpoint. It then identifies key underlying principles in examining issues of organizational behaviour: psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and political science. Finally, the chapter considers the importance of critical thinking and multiple perspectives in understanding organizational behaviour.
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Knowledge and learning
Developing the individual, developing the organization
This chapter explores how people develop as individuals and improve their work by learning and gaining new knowledge from their workplace experience. It begins by looking at individual knowledge and learning, drawing a distinction between explicit knowledge and a deeper tacit knowledge. The chapter specifically considers knowledge that is valuable for being a manager and how people gain that knowledge. It then discusses knowledge management, which is concerned with how individuals learn, but also with how knowledge, both explicit and tacit, is transferred between people in and across the organization. Organizations that promote the sharing of knowledge become learning organizations, and this equips them to deal with change and uncertainty. Finally, the chapter reflects on the implications of the digitization of knowledge—will the knowledge and skills that are valued by employers today still be relevant when such work can be done through artificial intelligence?
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This chapter focuses on leadership, which ranks among the most researched and debated topics in organizational behaviour. It examines the difference between management and leadership, and whether leaders are necessary in all kinds of organization. The chapter also talks about the traits or qualities that are required of leaders. It then determines which style of leadership is the most appropriate to adopt, and argues whether there are recipes for a successful leadership. The chapter identifies and discusses several different theories of leadership, including the links between emotion, spirituality, gender, class, and leadership. It talks about leadership being seen as a social myth which induces helplessness with accompanying feelings of despair and resistance to any form of action, maintaining the status quo.
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Leadership and management
Leading and managing throughout organizations
This chapter explains the differences between leadership and management, looking at various theories of leadership. It starts with the individualist great man and trait theories. These theories focus on the individual at the top of the organization and seek to work out what makes such an individual great and successful. The chapter then considers behavioural theories, which are broader in that they look at the interactions between leaders and followers. Yet these theories do not take into account the situation that a leader faces, which is what situational leadership explores. Meanwhile, transformational leadership offers workers a vision of the future. The chapter explains the key principles of distributive leadership and alternative forms of organizing, including democratic leadership.
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This chapter examines the issue of how much power and control managers actually have, and to what extent employees resist managerial power and control. It begins by looking at how power is defined and from where power comes. It also describes the limits of managerial power, and the issues of sharing power and of individual empowerment. The chapter tackles the thorny issues of control, technology, and surveillance, noting that managers can gain greater control through the use of technology and surveillance, but excessive use may invite resistance. It mentions bureaucracy as the dominant form of modern control and illustrates power that is structured into the organization design in such a way that some will have more power than others.
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This chapter focuses on managers, including what they do and what their jobs look like. It defines ‘managing’ as being in charge and responsible for the smooth running and rational conduct of an organization or unit. The chapter looks at discussions in the management literature about how to differentiate management and leadership. It also points out that managing is about maintaining or monitoring an organization’s steady state, fixing problems as they arise, and being responsible for the ‘tame’ problems, while leadership is about working with the more complex or ‘wicked’ problems. The chapter reviews research on managerial work and explains some of the realities of managerial life. It points out that management is about having power and control over people, while achieving a measure of voluntary compliance from them.
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Managing groups and teams
From managing the individual to managing the collective
This chapter focuses on teamwork and why it has become a central feature of organizational life. Why do companies value teamwork so highly? Teamwork is linked to increased productivity, problem-solving, and organizational success; it increases employee satisfaction by fulfilling ‘social needs’ and providing a sense of belonging and identity. Indeed, teamwork is often presented as a universal, unquestioned good. However, being in a team can be hard. The chapter then looks at the factors needed to produce an effective team; explains how group dynamics can impact individual performance; and considers how groupthink can have negative implications for teams. It also examines social identity theory, Bruce Tuckman's stages of group formation, and how teamwork can lead to greater surveillance and control.
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This chapter deals with how managers should motivate employees and ascertain whether motivating employees is all about using common sense as a manager, or if there is more to it than that. It examines different theories of motivation, considering why and how they arose, and what attempts have been made to influence motivation or improve the quality of working life for employees. It also talks about the theory underlying motivation on improving the motivation of employees. This improves output and other factors, as managers are interested in motivating and creating sufficient job satisfaction, so work will be done adequately and in fact will be continually improved. The chapter covers both content and process theories of motivation. It points out that content theories describe the individual’s needs, drives, and goals, while process theories focus on the individual’s interactions with the environment and judgements about rewards, costs, and preferences.
