Question

Explain Breifly

1. What is Organizational Behavior, (OB) and why is it important to understand?

2. What are the functions of OB in today’s modern business; how has it changed over the last fifty years?

3. Why is the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Elton Mayo so important in shaping modern OB issues?

4. What are some of the emerging trends in OB?

5. Given globalization, how should Multi-National Corporations, (MNC’s) manage across cultures in various international location? What do they need to be aware of at all times?

6. How and why is it important to design good employee training programs?

7. How has globalization affected the field of OB?

Answer 1

1. What is Organizational Behavior, (OB) and why is it important to understand?
Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of the way people interact within groups. Normally this study is applied in an attempt to create more efficient business organizations. The central idea of the study of organizational behavior is that a scientific approach can be applied to the management of workers. Organizational behavior theories are used for human resource purposes to maximize the output from individual group members

2. What are the functions of OB in today’s modern business; how has it changed over the last fifty years?

Organizational Behavior is the identification, analyzing and application of knowledge about how individuals and groups act in organizations. It interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the person, group, organization, and whole social system. Objective of it is to build better relationships by achieving people objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives. It encompasses a wide range of areas, such as human behavior, Training and development, change management, leadership, teams, Group behavior etc.

In the study of organizational behavior is helpful in gaining a complete understanding of the business. It is not the study of how organizations behave, but rather the study of individual behavior in an organization. This includes the study of how individuals be have alone as well as in groups.

The main focus of the organizational behavior is to obtain a greater understanding of those factors which influence individual and group dynamics in an organization. Therefore individuals and the groups and organizations to which they belong may become more efficient and effective. Organizational behavior research is ultimately focused at providing human resource management professionals with the information and techniques which they need to select, train, and retain employees in a fashion which gives maximum benefit for the individual employee and for the organization.

Organizational behavior is a modern interdisciplinary field. It draws most heavily from the psychological and sociological sciences and it also looks to other scientific fields. The interdisciplinary approach is used because the field of organizational behavior involves multiple levels of analysis, which are necessary to understand behavior within organizations as people influence their environment as well as people are influenced by their environment

4. What are some of the emerging trends in OB?

key ‘emerging’ trends in OB:

• Globalization. This should be the obvious answer to the question and might not be as ‘strong’ of an ‘emerging’ trend as it used to be, but globalization (read: diversity) has an effect on the way we study and understand how organizations behave.

• Technology. This should also be up there on the ‘obvious’ list, as the advancement of technology will automatically change the way that organizations function.

• Changing workforce. Of the three list, this might be the ‘underrated’ trend, in that it’s not something that can necessarily be seen from a distance (without some prior knowledge). It’s no secret that employees from “Baby Boom” are nearing retirement age and when they do decide to retire, that’s going to leave many holes in leadership positions within organizations. Not only will they be leaving holes, but some think that the employees that make up “Generation X” and “Millennials” won’t be able to fill all the positions left by “Baby Boomers.”