At the beginning of the 20th century, companies were using scientific approaches to improve worker productivity. But that all began to change in 1924 with the start of the Hawthorne Studies, a 9-year research program at Western Electric Companies. The program, of which Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger played a major role, concluded that an organization’s undocumented social system was a powerful motivator of employee behavior. The Hawthorne Studies led to the development of the Human Relations Movement in business management. The experiment was about measuring the impact of different working conditions by the company itself (such as levels of lighting, payment systems, and hours of work) on the output of the employees. The researchers concluded that variations in output were not caused by changing physical conditions or material rewards only but partly by the experiments themselves. The special treatment required by experimental participation convinced workers that management had a Continue reading
Organizational Behavior
Use of Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory in Behavioral Modification
What is Behavioral Modification? All organisations are set up with particular core goals and aims in mind. Various resources including money, machines and manpower are utilized to achieve these goals. Modern businesses often refer to their Human Resources (manpower) as their biggest and most important asset and it is widely understood that this single resource plays a vital and irreplaceable role in the attainment of success and the achievement of an organisation’s objectives. Thus, human behavior at work plays an essential role in the smooth functioning of day to day activities as well the targeted long term goals. It is essential for a manager to posses the skills to identify and predict undesired behavior and bring about required changes in order to make human behavior at work productive and supportive to the organisation’s goals. In business language the art of modifying and moulding human behaviour is known as behavioural modification. Continue reading
Concept of Reinforcement in Organizational Behavior
Reinforcement is the attempt to develop or strengthen desirable behavior. There are two types of reinforcement in organizational behavior: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement strengthens and enhances behavior by the presentation of positive reinforcers. There are primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers satisfy basic biological needs and include food and water. However, primary reinforcers don not always reinforce. For instance, food may not be a reinforcer to someone who has just completed a five course meal. Most behaviors in organizations are influenced by secondary reinforcers. These include such benefits as money, status, grades, trophies and praise from others. These include such benefits as money, status, grades, trophies and praise from others. These become positive reinforcers because of their associations with the primary reinforcers and hence are often called conditioned reinforcers. It should be noted that an event that functions as a positive reinforce at one time or in one Continue reading
Kotter’s Eight Step Change Model – Explained
Organizational change is described as the shift of the behavior of the whole organization, to one degree or another. One should understand that change is not that can immediately occurs, ought to be intended and planned process to maintain an organization practical and existing. Three categories of organizational change are; Development change is that change where organization try perform better what they all ready performing. Transitional change is that change in which organization implement totally new methods replacing old ones. Transformational change is that change where organization do major overhauling of its structure, vision and strategy and change bring evolution in the organization. Managing culture in the organization is very important these days when every day new technology is coming and there is so much competition in the market to stay on the top. Organizations are going through a big cycle of cultural change these days from daily tasks to Continue reading
Four Typologies of Organizational Culture
In organizational culture there are many kind of categorization and typologies have been explained by different scholars of culture. Theses typologies give and over view about the different cultures which exist in organizations. Handy (1985) was the person who discussed how different cultures have their existence in different organizations and within the same organization many diverse cultures can coexist. There are very few organizations exist who have a single culture exists in them. Every individual have its own culture within him and have his own specific personality and culture along with organizational culture. Organizational culture and structure of any organization are connected with each other. In organizations A few subcultures and cultures will be well-suited and other will not be suited. Handy talked about four kinds of eminent cultures and each of these cultures had a linked culture. These cultures are explained below in detail. 1. The Power Culture The Continue reading
Case Study: Why Walmart Failed in Germany?
Wal-Mart, the mega-retailer, was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 in Bentonville, Arkansas. It started with $700,000 in its first year and scaled up to $5.4 million by 1974. The retailer continues to grow while others struggled with inflation and recessions. In 1980, Wal-Mart became the youngest US retailer to exceed $1 billion in net sales. During the 1980s, Wal-Mart began to further expand and thus pushing some retailers to closing some of their regional stores. The company engaged in diversification by creating membership-stores such as Sam’s Club, smaller, more conventional pharmacy/grocery stores called Neighborhood Markets, and finally Supercenters with a wide selection of consumer goods. And, in 1991, Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart had been able to implement its Every Day Low Price strategy by focusing on 1) developing a sophisticated logistics system with heavy information technology investments, 2) efficient distribution system by placing retail stores close Continue reading