Individual Human Behavior in Organization

Individual Behavior refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or convert, and voluntary or involuntary.

In humans, the behavior is believed to be controlled primarily by the endocrine system and the nervous system. It is most commonly believed that complexity in the behavior of an organism is correlated to the complexity of its nervous system. Generally, organisms with the more complex nervous system have a greater capacity to learn new responses and thus adjust their behavior.

Behavior can be either innate or learned. However, current research in the Human Micro biome project points towards a possibility that human behavior may be controlled by the composition of the microbe population within a human body. Behavior can be regarded as any action of an organism that changes its relationship to its environment. Behavior provides outputs from the organism to the environment.

Human behavior can be common, unusual, acceptable, or unacceptable. Humans evaluate the acceptability of behavior using social norms and regulate behavior by means of social control. In sociology, Behavior is considered as having no meaning, being not directed at other people and this is the most basic human action, although it can play a part in the diagnosis of disorders such as the autism spectrum disorders. Animal behavior is studied in comparative psychology, ethnology, behavioral ecology and sociobiology. According to moral values, human behavior may also depend upon the common, usual, unusual, acceptable or unacceptable behavior of others.

Nature of Individual Human Behavior

Human behavior is complex and every individual is different from another, the challenge of an effective organization is in successfully matching the task, the manager and the subordinate. Under the ideal situation, a manager would first analyze the task, then determine the required skills and assemble a team that complement each other skills; thereby creating an enriching and conflict-free team. In reality, a manager has to use the existing resources for a given task, and must have the ability to understand the differences in individual behaviors and use them appropriately to increase the synergy.

Integrated Human Behavior Model

The Integrated human behavior model formulated an abstract model of human behavior which explains the process that produces the individual differences. Cognition is the thought process in humans that describe how the information we constantly acquire is transformed, stored and used as knowledge in future decision making. It includes a wide range of mental processes like visual imagery, language, problem-solving, decision making, etc. The brain receives the stimuli from the external environment through the sense, which is immediately registered in our sensory memory, which is large but keeps the information for a few seconds only. The observation process tries to match the information in the sensory memory with the previous knowledge and creates a perception of the stimuli, thereby abstracting useful information from the sensory memory or the working memory. This abstracted information then passes to the short-term memory or the working memory, which also caches the related knowledge from the long term memory. the short-term memory has a slightly longer latency than the sensory memory, it is needed only till the reaction of the stimuli. The long term memory has enormous capacity and is the primary knowledge base.

The stimuli demands some action, the perceived stimuli combined with a set of related and abstracted experiences forms the initial input to the mind's analytical process. The input is also influenced by the emotional and rational factors which in turn depend upon the individual's values and beliefs. The other two important parameters are the desired outcome and the required response time to the stimuli. At the center of the analytical mind is a myriad of cognitive processes that operate sequentially or in parallel, in complex permutations in order to satisfy these primary constraints. The consequence of this entire cognitive activity is a response to the environmental stimuli, which is observed as the behavior of the individual.

Motivation in Organizational Behavior

Every human action is the result of a need or desire. One experiences a sort of mental discomfort as long as that need remains unsatisfied in him/her. The moment the action is initiated he/she makes an attempt to get over the discomfort. What causes of action is the need or desire? What causes a need is called the stimulus? Therefore, the manager's duty is to create the stimulus that causes a need which initiates action leading to satisfaction. This should be a repetitive process for the action to continue. All this is called 'motivation' in management. Now we shall discuss the need for, significance and nature of motivation.

Managers motivate the employees basically owing to the following reasons:

To direct employees' skills, competencies and knowledge towards job performance: People are the critical resource in the business process in converting the inputs into output and thereby achieving the business goal. People contribute to the achievement of organizational goals with the help of their skills, competencies, and knowledge. Employees use these skills for the job when they are enabled and encouraged to do so. Managers through motivation direct employee skills towards job performance. Otherwise, employees use these skills for the unproductive purpose like organizational politics and unproductive trade union activities and for their personal business.

To direct employees' skills, competencies and knowledge towards organizational requirements: Employees contribute their skills and competencies towards the achievement of organizational purposes and strategies in addition to their jobs. Managers have to encourage employees to use their resources to contribute to organizational goals in addition to job needs.

To encourage employees to achieve strategies: Organizational success, as well as sustainability, depends on the achievement of organizational strategies efficiently. Managers have to encourage employees to use their resources to contribute to the achievement of organizational strategies in addition to job needs.

To enhance employee job satisfaction: Employees' job satisfaction depends on a number of factors like remuneration, type of the job, job challenges, interesting work, social factors, job security, organizational facilities, organizational brand in the market as well as corporate governance and citizenship. Managers strive to provide these and encourage employees to feel that this job is providing a range of benefits and get satisfied with the job.

To increase employee commitment to the job and organization: Employee commitment is an essential ingredient for organizational success as committed employees spends all his resources for the organization. This in turn makes the company to be innovative, caring for the customer and grow continuously.

To enhance human resource competency as a distinctive competitive advantage of the organization: Human resource is recognized as a distinctive competitive advantage in competing with other organizations as al other resources can be copied/imitated or acquired. But the committed human resource with innovative skills can't be copied/imitated. Managers, therefore, convert human resource as a distinctive competitive advantage through motivation.

To increase employee productivity: Higher productivity reduces the cost of operations and thereby increases profits. Committed and competent employees positively contribute to productivity. Managers motivate employees to be committed and acquire competencies.

To enhance organizational citizenship: Motivated employees not only contribute to organizational productivity, but also to the organizational behavior that is compatible to the norms of corporate citizenship behavior. There are five categories of corporate citizenship behavior viz., (1) conscientiousness-performing tasks beyond minimum required levels, (2) altruism-helping others, (3) civic virtue-participating in the political life of the organization, (4) sportsmanship-taking positive attitude and not complaining and (5) courtesy-testing others with respect. Managers motivate the employees towards the enhancement of organizational citizenship.

Importance of Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior offers several ideas to management as to how the human factor should be properly emphasized to achieve organizational objectives. Barnard has observed that an organization is a conscious interaction of two or more people. This suggests that since an organization is the interaction of persons, they should be given adequate importance in managing the organization. Organizational behavior provides an opportunity for management to analyze human behavior and prescribe means for shaping it to a particular direction.

Organizational behavior provides understanding the human behavior in all direction in which the human beings interact. Thus organizational behavior can be understood at the individual level, international level, group level and inter-group level.

Organizational behavior helps to analyze 'why' and  'how' an individual behaves in a particular way. Human behavior is a complex phenomenon and is affected by a large number of factors including the psychological, social and cultural implications. Organizational behavior integrates these factors to provide simplicity in understanding the human behavior.

1. Human Behavior and Human Resources

Human resources play a crucial role in the development process of modern economics. Arthur Lewis observed, " there are great differences in development between countries which seem to have roughly equal resources, so it is necessary to enquire into the difference in human behavior." It is often felt that, though the exploitation of natural resources, availability of physical and financial resources and international aid play prominent roles in the growth of modern economies, nine of these factors is more significant than efficient and committed human resources. It is in fact, said that all development comes from the human behavior.

2. Human Behavior in the Nation's Well-being

A nation with an abundance of physical resources will not benefit itself unless human resources make use of them. In fact human resources are solely responsible for making use of national resources and for the transformation of traditional economies into the modern and industrial economies. Lack of organization of human resources is largely responsible for the backwardness of the nation. Countries are undeveloped because their people's behaviors are inappropriate for economic development. In essence, "the difference in the level of economic development of the countries is largely a reflection of the differences in the types of their behavior. The key element in this proportion is that the values, attitudes, commitment, aptitude, general orientation and quality of the people of a country determine its economic development. The shift from manufacturing to service and from service to knowledge and the increasing pace of technological up-gradation are making behavior the ingredient of the nation's well-being and growth.

3. Human Behavior and Organizational Performance

Organizational performance can be measured against organizational objectives like market share, rate of profit, product innovation, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Appropriate human behavior contributes to the employees' commitment towards organizational goals. In effect, employee values, attitude and other behavioral issues shape the employee behavior that would be appropriate for achieving organizational performance. Thus, appropriate human behavior contributes for the organizational performance. Appropriate and adaptable human behavior enables the organization to develop employee commitment to the organizational strategies. In addition, appropriate behavior encourages the employees to acquire and develop required hard skills like technical skills, knowledge and competency. Organizations do also invest in the development of technical skills and knowledge of those employees whose behavior is quite appropriate for the achievement of organizational strategies.

4. Human Behavior and Strategic Advantages

Strategic advantages include achieving a low-cost advantage, high quality, superior customer service, innovations and superior speed in producing and delivering a product or service. Committed employees with appropriate technical skills contribute to achieving the highest human efficiency, which in turn makes the operations at the lowest cost. In addition, the committed minds contribute to innovation and other strategic advantages like superior customer service and superior speed. Thus, appropriate human behavior contributes for building up of strategic advantages of the firms.

5. Human Behavior and Efficient Human Resources Management

Appropriate human behavior helps for positive and efficient human resource management in terms of employee satisfaction, fair treatment of employees, training and continuous learning, performance management, employee counseling, mentoring, building teams, congenial superior-subordinate relations as well as human relations, sound salary and benefits. Thus appropriate behavior brings about efficient management of human resources.

Thus, appropriate human behavior helps not only efficient resources management but also envisages strategic management which ultimately leads to achieving a high level of organizational performance.

Scope and Nature of Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior is a field of study that illustrates the impact that individual, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization for his purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving organizational effectiveness i.e. organizational behavior is concussed with the study of what people do in an organization and how that behavior affects the performance of the organization. Underlying this systematic approach in the belief that behavior is not random. It stems from and is directed towards some and that individual believes, rightly or wrongly, is in his or her best interest. Organizational behavior is an applied behavior science the is built on the contribution from a number of behavioral disciplines.

The predominant areas are:

Psychology: The science that set to explain and sometimes change the behavior of human being. The contribution includes the study of topics like Motivation, Personality, Emotions, Job satisfaction, etc.

Sociology: The study people in relation to them human beings. The contribution includes the study of topics like Group dynamics, work team, communication, power, etc.

Anthropology: The study of societies to learn about human being and their activities. The contribution includes the study of topics like Organizational culture, Organizational environment, Cross-culture analysis, etc.

Political Science: The study of individual and groups within a political environment. The contribution includes the study of topics like Conflict, Intra-organizational politics, power, etc.

One of the most important and broad-based challenges currently facing organizations is adapting to people who are different. The term to describe this challenge is work force diversity. While globalization focuses on differences between people from different countries workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries.

Work force means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, which varies from the so-called norm. It includes Women, physically disabled. elderly, etc.

Work force diversity has important implications for management practice. Managers have to shift their philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those differences in ways that ensure employee retention and greater productivity while at the sometimes, not discriminating. This shift includes, for instead, providing diversity training and revamping benefits programs to accommodate the different employees. Work force diversity if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in organizations as well as improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems. When work diversity is not managed properly, there is potential for higher turnover, more difficult communication, and more interpersonal conflicts.

Organizational behavior studies encompass the study of organizations from multiple viewpoints, methods, and levels of analysis.

Nature of Organizational Behavior

Each individual brings to an organization a unique set of personal characteristics, experiences from other organization, the environment surrounding the organization and they also poses a personal background. In considering the people working in an organization, organizational behavior must look at the unique perspective that each individual brings to the work setting.

but individuals do not work in isolation. They come in contact with other individuals and the organization in a variety of ways. Points of contact include managers, co-workers, formal policies and procedures of the organization and various changes implemented by the organization. Over time the individual. too, changes, as a function of both the personal experiences and the organization. The organization is also affected by the presence and eventual absence of the individual. Clearly, the study of organizational behavior must consider the way in which the individual and the organization interact.

An organization, characteristically, exists before a particular person joins it and continues to exist after he leaves it. Thus, the organization itself represents a crucial third perspective from which to view organizational behavior.

Introduction To Organisation Behavior

Organization behavior is a study and application of knowledge about how people as individuals and as groups act within an organization. It can be defined as the understanding, prediction and management of Human behavior in organizations. Organization behavior is related to other disciplines like Organizations Theory, Organization Development and Human Resources Management.

The study of Organizational Behavior (OB) is very interesting and challenging too. It is to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational factors interact. The study of organizational behavior relates to the expected behavior of an individual in the organization. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. It is the predictability of a manager about the expected behavior of an individual.

There are no absolutes in Human Behavior. It is the human factor that is contributory to the productivity hence the study of Human Behavior is Important. Great importance, therefore, must be attached to the study. Researchers, management practitioners, psychologists, and social scientists must understand the very credentials of an individual, his background, social framework, educational update, the impact of social groups and other situational factors on behavior. Managers under whom an individual is working should be able to explain, predict, evaluate and modify human behavior that will largely depend upon knowledge. skill and experience of the manager in handling a large group of people in diverse situations. Pre-emptive actions need to be taken for human behavior forecasting. The value system, emotional intelligence, organizational culture, job design and the work environment are important causal agents in determining human behavior.

Cause and effect relationship plays an important role in how an individual is likely to behave in a particular situation and its impact on productivity. An appropriate organizational culture can modify individual behavior. Recent trends exist in laying greater stress on organizational development and imbibing a favourable organizational culture in each individual. It also involves fostering a team spirit and motivation so that the organizational objectives are achieved. There is a need for commitment on the part of the management the should be continuous and incremental in nature.

Human relations movement refers to the researchers of organizational development who study the behavior of people in groups, in particular, workplace groups. It originated in the 1930s' Hawthorne studies, which examined the effects of social relations, motivation and employee satisfaction on factory productivity. The movement viewed workers in terms of their psychology and fit with companies, rather than as interchangeable parts. The hallmark of human-relation theories is the primacy given to organizations as human cooperative systems rather than mechanical contraptions.

Human Behavior is a very complex, no matter how you try to discuss it or even attempt an explanation of how and why we function the way we do! According to well-known psychologists "Myers-Briggs" and "Kersey" there are about sixteen distinct personality types, which define our personality. And somewhere mixed into all of this information they can tell us if we are either an extroverted or introverted type of person.

Human may be physically alike but not behaviorally. In fact, the same person behaves differently in different situations. This is due to the influence of various factors. The important among them include various models of man like Economic Man, Social man, Organization Man, Self-actualizing Man, Impulsive Man and Compulsive Man, As such as, human behavior is complex and dynamic.

History of Operational Research

Nature of Operations Research

Looking to the basic features of the definitions concerning OR, we can state that, 'Operational Research can be considered as the application of the scientific method by interdisciplinary teams to problems involving the control of the organized system to provide solutions, which best serve the purposes of the organization as a whole.

History of Operations Research

The subject of Operational Research (OR) was developed in military context during World War II, pioneered by British scientists. At that time, the military management in England appointed a study group of scientists to deal with the strategic and tactical problems related to air and land defense of the country. The main reason for conducting the study was that they were having very limited military resources. It was, therefore, necessary to decide upon the most effective way of utilizing these resources. as the name implies, Operation Research was apparently invented because the team was dealing with research on military operations. The scientists studied the various problems and on the basis of a quantitative study of operations suggested certain approaches which showed remarkable success. The encouraging result obtained by the British operations research teams consisting of personnel drawn from various field like Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Psychology and other physical science, quickly motivated the United States military management to start similar activities. Successful innovations of US teams included the development of new flight patterns, planning sea mining and effective utilization of electronic equipment. Similar OR teams also started functioning in Canada and France. These OR teams were usually assigned to the executive in charge of operations and as such their work came to be known as "Operational Research" in the UK and by a variety of names in the United States an "Operational Analysis, Operations Evaluation, Operations Research, Systems Analysis, System Evaluation and System Research. The name 'Operational research' or 'Operations Research or simply OR is most widely used now days all over the world for the systematic and scientific study of the operations of the system. Till the fifties, the use of OR was mainly confined to military purposes.

After the end of the second world war, the success of military teams attracted the attention of industrial managers who were seeking solutions to their complex managerial problems. At the end of the war, expenditures on defense research were reduced in the UK and this led to the release of many operations research workers from the military at a time when industrial managers were confronted with the need to reconstruct most of Britain's manufacturing industries and plants that had been damaged in the war. Executives in such industries sought assistance from the said operations workers. But in the USA most of the war experienced operations research workers remained in military service as the defense research was increased and consequently operations research was expanded at the end of the war. It was only in the early 1950s, the industry in the USA began to absorb the operation is research worker under the pressure for increased demands for greater productivity originated because of the outbreak of the Korean conflict and because of technological development in the industry. Thus, OR began to develop in the industrial field in the United States since the year 1950. The Operations research society of America was formed in 1953 and in 1957 the international federation of operational research societies was established. various journals relating to OR began to appear in different countries in the year that followed the mid-fifties.