Organizational behavior is concerned with people's thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions in setting up a work. Understanding an individual behavior is in itself a challenge, but understanding group behavior in an Organizational environment is a monumental managerial task.
As Nadler and Tushman put it, "Understanding one individual's behavior is challenging in and of itself; understanding a group that is made up of different individuals and comprehending the many relationships among those individuals is even more complex. Ultimately, the organization's work gets done through people, individually or collectively, on their, own or in collaboration with technology. Therefore, the management of Organizational behavior is central to the management task—a task that involves the capacity to "understand" the behavior patterns of individuals, groups and organizations, to ''predict'" what behavioral responses will be elicited by various managerial actions and finally to use this understanding and these predictions to achieve "control".
Organizational behavior can then be defined as: "The study of human behavior in Organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the Organizational context, and the organization itself."
The above definition has three parts—the individual behavior, the organization and the (interface between the two. Each individual brings to an organization a unique set of beliefs, values, attitudes and other personal characteristics and these characteristics of all individuals must interact with each other in order to create Organizational settings. The Organizational behavior is specifically concerned with work-related behavior, which takes place in organizations.
In addition to understanding; the on-going behavioral processes involved, in 'their own jobs, managers must understand the basic human element of their work. Organizational behavior offers three major ways of understanding this context; people as organizations, people as resources and people as people.
Above all, organizations are people; and without people there would be no organizations. Thus, if managers are to understand the organizations in which they work, they must first understand the people who make up the organizations.
As resources, people are one of the organization's most valuable assets. People create the organization, guide and direct its course, and vitalise and revitalise it. People make the decisions, solve the problems, and answer the questions. As managers increasingly recognize the value of potential contributions by their employees, it will become more and more important for managers and employees to grasp the complexities of Organizational behavior.
Finally, there is people as people - an argument derived from the simple notion of humanistic management. People spend a large part of their lives in; Organizational settings, mostly as employees. They have a right to expect something in return beyond wages and benefits. They have a right to expect satisfaction and to learn new skills. An understanding of Organizational behavior can help the manager better appreciate the variety of individual needs and' expectations.
Organizational behavior is concerned
with the characteristics and behaviors of employees in isolation; the
characteristics and processes that are part of the organization itself; 'and
the characteristics and behaviors directly resulting from people with their
individual needs and motivations working within the structure of the
organization. One cannot understand an individual’s behavior completely without
learning something about that individual's organization. Similarly, he cannot
understand how the organization operates without; studying the people who-make
it up. Thus, the organization influences and is influenced by individuals.