Organizational Studies

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Organizational studies, organizational behaviour, and organizational theory are related terms for the academic study of organizations, examining them using the methods of economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, communication studies, and psychology. Related practical disciplines include strategic management, human resources and industrial and organizational psychology.

Overview of the field Organizational studies encompasses the study of organizations from multiple viewpoints, methods, and levels of analysis. For instance, a traditional distinction is between the study of "micro" organizational behavior -- which refers to individual and group dynamics in an organizational setting -- and "macro" organizational theory which studies whole organizations, how they adapt, and the strategies and structures that guide them. To this distinction, some scholars have added an interest in "meso" -- primarily interested in power, culture, and the networks of individuals and units in organizations -- and "field" level analysis which study how whole populations of organizations interact.

Whenever people interact in organizations, many factors come into play. Organizational studies attempt to understand and model these factors. Like all social sciences, organizational studies seeks to control, predict, and explain. There is some controversy over the ethics of controlling workers' behaviour. As such, organizational behaviour or OB (and its cousin, Industrial psychology) have at times been accused of being the scientific tool of the powerful. Those accusations notwithstanding, OB can play a major role in organizational development and success.

History The Greek philosopher Plato wrote about the essence of leadership. Aristotle addressed the topic of persuasive communication. The writings of 16th century Italian philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli laid the foundation for contemporary work on organizational power and politics. In 1776, Adam Smith advocated a new form of organizational structure based on the division of labour. One hundred years later, German sociologist Max Weber wrote about rational organizations and initiated discussion of charismatic leadership. Soon after, Frederick Winslow Taylor introduced the systematic use of goal setting and rewards to motivate employees. In the 1920's, Australian-born Harvard professor Elton Mayo and his colleagues conducted productivity studies at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant in the United States.

Though it traces its roots back to Max Weber and earlier, organizational studies is generally considered to have begun as an academic discipline with the advent of scientific management in the 1890s, with Taylorism representing the peak of this movement. Proponents of scientific management held that rationalizing the organization with precise sets of instructions and time-motion studies would lead to increased productivity. Studies of different compensation systems were carried out.

After the First World War, the focus of organizational studies shifted to analysis of how human factors and psychology affected organizations, a transformation propelled by the identification of the Hawthorne Effect. This Human Relations Movement focused on teams, motivation, and the actualization of the goals of individuals within organizations.

Prominent early scholars included Chester Barnard, Henri Fayol, Mary Parker Follett, Frederick Herzberg, Abraham Maslow, David McClelland, and Victor Vroom

The Second World War further shifted the field, as the invention of large-scale logistics and operations research led to a renewed interest in rationalist approaches to the study of organizations. Interest grew in theory and methods native to the sciences, including systems theory, the study of organizations with a complexity theory perspective and complexity strategy. Influential work was done by Herbert Alexander Simon and James G. March.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the field was strongly influenced by social psychology and the emphasis in academic study was on quantitative research. An explosion of theorizing, much of it at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon, produced Bounded Rationality, Informal Organization, Contingency Theory, Resource Dependence, Institutional Theory, and Population Ecology theories, among many others.

Starting in the 1980s, cultural explanations of organizations and change became an important part of study. Qualitative methods of study became more acceptable, informed by anthropology, psychology and sociology. A leading scholar was Karl Weick.

Current state of the field Organizational behaviour is currently a growing field. Organizational studies departments generally form part of business schools, although many universities also have industrial psychology and industrial economics programs.

The field is highly influential in the business world with practitioners like Peter Drucker and Peter Senge, who turned the academic research into business practices. Organizational behaviour is becoming more important in the global economy as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values have to work together effectively and efficiently. It is also under increasing criticism as a field for its ethnocentric and pro-capitalist assumptions (see Critical Management Studies).

Methods used in organizational studies A variety of methods are used in organizational studies. They include quantitative methods found in other social sciences such as multiple regression and ANOVA experimental designs. In addition, computer simulation in organizational studies has a long history in organizational studies. Qualitative methods are also used, such as ethnography, which involves direct participant observation, single and multiple case analysis, and other historical methods. In the last fifteen years or so, there has been greater focus on language, metaphors, and organizational storytelling.

Systems framework attended the Macy conferences and is commonly identified as the founder of the movement to study groups scientifically.The systems framework is also fundamental to organizational theory as organizations are complex dynamic goal-oriented processes. One of the early thinkers in the field was Alexander Bogdanov, who developed his Tectology, a theory widely considered a precursor of Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory, aiming to model and design human organizations. Kurt Lewin was particularly influential in developing the systems perspective within organizational theory and coined the term "systems of ideology", from his frustration with behavioural psychologies that became an obstacle to sustainable work in psychology (see Ash 1992: 198-207). Jay Forrester with his work in dynamics and management alongside numerous theorists including Edgar Schein that followed in their tradition since the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) have also been influential. The complexity theory perspective on organizations is another systems view of organizations.

The systems approach to organizations relies heavily upon achieving entropy through Open system (systems theory) and feedback. A systemic view on organizations is transdisciplinary and integrative. In other words, it transcends the perspectives of individual disciplines, integrating them on the basis of a common "code", or more exactly, on the basis of the formal apparatus provided by systems theory. The systems approach gives primacy to the interrelationships, not to the elements of the system. It is from these dynamic interrelationships that new properties of the system emerge. In recent years, systems thinking has been developed to provide techniques for studying systems in holism ways to supplement traditional reductionism methods. In this more recent tradition, systems theory in organizational studies is considered by some as a humanism extension of the natural sciences.

See also

Organization design
Organization development
Organizational Dissent
Organizational empowerment
Organizational engineering

Theories and models of organizational studies

Bureaucracy
Scientific management
Rational Decision-Making Model
Informal Organization
Contingency theory
Resource dependence theory
Institutional theory
Transaction cost
Organizational ecology
Evolutionary Theory and organizations
Complexity theory and organizations
Mintzberg's managerial roles
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Big Five personality traits
Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Cultures
Holland's Typology of Personality and Congruent Occupations
Attribution theory
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Herzberg's Two factor theory
Theory X and Theory Y
Equity Theory
Model of organizational justice
Model of Organizational Citizenship behaviour
Model of Organizational Misbehaviour
Model of Emotional labor in organizations
Hybrid Organisation

External links Primary organization-focused journals

Administrative Science Quarterly
Organizational Science
Academy of Management Journal
Academy of Management Review
Strategic Management Journal
Management Science

Other journals

Journal of Management
Journal of Applied Psychology
Organization Studies
Organization
Management Learning
International Journal of Knowledge Culture and Change Management
Journal of Organizational Change Management
European Management Review
Anthropology of Work Review
Research in Organizational behaviour
Journal of Organizational behaviour
Organizational behaviour and Human Decision Processes
Human Relations

References

Ash, M.G. 1992. "Cultural Contexts and Scientific Change in Psychology: Kurt Lewin in Iowa." American Psychologist, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 198-207.
Robbins, Stephen P. Organizational Behavior - Concepts, Controversies, Applications. 4th Ed. Prentice Hall (2004) ISBN 0-13-170901-1.
Weick, Karl E. The Social Psychology of Organizing 2nd Ed. McGraw Hill (1979) ISBN 0-07-554808-9.
Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Admini

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