CHANGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Organizational behaviour provides both challenges and opportunities to improve the manager’s
people skills. The challenge of the organizations is the modern business environment. Employees
are the company’s most important resource; therefore organizational behavior becomes very
important. It is essential to identify and acknowledge trends in OB to understand the organization
and how these trends influence workers.
A learning organization is an organization that has developed the continuous capacity to adapt
and change.
Ethical Challenges
Application of ethical principles in workplace is business ethics. Business ethics is applicable to
all aspects of business conduct and also the conduct of individuals. The challenge is to continue
to think about business ethics on a day-to-day basis and institute cultures that support ethical
decision making. The organizations have the opportunity to be on the forefront of ethical
thinking. OB research finds that the most important determinant of whether a company acts
ethically is not necessarily related to the policies and rules regarding ethical conduct but instead
whether it has a culture of ethical behavior and if leaders are committed to this ethical behavior.
Lack of Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement is a measureable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional
attachment to their job, colleagues and organization.. An engaged employee is a person who is
fully involved in and enthusiastic about their work. Engaged employees have an idea about
his/her future and also clear idea about the goals and mission of the organization.
Engaged employees use their talents and discretionary effort to make a difference in their
employer’s quest for sustainable business success.Engaged employees are those who are
performing at the top of their abilities and happy about it.
It is clear that engagement is both a challenge and an opportunity for OB.
Globalization-
The key benefit of global organizations is the ability to exploit regional differences in needs and
production capabilities. The markets in many countries have become largely saturated for many
products. For example, to grow the market for televisions in the United States, manufacturers
either have to convince the users to have multiple televisions, or they have to make them
obsolete over time, or convince people to have more children, because at this point, virtually
every person who could conceivably afford and use a television has one.
Increasingly globalized sales, manufacturing, research, management
Movement from direct exports to having sales offices in different countries to having
manufacturing to all functions spread across the globe
Increasingly globalized labor market
Due to:
o reduced cost
o better international transportation quality
o improved quality in communication
o looking for unsaturated markets
o exploit regional cost and differences in expertise
Another effect of globalization is increased competition. Back when national borders effectively
sealed off national economies, the major competitors for any given company were usually local.
For example, in the car industry, each industrialized country might have 3 or 4 major auto
makers, of which one was usually dominant. Splitting up a market among 3 or 4 players, some of
whom could be quite weak, was often a less than challenging affair. But once globalization made
it possible for companies all over the world to compete, the number of players went up radically,
and more importantly, the number of really good competitors
Diversity
One of the most important and broad based challenges currently facing organizatioins is adapting
to people who are different.
A heterogeneous mix of people in terms of culture,sexual orientation,age,race,ethnicity
Miscommunication, conflicts of thoughts
has to adapt to this diverse environment by interacting with different people from
different places.
This mainly arises due to:
o changing demographics
o globalization of the market
Flexible
Organizational systems and processes and people that can respond differently to different
situations
Fewer detailed rules and procedures
Greater autonomy, encouragement for initiative
Customizable employment relationships: telecommuting, job sharing, mommy tracks,
pay for skills
Lifetime employability, not lifetime employment
Due to:
-Customer needs are different,but have to satisfy these needs for that competitive edge
-more diversified workplace and atmosphere
-changing markets
Flat
The number of levels of management is lesser
Decision making power entitled to the workers
Fewer differences in responsibility across levels
Due to:
-need for speed, which makes it helpful to empower employees to make decisions,
hence fewer managers are needed
-changes in information technology mean less need for the communication and
control functions of middle managers
-globalization means intensified competition, which increases the need to cut
costs
Technology
Technology has transformed the way work gets done and has created many great
opportunities. Internet, as well as nanotechnology are allowing things to be created that
weren’t even imaginable 50 years ago.
And the rate of technological change is not expected to slow down anytime soon.
According to Moore’s Law, which states that computing power doubles every 2 years. It
is now possible to send and receive e-mails or text messages with your coworkers and
customers regardless of where in the world you are.
Technology has also brought a great deal of challenges to individuals and organizations.
The technology trend contains challenges for organizational behavior.
Network Organizations
Another meaning of network organizations refers to their relations to other organizations.
Organizations that have downsized to just their core competencies must then outsource all the
functions that used to be done in-house. To avoid losing time and effort managing contracts with
suppliers, organizations have learned to develop very close ties to their suppliers, so that social
mechanisms of coordination replace legal mechanisms, which are slow and costly. In many
industries, such as the garment industry in Italy, strong relationships have developed between
manufacturers and suppliers so that considerable work is done without a contract and without
even working out a firm price.
Network organizations are particularly important in industries with complex products where
technologies and customer needs change rapidly, such as in high tech. Close ties among a set of
companies enables them to work with each other in ways that are faster than arms-length
contracts would permit, and yet retains the flexibility of being able to drop the relationship if
needed.
Direct communication across unit & firm boundaries, ignoring chain of command
Cross-unit team structures
Outsourcing & downsizing
Strategic alliances with competitors and others
-Now have firms that are your competitors, customers and collaborators all at the
same time
Close coordination among firms and information sharing
contact with customers, not just official boundary spanners
Customization
Decentralization
Due to:
o new information technologies, especially groupware, client-server, distributed
computing
o fast changing customer needs and competitor offerings
o more complicated products require better integration of manufacturing, design,
and marketing functions
Aging Workforce and the Millennial Generation
This demographic trend creates both challenges and opportunities for organizations. The
aging trend has been predicted for decades. “The number of U.S. workers over the age of
40 has increased significantly over the past 30 years.
By 2010, more than 51% of the workforce will be 40 or older, up almost 20% over 30
years. At the same time, the portion of the workforce aged 25 to 39 will decline by nearly
3%.
The number of workers aged 55 and older will grow from 13% of the labor force in 2000
to 20% in 2020. There will be record numbers of retirements.
Aging workforces can create great opportunities for industries such as health care, but it
can also mean great challenges are also present as entire industries related to basic
infrastructure face massive retirement projections.
In summary, the end of the 20th century is seeing a sea change in the way business does
business. This contrasts hugely with the relative lack of change that we saw in the first few
million years of human history.
REFERENCES
1. Kontoghiorghes, C., Awbre, S.M., & Feurig, P.L. (2005). Examining the relationship
between learning organization characteristics and change adaptation, innovation and
organizational performance. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 16(2), 183-211.
2. Martin, A. (2004). New directions in organizational behavior. Management Revue, 15(4),
410-419.
3. Meyer, J.P., Becker, T.E., & Vandenberghe, C. (2004). Employee commitment and
motivation: A conceptual analysis and integrative model. Journal of Applied Psychology,
89(6), 991-1007.
4. Harvard Business Review on Managing People – Harvard Business School Press – Series
2, 1996
5. Preparing the Supervisors and Students for Cross Cultural Supervision, By AM Whiteley,
International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 7(6)
6. Knowledge Sharing, by Helen J Mitchell, International Journal of Organisational
Behaviour, Volume 9 (5)
7. Dealing with organisational changes: Can Emotional Intelligence enhance Organisational
Learning, Peter J Jordan, International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 8
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