John Beck

Structures of Organizations

The structures of organizations can be thought of as falling into two categories: micro and macro. The micro aspect of organizational behaviour deals with the behaviour in organizations of individuals, groups and inter-group activities (Chapters 2–9). These areas are often thought to be the special domain of the psychologist. The macro aspects of organizational behaviour, the central concern of this chapter, deal with the global behaviour of an organization as a social system. These aspects include the structure, the influence of the technology used by the organization, and the relationship of the organization to the environment.

Learning From Experience in Sensitivity Training Groups A Personal Construct Theory Model and Framework for Research

In their review and consideration of the future of the T-group movement, Cooper and Levine (1976) point out that in the thirty years since the inception of the T group as a training method, there has been an enormous expansion in the use of sensitivity training in organizations and in more formal educational settings. Smith (1971) has identified three major orientations of T-group activity: first, there is the traditional T group which emphasizes interpersonal relations and the development of interpersonal skills of participants. Second, there

Communication and Attitude Change

Practically everyone is familiar with the old, old anecdote from the First World War where the message transmitted from the trenches urgently asked for reinforcements for an impending advance, but the message received at company headquarters baffled all the brigadiers by asking for three and fourpence because the unit was going to a dance. The failure, of course, was a failure of communication. Similar failures occur during every minute of every industrial day: a microchip factory is brought to the edge of bankruptcy because the ventilating engineer fails to communicate the correct grade of air filters and the resulting atmospheric dust reduces the reliability of the chips to the point where their main customer withdraws his orders; an apprentice loses his right testicle because the safety officer’s talk contained too many facts for him to assimilate; and an employee emerges from a disciplinary interview with the conviction that, despite actual words, his boss does not have any really serious objection to him arriving late for work. These are a few examples of failures of communication in industry.

Participation and Technology

We have heard a great deal recently about the need to democratize or humanize the work-place in industry, to improve the quality of working life by providing the industrial worker with greater participation in the decisions involving work — participation has been a term constantly used throughout this book. Generally participation can be achieved by including employees on Boards of companies and involving them in the long-term policy-making issues of the organizations or by increasing their participation in the decision-making processes of their work-group by allowing them greater freedom in deciding how to organize and conduct their own jobs. These two approaches to industrial democracy, which, it might be added, are not mutually exclusive, have been termed by Strauss and Rosenstein (1970) as distant and immediate participation respectively.

Personality and Learning in Organizations

What is the personality? In 1937 one well-known psychologist (Gordon Allport) found fifty definitions in the literature. Today there would be many more. Not all writers think highly of the term. Brown (1964) calls it ‘rather a regretable word’. And Lazarus (1971) says: When the layman thinks about personality, he is likely to view it as the impression one makes on others; he is likely to be concerned with such things as having a ‘good’ or ‘effective’ personality … When the psychologist thinks about personality, however, he sees it as the study of the stable psychological structures and processes that organize human environment.

Additional Areas in Organizational Behaviour

The material covered in this book clearly shows the variety involved in studying organizations. At one level we are talking about an individual manager, the job he has to do, his motives, the way he learns and his personality. At another level, we are talking about the way individuals function in work-groups, how they judge each other, how they communicate and how they work together. At a third level we are talking about the organization and how it changes. Yet even this array does not reveal the full range of topics that lie within the domain of organizational behaviour. The normal constraints inherent in any book that seeks to introduce a subject have meant that only a selection of topics could be covered while equally fascinating material has to be omitted.

Stress at Work: The Manager

The complexity of industrial organizational life is a source of stress for managers. Brummett, Pyle and Framholtz (1968) suggest that managers are suffering extreme physiological symptoms from stress at work, such as disabling ulcers or coronary heart disease (CHD), which force them to retire prematurely from active work before they have had an opportunity to complete their potential organizational life. These and other stress-related effects (e.g. tension, poor adjustment, etc.) also affect the family, becoming potential sources of disturbance. Thus stress pervades the whole quality of managerial life. The mental and physical health effects of job stress are not only disruptive influences on the individual managers, but are also a ‘real’ cost to the organization, on whom many individuals depend: a cost which is rarely, if ever, seriously considered either in human or financial terms by organizations, but one which they incur in their day-to-day operations. In order to do something positive about sources of stress on managers at work, it is important to be able to identify them. The success of any effort to minimize stress and maximize job satisfaction will depend on accurate diagnosis, for different stresses will require different action.

Working in Groups

Probably the most used and abused adjective which managers use about meetings with groups of colleagues at work is ‘bloody’: I’ve had one hell of a day — one bloody meeting after another. If only we could cut down the number of bloody meetings we have, I might be able to get some work done.

Introduction: The Relevance and Scope of Organizational Psychology to Management

Many managers will regard this book as a threat. These managers will have been formed in the same mould as the overseers of the darksatanic mills of the early part of the first industrial revolution. Their simple belief in the use of economic power and authority will be typified by the earthy comment, ‘When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow later.’ To these managers all the organizational psychology you need to know is how to apply the right pressure, in the right place, at the right time.

The Manager and His Job

In essence, management is concerned with the efficient use of the three Ms — Men, Money and Materials. Each of these three ingredients is an essential part of the work activity of a manager, whether he is producing silicon chips, optical fibres or cotton T-shirts. The same three Ms — Men, Money and Materials — are also involved in the work of managers in service industries as widely different as merchant banking, hospital management or publishing. In all these settings, managers are concerned with the efficient use of resources so that the services and goods leaving their organizations are worth more than the resources which their organization consumes.