Importance of Organizational Behavior for Companies
Organizational behavior is a key factor for modern organizations because it helps establish the basis to build any business.
Organizational behavior is essential to achieve coherence among the human elements within any organization, and there it is the aspect where many businesses fail: in giving the appropriate place it must have within the company – something that sometimes may be fatal for new businesses.
In this short article, we’ll analyze what’s the importance of organizational behavior for companies. But also what are the different factors to take into account to integrate it successfully into your business.
Table of Contents
What is Organizational Behavior?
It’s a field of study and a discipline in itself used to increase the organization’s effectiveness. It studies the interaction and relationship between people, groups, individuals, and the organization. But it also takes part and influences what people do in an organization. How it interacts with its immediate environment. And how an organization can distinguish itself from other organizations, with the final goal to improve.
What are the factors of organizational behavior?
According to the organizational behavior theory, there is a set of factors that affects companies, which can be classified into four areas:
- People
- Structure
- Technology
- Environment
It’s essential that you understand how these elements interact with each other within the organization to better understand the discipline we’re speaking here about, and why it’s so important.
1) People
In any organization, people form part of an internal system composed of different groups: large and small, official, or unofficial. These groups are dynamic because they form, change and dissolve; as living beings that can think and feel, individuals within these groups have their own motivations to work in the organization and to achieve certain goals.
Employers must be aware of those situations where some people want to impose their own will and way of working, forgetting they’re in the company to achieve its goals, not their goals.
2) Structure
This refers to the relationship between the functions of people with organizations and the company. It’s very important that each individual in the company relates to each other in a structured way so that their work is coordinated effectively.
If the above is not working properly and there is no structure, these relationships can generate many problems related to cooperation, negotiation, and decision-making.
3) Technology
Technology provides the resources and tools that people use to work, but it also influences the tasks they perform. It also affects relationships within the workplace, so that workers in a car factory aren’t related the same way as those in a restaurant.
Technology allows people to work more efficiently while restricting them in various ways; it has its pros and cons.
4) Environment
There isn’t a company that can exist in isolation. Every company is part of a larger system that encompasses many other elements such as people and other organizations.
The environment can affect people’s attitudes and working conditions, in addition to generating competition for resources and power.
Importance of organizational behavior
We can resume its importance in the following points:
- It helps to determine what are the intentions of people within the company.
- It seeks to improve relationships among individuals, groups, and the company.
- Helps to understand employees.
- It makes it possible to get feedback on the results of organizational behavior.
- It helps to achieve that individuals and groups work more efficiently and productively.
- It’s a requirement to be successful in the position of manager.
- It replaces intuition with systematic study.
- It helps to adapt people within the organization to the latest technology.
Or in other words, it helps to understand why people behave as they do and how these people behave under different conditions to predict the future behavior of employees and make it easier to control – at least partially – human activities at work.
The ultimate goal of organizational behavior is to serve as a means of control for supervisors, managers, and administrators. That is responsible for performance results and are vitally interested in having effects on behavior, skill development, teamwork, coordination of efforts, and employee productivity.
They need to improve results through their actions and those of their workers, and organizational behavior can help them achieve that purpose.
Importance of organizational behavior in practice
The importance of organizational behavior arises from the need of any business of building a joint system. A group of people who interrelate and analyze problems to achieve a specific purpose.
Under this concept, we can highlight four work perspectives that will lay the foundations for any future organizational development strategy.
The idea is not to implement a plan, but a pragmatic practice that improves the relationship between the collaborators within an organization:
1) Power
The levels of authority that exist within an organization and the power relationship that exists between different areas.
A sense of leadership must prevail in the company – but not one that mandates – where decision-making is carried out through concession between the members of the organization, placing the commitment of the participants as a premise.
2) Human
This approach is the most important since with this perspective we’re trying to form an integrated social system.
The human perspective seeks to know the collaborators in all aspects related to their life such as attitudes, beliefs, achievements, and motivations. This highlights a human aspect versus the development of an individual and their interaction with a group.
To achieve a correct group program where teamwork is encouraged. We must consider the expectations and motivations of each collaborator to achieve synergy between these.
3) Management
In this aspect, the management style of the top managers of a company is known. It is very important to know the communication style that is sent to the collaborators since it’s on this basis that we can improve the workplace climate and better integrate the different human groups.
4) Environment
In this case, we need to analyze the interactions that collaborators have with people close to their streets, buildings, and context in order to generate a strategic and group order.
A work environment that flows according to the functions you’ve determined, can generate a greater difference in performance.
“Always remember that in any context, implementing strategies that make up a highly productive work environment inspired by the feelings and personal motivations of each employee, will also depend on a high-ranking professional preparation”.
