MODULE 1

AN OVERVIEW OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Introduction

This chapter explains the history and meaning of human behavior. It also includes
discussion on the benefits of studying behavior, different origins of organizational behavior from
the different philosophers and ethics.

Learning Outcome

 Understand and explain the history of Organizations Behavior

 Discuss and explain the role of OB to Organizational Performance
 Appreciate the meaning of human behavior in Organization

a. What is Human Behavior

b. The Benefits of Studying Organizational Behavior (OB)
c. A Brief History of Organizational Behavior (Ob)
d. Ethics and Organizational Behavior

A. What is Human Behavior?

Human behavior refers to the physical action of a person that can be seen or heard such
as smiling or whistling. With his thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sentiments, the person
exhibits behaviors similar or different when he is in or out of organizations. Human behavior in
organization is more appropriately referred to as organizational behavior (OB)
What is Organizational Behavior?
Organizational behavior or OB may be defined as the study of human behavior in
organization, of the interaction between individuals and the organization, and of the organization
itself.

The Goals of OB
The 3 goals of OB are as follows:
1. To explain the behavior
2. To predict the behavior
3. To control the behavior
 In explaining the behavior as a goal, OB needs to systematically describe how people
behave under a variety of conditions, and understand why people behave as they do.
OB must be used to predict behavior so support can be provided to produce and dedicated
employee, and measures could be instituted to control the disruptive and less productive ones.
OB can offer some means for measurement to control the behavior of employees. As a
control is an important compo0nent of effective performance, the usefulness of OB must be
overlooked.

The elements of OB
1. People
2. Structure
3. Technology
4. Environment

The internal social system of the organization is composed people consisting of

individual, persons or groups. The individual person is inducted as a member of formal group,
but soon, he or she may become a member of an informal group.

The structures define the formal relationship of people in the organization. It describes
how job tasks are formally divided, grouped and coordinated.

Technology refers to the combination of resources, knowledge and techniques which

people work and affect the task that they perform. It consist of building, machines, work
processes, and assembled resources.

Environment refers to the institution or forces outside the organization that potentially
affect the organizations performance.it includes suppliers, customers, competitors, government
regulatory agencies, public pressure group and the like.

B. The benefits of studying organizational behavior (OB)

The study of OB offers certain benefits. They are as follows:
1. Development of people skills
2. Personal growth
3. Enhancement of organizational and individual effectiveness
4. Sharpening and refinement of common sense

Development of people skills

There are two types skills that person will need to succeed in his chosen career:
1. The skill in doing his work
2. The skill in relating with people

` A person who is much adept in the performance of his work may be successful up to
certain extent, but he will require another skill to make other people believe that he should be
more successful than his current achievement.
An example is the dentist who is well trained in his discipline but is avoided by many
would-be patients. It is not surprising to see a number of dentists with insufficient number of
patients. Many of these dentists would benefits from acquiring people skills through the study of
OB.

Personal Growth
 Personal growth makes a person highly competitive in the workplace. The chance to
achieve personal growth is enhanced by the knowledge of OB. For instance, knowledge of the
behavior of others through the study of OB will help the person understand his own behavior. A
person who strives to know himself better is entering the realm of intrapersonal intelligence,
which is very useful type of intelligence for one who wants to achieve his personal goals.

Enhancement of Organizational and Individual effectiveness

Effectiveness is a major attribute of successful organizations, as well as individuals.
When the right decisions are made, effectiveness follows. In decision making, knowledge of OB
can be very useful.
For instance, there are persons perform better when they work in the afternoons. It
would be a mistake to make them work in the morning and expect that they will perform better.
Such errors could be avoided if the one authorized to decide on work assignments have
knowledge of OB.

Sharpening and Refinement of Common Sense

People differ in the degree of common sense they possess. Improvements in this type of
ability, however, can still be made and great benefits can be derived if this done.
For instance, common sense dictates that persons working in hot and humid places
cannot perform well. Common sense, however, cannot easily provide information on the exact
temperature that will make them work at optimum levels. In those types of concerns, knowledge
of OB may be very useful.

C. A Brief History of Organizational Behavior (OB)

History tells us that behind every major accomplishments of a man are some sort of
organization. Thousands of years ago, the pyramids of Egypt and the temples in Central and
South America were built by workers recruited from among the populace. Whether or not there
were attempts to make these types of workers perform better can be the subject of inquiry.
What we see in the movies id the whip, which as we understand was designed to make the
workers do their assigned tasks.

It is modern history, however, that provides us with records of how concerned scientists
and experts made studies which have direct or indirect bearing to OB.

The origins of OB can be traced to the following:

1. The human relations approach

a. The scientific management approach by Frederick W. Taylor
b. The human relations approach by Elton Mayo and others
2. The personality theories
a. Freud’s Model
b. The behaviorist approach by Watson and Skinner
c. The humanist approach by Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, and Abraham
Maslow.
d.
Frederick W. Taylor was the well-known disciple of the scientific management
movement. The primary purpose of scientific management was the application of scientific
methods to increase the individual worker’s productivity. Taylor used scientific analysis and
experiments to increase worker’s output. He did it by regarding individuals as equivalents of
machine parts and assigned them specific tasks.
 Elton Mayo and his research team conducted the Hawthorne studies in 1920, to
determine what effect hours or work. Periods of rests and lighting might have on worker fatigue
and productivity. It was discovered that the social environment have an equivalent if not greater
effect on productivity than the physical environment. Mayo concluded that social interaction is a
factor for increased productivity.

Another group of researchers espoused the personality theories and made significant
contributions to the development of OB.

A great contributor is the psychologist Sigmund Freud who brought the idea that people
are motivated by far more than conscious logical reasoning. Freud believed that irrational
motives make up the hidden subconscious mind, which determines the major part of people’s
behavior.

Through an approach called behaviorism, another eminent psychologists, J.B Watson,

formulated the theory about learned behavior. This theory indicates that the person can be
trained to behave according to the wish of the trainer.

B.F Skinner extended Watson’s theory with his own theory of behavior modification.
Skinner concluded that when people receive a positive stimulus like money or praise for what
they have done, they will tend to repeat their behavior. When they are ignored and receive no
response to the action, they will not be inclined to repeat it.

The humanist movement is another important aspect in the development of OB. It is

composed of a group of psychologists and three prominent contributors – Carl Rogers, Fritz
Perls, and Abraham Maslow.
Rogers focused on the person as an individual instead of adhering to a rigid
methodology. He believes that people should acquire their own values and attitudes rather than
be committed to a fixed set of prescribed goals. The more self- directed and aware people are,
the better they are able to develop their own individual values and adapt to a changing
environment.

Fritz Perls’ contributions is the Gestalt psychology wherein the person is seen as being
plagued by numerous split, or conflicting desires and needs, which dissipate energy and
interfere with that person’s ability to achieved his potential. The object of Gestalt psychology is
to integrate conflicting needs into an organized whole, in which all parts of a person work
together towards growth and development.

For his part, Abraham Maslow forwarded his model which spouses the idea of
developing the personality toward the ultimate achievement of human potential. This process is
referred to as self- actualization. To achieve this objective, the person msut work his way up the
succeeding steps of a hierarchy of needs.

D. Ethics and Organizational Behavior

May an organizational use whatever means, fair or foul, to achieve its objectives? Is it
alright for a firm to ask its employee to obtain confidential information through espionage
regarding the operations of a competitor? Is it right for a business firm to adapt a policy of hiring
only those who are members of a certain religious sect? is it right for organizations to allow
executives to play favorites in the workplace? These and similar behaviors in the organization
happen every now and then. Should the propriety of such behaviors be the concerns of
organizations?

If allowing such actions become the norm rather than the exception, would it be to the
best interests of everyone especially employers and employees? Answers to the foregoing
questions permeate a body of principles that modern man tries to consider in the pursuit of their
goals.

Philosophers maintain the view that a society that has low regard for morals will
disintegrate after a period of time. To avoid chaos and destruction, and to make life in society
possible, adherence to the practice of moral principles regulating human relations become
necessary.

The above concerns bring us to the topic of organizational ethics.

What is Ethics?

Ethics refers to the set of moral choices a person makes based on what he or she ought
to do.

Organizational Ethics. These are moral principles that define right or wrong behavior in
organizations.
Ethical Behavior. This refers to a behavior that is accepted as morality “good” and
“right” as opposed to “bad” and “wrong”.
What constitutes right and wrong behavior in organization is determined by:
1. The public
2. Interest groups
3. Organizations
4. the individual’s personal moral and values

Ethical Issues
There are important ethical issues that confront organizations.
They consist of the following:

1. conflict of interest
2. fairness and honesty
3. communication
4. relationships within the organization

A conflict of interest exists when a person is in the position of having to decide whether
to advance the interests of the organizations or to operate in his or her own personal interests.
For instance, the purchasing officer of a university is in the situation where there is conflict of
interest when he owns the shop that sells office supplies to the university.

In organizations which practices ethical behavior, people do not accept bribes to

influence the outcome of a decision.

People in organizations are expected to be fair and honest. Ethical behavior demands
that, beyond obeying the law, they should not knowingly harm customers, clients, and
competitors through deception, coercion or misrepresentation. For example, a certain agency of
the government would not normally release documents unless a certain amount of money is
handed down to the releasing clerk.

People can become victims of organizations that provide false and misleading
information about their products and services. For instance, a recruitment firm makes it appear
that the employment conditions they describe to the job applicants would be identical to what
the foreign employer would offer. This practice is, of course highly unethical.

Within the organizations, people may still be performing unethical acts. For example,
employee A developed an idea that will very useful to the organization. Employee B steals the
idea and represents it to the top executive before employee A could represent it himself. This
action is highly unethical and it is to the detriment of the organization if such actions are allowed
to flourish.

Summary

 People exhibit certain behavior in and out of organization. The realization of individual,
group, or organizational goals will depend on the human factor, specifically human
behavior.
 The goals of OB are to explain, predict, and control behavior.
 The elements of OB are: people, structure, technology and environment
 The benefits of studying OB are: (1) The development of people skills; (2) personal
growth (3) Enhancement of organizational and individual effectiveness and (4)
sharpening and refinement of common sense.
 OB is not an instant invention of man. Instead, it is a product of several stages of inquiry
into how people behave and how they can be managed to be more productive.
Personalities, great and small, contributed to the development of OB. Taylor, Mayo,
Freud, Maslow, are only some of the more prominent names in the field of OB. The
development of OB has not stopped, however, and the process is still ongoing.
 If the organization is expected to survive, its action must be in consonance with ethical
behavior.

Additional readings:

a. Pavlov, skinner Watson: Behaviorism theory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVaTy8mQrg,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLaa8cgljKk

b. Frederick Taylor and Scientific Management:

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_Taylor.htm#:~:text=Taylor's%20philo
sophy%20focused%20on%20the,simplifying%20jobs%2C%20productivity%20would%2
0increase.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/progress/text3/taylor.pdf
c. Sigmund Freud
https://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-theories.html

d. Abraham Maslow- https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

e. J.B. Watson- https://www.slideshare.net/chandasah1/behaviorism-john-b-watson

f. B.F. Skinner Rewards And Punishment Theory Link :

https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

Online (synchronous)

Google classroom

Facebook group

Messenger

Zoom

Google meet

Remote (asynchronous)

Module

Exercises
 REFERENCES

Internet Sources:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvVaTy8mQrg,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLaa8cgljKk
 https://www.slideshare.net/chandasah1/behaviorism-john-b-watson
 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760

Prepared by:

MA, THERESA R. RESPICIO

Instructor I