Organisational Behaviour

Week 1- 27/02/2008

Slides available at:http://202.205.89.79/download/

Lecture plan
Structure Issues

of the course

to explore in the course overview

Historical

Structure of the course

20-Week

long Office hours: Monday 3:30-4:30 in my office room Assessment:

Class

attendance/Participation Mid-Term Exam Coursework Final Exam

10% 20% 30% 40%

Any question?

SOME RECOMMENDED SOURCES

Organization Studies Organizational Science Organization Behaviour Human Relations Harvard Business Review Introduction to Organizational behaviour Research in Organizational Behavior Economists, Financial times (Most of them are available at http://202.112.175.35:8081/journal/index.jsp)

Issues to explore in the course

Organizational behaviour (OB)
the study of human behaviour in organizational contexts with a focus on individual and group processes and actions (pp.2)

Issues to explore in the course

Hong Kong stock exchange, 1994

Issues to explore in the course

An entitative approach [to organisations] fails to represent what it means to be human, misrepresents the qualities of the relational processes and, more generally, grossly distorts the relationships between person and organisation
(Hoskings and Morley 1991:IX)

Issues to explore in the course The relationship between a person and a context involves accommodation (changing oneself) and assimilation (changing the context) people are both products of their contexts and participants in the shaping of those contexts. (Hoskings and Morley, 1991:5)
Any Question?

Historical overview
The notion of an organisation as an imperative, absolute entity, is the direct outcome of historical transformations occurred in Europe and North America from the end of the 18th century onwards:

Before the 19th Century:

Experience of Artisan work (e.g. Ironsmith)

Technical skills, personal competence and craft pride constitutive of the working process.

Industrial revolution in the 19th Century

Close relationship between the subject of work and his/her activity was lost

Historical overview
Early 20th Century: Classical approach Advent of scientific management (F.W. Taylor) Aim: controlling labour through science Far-reaching process of establishing control and surveillance: to discipline the mind and body of the productive subject was the central concern. Deconstruction of the task from within Rigid control over time and body movements Conception and execution as separate domains in hierarchical relationships Technology for social control

Historical overview

Historical overview
Hawthorne Studies and the Human Relations Movement (Elton Mayo, 1923-1933)

Hawthorne studies: environment and productivity? Results: organizations are social systems, not just technical economical systems Groups, teamwork, different job roles, human relations are of great significance in organizations We are motivated by many needs Leadership should be modified to include concepts of human relations
A new discipline of human behaviour and, by extension, Organisational behaviour. (1960s)

Historical overview
Systems Rationalist approach
Modern Approach
Organisation (open system view) inputs

Transformation process

outputs

1. 2. 3.

The organization seen as an open socio-technical system. The existence of subsystems which interact with one another. Management is a distinct subsystem which is responsible for direction and coordination of all other subsystems.

Historical overview
Symbolic-Interpretative perspective

Andreas Gurskys The factory

Peoples subjectivity in relation to organisational processes. Political and cultural nature of social relations. Social construction of organisational reality, co-creation of the phenomenon you are seeking to study.

To explore in the course

BY INTRODUCING DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF PEOPLE AND ORGANISATIONS, WE HOPE:

TO STIMULATE YOUR SEARCH FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE, CREATIVITY AND SKILLS AS ORGANISATIONAL PRACTITIONERS