Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior

You would assume that it would be hard to talk about organizations, their behavior, culture, diversity and other terms associated with business if we were talking only about one business or organization that we have personal experience with, but in actuality it is easy to understand the organization of any business just by observation alone.

Organizational Behavior is Noticeable

No matter what organization you go to in the world today if you spend a little time watching the actions and behaviors of the workers within you can have a clear understanding of their values and mission. Using a boutique as a model, let's say that the store is messy, with unfolded clothes and the store sullen clerks just standing around. The minute they see the boss coming they start racing to straighten up the mess and help any shoppers in the store. Now lets say that next store is another boutique and everyone is straightening up, paying attention to the shoppers and smiling. Right away you can tell that the employees take pride in their work, the store and the appearance that they present to others. It is a very supportive environment of organizational behavior. The first store there is no self-sufficiency, no pride and if the mission of the boutique is to provide customer satisfaction it is not supported by the staff.

Organizational Culture is Diverse

The general definition of organizational culture is the values and norms associated with a business and its employees. But, according to an article published by Carter McNamara (2000), there are four different types of organizational culture, usually within different organizations. There are Academic culture, where the work environment is stable, the employees are highly trained, move up the ladder and tend to stay in the organization. They tend to work for hospitals, universities and large corporations. The next grouping is the baseball culture, where the employees are highly skilled and tend to move from business to business-such as investment firms or advertising. Then there is the club culture where employees move up the ladder and recruiting is done from within, such as the military and some law firms. The last type of culture is the fortress culture, where employees are never sure of their standing within the corporation, such as in the car industry and savings and loan. Currently I am in the academic culture where it is a steady job with skilled employees, but the current economic times can change a culture suddenly depending on the greater needs of the business. Visually, you can see this whenever you go to a business and the values change as often as the employees.

Diversity

Diversity is the easiest to see, but can be the hardest to hear. What is meant is that we can see diversity by the different types of people within an organization, such as color, ethnic origin, handicapped or male and female, but it also pertains to diversity in thoughts. Would anyone want to work for an organization where there are no different ideas on how to do something or make something work better? It is hard because it takes time to listen to what everyone has to say and then you must decipher what they are saying.

Communication

In communication there are both verbal and visual clues to what is being said. As any child can tell,