Behavior and communication in Organizations - HC1 - 08-02-2023
Wolves: Synonym for behavior and people in organizations:
- They work in groups.
- They work together.
- There is a hierarchy.
- They communicate verbally and non verbally.
What is an organization?
- A system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons
Four common characteristics of an organization
● Coordination of effort -> There has to be a coordinated effort:
○ Achieved by: policies, rules, regulations
● Common goal
● Division of labour
○ Individuals perform separate but related tasks to achieve the common goal
○ Individuals have different tasks
● Hierarchy of authority
○ Chain of command dedicated to make sure that the right people to the right
things at the right time (often reflected in organizational chart)
○ Clear chain of command
○ Right people do the right thing at the right time
Example of an organizational chart:
→Hierarchy
Organizational Behavior
- An interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding and managing people at work.
● Interdisciplinary? Yes, using knowledge of different disciplines. But the field of research
is not so much.
, - Knowledge from different disciplines, organization sciences and communication
science
- But, not so much coordinated
- Multidisciplinary?
History of organizational behavior
1. Scientific management
● 1880-1930
● Creating standards established by facts or truths gained through systematic
observation, experiment, or reasoning to improve organizational efficiency
○ Taylorism, Taylor
● Use systematic observation;
● Reduce tasks to basic elements;
● Reducing the number of motions for individual workers.
● Negative connotations
○ Associated with mass production, assembly line, negative perception of
workers.
○ McGregor’s Theory X (Human Relations Movement)
● Ground-breaking
○ Scientific selection and training of people
○ Scientific job redesign based on time-motion research.
2. Human Relations Movement
- 1930-1970
- Workers were threatened more like humans, they appreciated people more.
- From a negative to a positive set of assumptions about people -> McGregor’s
Theory X vs Y.
- More focussed on the worker instead of the tasks.
3. Quality Movement
- 1980s
- Organization dedicated to training, improvement and customer satisfaction
- More attention, focus to the customers
- Deliver the best quality and satisfy our customers
- Total Quality Management (TQM)
4. The internet and social media movement
● 1990s
● Many changes.
● Virtual organizations; Organizations where people work (partly) independent of
location, supported by ICT.
● People wanted a little bit more freedom, responsibility and flexibility.
● Working from home, organizations without an office, ‘New World of Working’.
Organizations are looking and searching for a balance. They want to give freedom to their
workers, but not too much.
,Diversity
-> Diverse working enviornments
- The positive and negative effects of diverse working environments.
- Diversity at work → Usually refers to demographic differences between group members
Demographical characteristics: ‘Differences in background’
- Gender - Nationality
- Ethnicity - Education, expertise
- Religion - Social status
Definition: Diversity represents the multitude of individual differences and similarities that
exist among people.
Based on four layers:
- Personality
● Internal (surface-level) dimension: We cannot control, but
we use to chatecorisize immediately.
○ The things that we use to divide people into sub
groups
○ Stereotyping
○ If we talk about diversity, we talk about the green
layers of the circle (the internal dimensions)
- External (secondary) dimensions: We can control
- Not all actually; for example your income
- Organizational dimensions: Places you work
Why should we strive for diversity?
- Business case: Diversity is the smart thing to do.
- Provit; it can lead to better performance, productivity and creativity.
- Moral case: Diversity is the right thing to do.
- You don’t have to profit from it; people should have equal opportunities.
- Equal opportunities for all individuals.
Diversity is a mixed blessing for an organization, for teams;
● Positive effects
○ Higher performance;
○ More creativity;
○ More flexibility;
➔ Different perspectives, backgrounds and approaches.
● Negative effects
○ Less satisfaction, commitment;
○ Less trust;
○ More conflicts
➔ Categorization processes
, Information / decision making theory: Diversity leads to better task-relevant processes and
decision making, because diverse groups …
- Are better at early stages of problem solving by using their diverse backgrounds to
generate a more comprehensive view of a problem;
- Uncover more alternatives during problem-solving activities;
- Enhance the number of contacts they have available which provides access to (new)
information and expertise.
Social categorization theory:
- Diversity leads to categorizing the self and other into groups, resulting in negative
outcomes for groups
- Similarities and differences creates ingroup (‘us’) vs. outgroup (‘them’)
- Liking of ingroup members, ingroup favoritism
- Disliking of outgroup members, outgroup derogation
- Conflict between ingroup and outgroup
➔ Leads to conflicts into groups
➔ Evidence from the minimal group paradigm
➔ Negative effects of diversity
Minimal group paradigm:
- Groups are formed based on a arbitrary criterium; preference for painters
- Group members then divide outcomes among ingroup vs outgroup members
A process model of diversity
The negative effects of diversity are stronger when ‘fault lines’ are
more salient
- Categorization processes become more likely
- Fault lines: Hypothetical dividing line that splits groups
into demographically based subgroups
Can you benefit from diversity with categorization processes?
Categorization processes: 3 levels
1. Superordinate / inclusive level: It depends on the context, how big this group really is
2. Subordinate / low level: more diversity: national vs international, b&o vs
communication science. It depends on what you find important.
3. Individuals: no groups, individuals are just individuals.
a. You start as an individual, and slowly slide into the subgroups or
superordinate.
- How you can think of the categorization process; it is really contextual
- In different contexts, it is never the same. It depends on the context what the
subordinate level is.
- Het is niet heel strikt, het gaat rustig over in elkaar.
