Organizational Behavior Terminology and Concepts Paper, Research Paper Example

Any organization functions according to a set of inner laws and principles that help it correspond to the needs of employees, customers and stakeholders and remain profitable. An organization structure requires keeping to these norms and taking the specific phenomena into consideration in order for the company to exist, so they have to be thoroughly considered. The concepts seeking particular attention are organizational culture and behavior, diversity, communication, business ethics and change management – they will be analyzed in the present paper.

Starting with the first concept it becomes necessary to define organizational culture. According to the opinion of Robbins and Judge (2008), it is hard to give a concise definition to this term as it is descriptive and acts as a substitute for formalization of an organization. The culture dominant in an organization expresses the core values of the company that are shared by the majority of its members. Subcultures may also be evident in an organization and they typically represent an alternative cultural profile of a company that allows diversity of cultures within its borders (Robbins & Judge, 2008).

The next concept is organizational behavior – it is: “a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness” (Robbins & Judge, 2008).

Thus, it is important to note that organizational behavior is a scientific sphere that accumulates and generates knowledge about the organization for its further implementation to improve the work within it. Researchers in the organizational sphere have to pay much attention to this field as it proves to be the key aspect for the company’s operations flow and continuous improvement.

Diversity is one of the challenges faced by a manager implementing the cultural values and shaping the cultural profile of an organization. Managing diversity is extremely important in the context of internationalization of business and creating conditions under which representatives of different races, colors of skin, religions and beliefs have to cooperate closely and accomplish joint tasks. As a response to the employee needs a progressive organization has to adopt a series of methods for them to combine their work and personal life as well as training course to encourage cross-cultural communication and reduce the negative impact of stereotypes (Robbins & Judge, 2008).

Another concept for consideration is communication – plainly speaking, it is the process of information exchange under regular working conditions (Robbins & Judge, 2008). However, it acquires crucial importance at times when the communication channels are not working well, which can hinder the working process of the whole organization. For this reason managers have to keep an eye open for possible challenges for information exchange and take care of its proper flow, forming adequate conditions for communication.

Business ethics is a rather ambiguous term that has many implications in the sphere of management. In general, it is set of ethical and moral standards with which a company has to comply in order to remain at the world market (Malachowski, 2001). Business ethics should also be taken into account when making business decisions. Ethics and morality have recently become essentially important in the formation of the company profile and creating positive reputation in the eyes of customers, employees and stakeholders, which is why its regulations are gradually becoming a must for every business action.

Finally, change management is one of the major managerial challenges because of the common tendency of employees to resist change, the necessity to create a new culture and to choose a model for change (Robbins & Judge, 2008). One of the most popular models for change is Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model (unfreezing-movement-refreezing) that proved to be highly successful for many years. However, there are other approaches to change as, for instance, Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan (Robbins & Judge, 2008).

References

Malachowski, A.R. (2001). Business ethics: critical perspectives on business and management. Taylor & Francis

Robbins, S.P., & Judge, T.A. (2008). Organizational Behavior. 13^th Ed. Prentice Hall