United States Public Administration: Management of Public Organizations

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Organizational behavior is defined in the public sector as:

-          Way of thinking and acting that is of critical importance to workers in public organizations

-          Study of individual and group behavior in organizations

-          Work at

o   Group level

o   Organizational level

o   System level

 

THE ROOTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Early Approaches:

-          Controlling and manipulating workers to maximize productivity

-          Workers viewed as extensions of their tools

-          Employee motivation based on rewards or punishments only

Assumption about workers:

-          Found work to be unpleasant

-          Would do what they were told

Frederick Taylor (1911):

-          Father of scientific management

-          Represented traditional perspectives on human behavior

Frederick Taylor’s Views on Scientific Management:

-          Believed workers would perform as expected by paying them a “piece rate”

-          Design of work and production: responsibility of management

-          Employing scientific approaches that both employers and employees would benefit from

Piece rate: A set amount of money for each task performed or product produced

Taylor’s overall purpose was to make people, whom he assumed to be naturally lazy and stupid, more productive.

Taylor’s quotes on workforce behavior:

(1911) “It is possible to train an intelligent gorilla to do his job.”

(1912/1997) “It is obvious and necessary to recognize the utter impossibility of winning . . . unless every man on the team obeys the signals or orders of the coach and obeys them at once when the coach gives those orders.”

Hugo Munsterberg (1913):

-          Urged greater attention to the psychology of workers

Mary Parker Follett:

-          Argued that administration must be grounded in motivating the individual and the group

The Hawthorne Study Findings:

-          Hawthorne effect

-          Human relationships influenced the behavior of workers.

-          Contradictory to assumptions of Taylor and his contemporaries

Hawthorne effect: People change their behavior when they know they are being observed.

Chester Barnard (1948):

-          Defined formal organization

-          Crucial function of manager: to build cooperation

Herbert Simon

-          Approached behavior based on rational decision-making and rewards

Kurt Lewin and Margaret Mead:

-          Championed including workers on problem-solving and decision-making teams

Kurt Lewin and Douglas McGregor:

Started the Research Center for Group Dynamics in 1946

Douglas McGregor in The Human Side of the Enterprise (1960):

-          Theory X and Theory Y

Theory X: Based on assumptions of people as lazy, uninvolved, and motivated solely by money.

Theory Y: Emphasizes the inherent worth of individuals in organizations.

Abraham Maslow (1962):

-          Hierarchy of needs

Victor Vroom (1964) and Edward Lawler (1973):

-          Understanding of work motivation

Rensis Likert (1961) in New Patterns of Management:

-          Organizations: series of interlocking groups

-          Manager: “Linking pin”

Chris Argyris (1964):

-          Individual’s personal development in the context of the organization

-          Organizational effectiveness proportional to interpersonal competence of team members

Inputs From Various Disciplines:

-          German sociologist Max Weber (1947):

o   Laid out the principles that govern hierarchical organizations

-          Sociologist Amatai Etzioni (1988)

o   Contributed to the study of group decision-making

-          James Macgregor Burns (1978)

o   Notion of transformational leadership

MORE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Peter Drucker (1909-2005): Father of Modern Management

-          Argued limitations of traditional command-and-control models of organization

-          Viewed workers as assets to the organization

-          Introduced the concept of “knowledge workers”

-          Extended the understanding of management as a discipline and profession

Margaret Wheatley (2006)

-          Encouraged resilience, adaptation, and creativity in times of uncertainty

Peter Senge (1990/2006)

-          Led the exploration of learning organizations

Edgar Schein (1985/2017)

-          Established the importance of organizational culture

Tom Peters and Robert Waterman (1982/2006) and Jim Collins (2001, 2011)

-          Established the role of executives in all sectors striving for excellence

Contribution of Psychology

-          Behavioral psychology

o   Emphasizes learning and behavior change

-          Social psychology

o   Group behavior

o   “Sensemaking” in organizations

o   Resilience, uncertainty and change, power, and leadership

Contemporary Approaches

-          Positive organizational behavior: Fred Luthans (2002)

o   Emphasized positive organizational behavior

o   Proposed that confidence, hope, and resiliency should be incorporated

Contemporary Approaches

-          Brain science: Neuroscience

o   Developments in the way the brain affects behavior

o   Brain: highly flexible and adaptable, making lifelong learning possible

o   Connections between cognition, emotion, and behavior

o    Influence of behavior on leadership, decision-making, and group process

Extrinsic motivation : refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. This type of motivation arises from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual.

Amabile (1999) suggested that an individual’s intrinsic or inner motivations are essential to creativity. She argued that extrinsic motivations (those coming from outside a person), such as money, are much less effective: “Money doesn’t necessarily stop people from being creative, but in many situations, it doesn’t help” (Denhardt, Robert B.. Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (p. 75).)

Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to work on something because a person wants to—because it is exciting, satisfying, involving, challenging, and personally interesting. A key factor in this regard is choice. Research has shown that if a person chooses to do something just because he or she wants to, then that person will approach the task more creatively than if given external incentives or rewards. (Denhardt, Robert B.. Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (p. 76). 

Public and nonprofit workers may have an advantage in this regard, due to an intrinsic public service motivation (discussed and explored in detail in Chapter 6). Many people in the public and nonprofit sectors are driven by public service motivation, and recent research shows that this drive to serve the public, do meaningful work, and make an impact positively influences innovative behavior in the workplace (Miao, Newman, Schwarz, & Cooper, 2017). (Denhardt, Robert B.. Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations (p. 76). 

Being able to contribute to the mission may be more important to public and nonprofit employees than extrinsic rewards. This suggests that managers “should take care to assign performance expectations in ways that not only clearly explain what employees should do and how they should do it but also why they should do it” (Wright, p. 60).