Organizational Behaviour - the Homeless

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HOW CAN WE PUT ORGANIZATIONS BACK INTO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR?

The central theme of this chapter is that our understanding of organizational behavior can be enhanced by devoting greater attention to the links between individuals and groups and their organizational contexts.

Methodological Implications

In short, organizational behavior is often studied without going near the organization and without talking to any of its members. It is no coincidence that some of the most influential studies in recent years have been those in which investigators have become immersed in the phenomena they wish to investigate. In contrast to typical mainstream organizational behavior research, these studies are characterized by comprehensive analysis of archival data, actual participation in the organizations being studied, and ongoing, extensive interaction perceiver or about the object of the perception. There is mounting evidence that the characteristics of individuals influence both individual reactions to environments and how environments are construed. Lee et al and Nelson & Sutton found that the characteristics individuals brought to an organization influenced their perception of key contextual features.

Disciplinary Influences

Pfeffer summarizes specific ways in which sociological perspectives emphasizing that organizations are relational entities can contribute to the study of micro organizational behavior. Sociological perspectives also may offer new insights into how the context shapes stress and emotion, two areas that have been studied extensively by organizational researchers. Sociological perspectives on emotion incorporate the social context in two ways typically not considered by organizational researchers working within a psychological perspective. First, a sociological perspective emphasizes that the emotions expressed by people are often socially constructed, reflecting cultural or organizational norms. Hochschild adopted this perspective, recognizing that organization member’s expressed emotions are not always a reflection of their feelings. Second, while the psychological perspective emphasizes that emotions such as sympathy, love, jealousy, gratitude, and anger reside as states within people, sociologists are more likely to argue that such emotions stem from and are properties of social relationships between people.

Reconceptualizing the Context

Our dimensions of opportunity versus constraint, proximity versus distance, and similarity versus dissimilarity do not constitute a complete or integrated theory of the organizational context. Moreover, the dimensions proposed here may help organizational theorists understand how more traditional macro variables influence individual behavior. As research progressed, theories have been proposed to explain organizational behavior, and methods have been developed that permit increasingly rigorous investigations. Our review of the current literature, however, suggests that the focus of research and writing in our field is increasingly on theory and method, and less on the stuff of organizational life. It may also move the field in useful directions that will counter the common criticism that much organizational behavior research is irrelevant to the wellbeing of organizations and their members